Chapter 6

If they get me it will be not for $20,000 but for $2,000,000. I propose to make the fight of my life. I wonder what Miss Harding would think if she knew I were engaged in a deal of this magnitude?

On Thursday I instructed my business agents to convert certain negotiable assets into cash, and to arrange for an extension of my credit with the banks. I now propose to follow N.O. & G. to the bottom--if there be one--and if not I shall drop with my money into the fathomless void of bankruptcy.

I called on my broker.

"I wish to get out," I said to him. "I will take my losses. This has been an expensive experience to me."

"I do not imagine, Mr. Smith," he said, "that the loss of $23,000 will seriously cripple you or disturb your serenity."

I made a gesture of despair.

"If that were all I would not give it a thought," I said. He looked at me curiously.

"I hope that you are not long on this stock to any great extent," he said.

"I should have said nothing about it," I returned, looking as distressed as possible. "Please make no inference from my remark, and keep this transaction entirely an office secret."

"It is not necessary to caution me," he quickly said.

The financial papers that evening recorded a rumour to the effect that "The son of a late well-known banker and operator is said to be heavily long on N.O. & G., and the slump in that stock during the closing hours was probably due to his frantic efforts to close out an account estimated at 20,000 shares."

I wonder where that rumour originated. This is the way secrets are kept in Wall Street.

Prior to this I had commissioned Morse & Davis, brokers in whom I have implicit confidence, to purchase 5,000 shares of the stock at or below 75. I obtained 79 for my original investment, and its sale combined with the circulation of the rumour before mentioned precipitated a flurry in N.O. & G. which sent it as low as 74 and a fraction.

Before the market closed I had my five thousand shares.

Friday morning selling orders poured in from frightened small holders, and when their demands had been satisfied the "syndicated conspirators" put the screws on just as I expected. They also circulated an alleged authorised interview with an official of the N.O. & G. forecasting the passing of the regular semi-annual dividend.

Had I not been acquainted with the plans of these quotation wreckers I should have been seriously alarmed.

When the tape recorded a sale at 70 I placed an order with Morse & Davis for 10,000 shares, and they picked it up in small lots at an average of 69. It rose slightly on Saturday, and I did nothing with it.

I have put up in margins $375,000, sufficient to protect me against a drop of twenty-five points. I stand to lose $1,975,000, and know where I can place my hands on the money. I anticipate that the stock will go much lower, and have planned accordingly. My share of my lamented father's estate is worth fully two and a half millions, and it is in such shape that I can speedily convert it into cash. If these thieves can get it they are welcome to it, but they will know that they have been in a fight.

The transition from the healthy quiet of Woodvale to the feverish furore of Wall Street was startling. At times as I stood by the ticker I could hardly persuade myself that it was not a dream, from which I should awake to stroll with Miss Harding across the brooks and green meadows we both love so well.

My prolonged absence from the links created some comment, so I am told, but no questions were asked and I volunteered no information. I have arranged matters so that it will not be necessary to spend much of my time in the city, unless something unexpected develops.

I have lost no sleep, but my golf this afternoon was disappointing.

I required eighty-nine for the round and lost seven golf balls to Chilvers and Boyd. This will never do![1]

[Footnote 1: NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--From the foregoing it appears that Mr. Smith's stock transactions up to this date have involved a net loss of about $51,000, with a probability of a continuance of the decline during the coming week. Under these circumstances it would seem that he attaches undue importance to the loss of seven golf balls, which I am informed, may be purchased at the standard price of fifty cents apiece.

Possibly this criticism may be impeached by those familiar with the ethics and peculiarities of golf, a game of which my knowledge is purely academic.]

On the table in front of me stands the finest golf trophy which ever delighted the eye of a devotee of the game. It is the bronze figure of a player whose mashie is in the position of that valuable iron club at the end of a short approach. It is the work of a French sculptor, and in design and execution it is nothing short of an inspiration. The position of the feet, body, arms, and shoulders, the expression of the face and eyes; all these details are perfect.

The figure is twenty-four inches in height and is mounted on an ebony pedestal.

Mr. Harding has given this magnificent bronze to the club, and it is in my keeping, as chairman of the Greens Committee. It will be presented to the winner of this year's championship of Woodvale by Miss Grace Harding, and I have posted an announcement of the conditions of the competition. It is open to all members, sixteen best scores to qualify, and then match play of eighteen holes, with thirty-six for the finals. The tournament starts a week from Tuesday.

Between watching Wall Street and getting in shape for this competition I am likely to have a busy week.

Mr. Harding called me into his apartments yesterday evening, displayed this gem of a bronze, and told me how he came to acquire it.

"It was the Kid's suggestion, but I endorsed it in a minute," he said, passing a box of cigars. "We were prowling around the jewelry haunts, Grace and I, seeing what she could flim-flam me into buying for her, when we ran across this thing. She thought it was great. I looked it over and saw that this bronze gentleman does not hold his club the way I do, and was in favour of letting him wait for another owner. Then she suggested that it would be a great scheme to buy it and give it to the club. I thought it over a minute and decided that it might be a good idea, and so I bought it, and here it is. Now you boys will have to scrap it out among yourselves, and may the best one win."

"This is the finest trophy ever offered to the club," I said, "and on behalf of the members I wish to thank you as donor and Miss Harding as the instigator."

"I'll create enough trouble around here to work out any indebtedness you fellows owe me for that gee-gaw," he laughed. "I've had an awful time since you have been down town, Smith. I reckon I've ploughed up as much turf as Jim Bishop did all last spring. Speaking of Bishop, did you know we're invited over to his place Monday evening?"

"I had not heard of it," I said.

"Well, we are," he said. "There's going to be great doings day after to-morrow night. Bishop's new red barn is finished, and a bunch of us are going over to dinner and then participate in the dance. Let's go down stairs and hunt up Grace and Carter and constitute the four of us a committee on arrangements and invitation. Grace talked to Bishop more than I did and she knows all about it."

We found Miss Harding, Miss Lawrence, LaHume, and Carter on the veranda, and decided to enlarge the committee to six. Miss Harding said Mr. Bishop intimated he should expect about a dozen of us.

"Well, let's see," figured Mr. Harding, and I felt in my bones he would make a mess of it. "Get out your pencil, Smith, and take us down as I give the names. There's Ma Harding and me, that's two; there's Carter and Grace makes four; LaHume and his sweetheart makes six; then there's----"

"Mr. LaHume and whom?" interrupted Miss Lawrence, her cheeks red and her eyes snapping fire. The grin on LaHume's face died out.

"Why, LaHume and----"

"You've gone far enough," laughed Miss Harding. "Let me help you out, papa. We will select the gentlemen first. Please take down this list, Mr. Smith. Suppose we name Mr. LaHume, Mr. Carter, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Chilvers, Mr. Smith, and Papa Harding. Then there's Miss Lawrence, Miss Ross, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Chilvers, Mamma, and myself. That makes twelve."

"Those were the ones I was going to name when you stopped me," declared Mr. Harding, who pretended to be much puzzled, but who knew full well what was the matter. He gave me a quiet nudge with his elbow, and then went on to say that the twelve of us would dine with the Bishops at six o'clock, and stay to the dance which would start as soon as it was dark. It ought to be great fun.

I wish I knew if Miss Harding resented the coupling of her name with Carter. I watched both of them closely, but neither gave a sign.

Chilvers tells me that Carter and Miss Harding have played several games together during the past week, and I assured him that the fact possessed not the slightest interest to me. Chilvers pretends to think it does, and seems to take much delight in harping on that subject.

As a matter of curiosity I should like to know when and where Carter first met the Hardings. Once or twice I have thrown out a hint to Carter, but he has not said a word.

Carter is a good-looking chap, and I think he knows it. The fond mammas here in the club consider him a catch. I am not exactly a pauper myself, but I may be if this N. O. & G. deal goes against me.

I wonder how it would seem to be poor? I wonder if Miss Harding would care to play golf with me if she knew I had to work for a living? I wonder what I would work at?

I dreamed last night that N.O. & G. stock went down and down until it was worth less than nothing, and that I had lost every dollar in the world and owed several millions.

It was an awful dream. I was in jail for a time, and when they let me out I did not have the car fare to get back to Woodvale. I walked all the way, and was chased by dogs. When I got here, the steward presented my bill, which amounted to several hundred dollars. I told him I could not pay it, and he marked my name off the membership list. I met Carter and several others and they would not speak to me. I was dying from hunger, and looked longingly at the remnants of a steak left by Chilvers, but one of the servants told me to move on.

Then the scene changed, as things move in dreams, and I was at work on Bishop's farm. I was cutting and shocking corn, and the boss of the hired help swore because I was so slow. My hands were bleeding from scratches where the sharp edges of the bayonet-like blades had cut them, and I was so hungry and tired that I was ready to lie down and die. My wages were fifteen dollars a month, and every cent of it had been levied against by my Wall Street creditors. Not until I was seventy years old would any of the money I earned be coming to me. The other hired men looked on me as a weakling, and laughed at the torn golf suit in which I was clothed.

I was happy when I awoke and realised it was only a nightmare.

I raised the curtain so as to let in the cool air. The links were bathed in a flood of moonlight. Half a mile away were Bishop's cornfields in which the dreamland fiends had tortured me. It was not yet midnight, and down the lane I made out the forms of Chilvers, Marshall, Lawson, and other nighthawks. Chilvers was singing, the others coming in the chorus of the last line, drawing it out to the full length and strength of a parody of the old negro song:

"Where, oh where are the long, long drivers? Where, oh where are the long, long drivers?; Where, oh where are the long, long drivers? 'Way down yander in the corn field."

ENTRY NO. X

THE TWO GLADIATORS

There was little doing in N.O. & G. stock on Monday or Tuesday. It dropped off a point and then recovered. I told my brokers to pick up 10,000 shares at or below 65. I am confident it will strike that figure before the end of the week.

It was nearly five o'clock before we started up the lane toward Bishop's. We were delayed half an hour waiting for Marshall, but, knowing his weakness, we fixed the time of departure half an hour sooner than necessary.

If Marshall's hope for eternal salvation depended on applying at the pearly gates at a specified time, he would spend eternity in the other place on account of being thirty minutes late. Knowing this to be his habit, we always provide against it. If the club house ever catches on fire, we shall lose Marshall, and he is a splendid good fellow.

Marshall's wife informs me it took him thirty weeks to propose after he had made up his mind to do so, and that after the wedding day was set it was necessary to postpone the ceremony thirty days in order to permit him to attend to some trifling business affairs. We call him "Thirty" Marshall, and it takes him thirty seconds to smile in appreciation of the jest. But he plays a good game of golf, with at least four deliberate practise swings before each stroke at the ball.

Chilvers wanted to have a team hitched up and ride over in the club bus. He said it tired him to walk. We vetoed that proposition, and Chilvers stopped twice to rest on the half-mile jaunt to Bishop's.

Chilvers thinks nothing of playing twice around Woodvale, a distance of not less than ten miles, but when in the city he takes a cab or a street car when compelled to go a few blocks. When there is no ball ahead of him he is the most fatigued man of my acquaintance, but he can stride over golf links from daybreak until it is so dark you cannot see the ball, and quit as fresh as when he started. There are others like Chilvers.

I walked with Mrs. Harding. I had a good chance to walk with Miss Harding, but wished to show Carter that it was a matter of indifference to me. More than that, it occurred to me it was not a bad plan to become better acquainted with Mrs. Harding.

The man who gets Mrs. Harding for a mother-in-law will be fortunate. None of the thrusts and jibes of the alleged funny men will apply to her as a mother-in-law.

One would not readily identify Mrs. Harding as the wife of a famous railway magnate. Wealth certainly has not turned her motherly head. Of course, she is a little woman. Huge men such as Harding invariably select dolls of women for helpmates. She is round, smiling, pretty, and thoughtful, and I like her immensely.

We were approaching the Bishop place. The orchard trees were covered with fruit. Some of the tomatoes showed the red of their fat cheeks through the green of their foliage. Miss Lawrence had started with LaHume, but under some pretext left him and was with Carter and Miss Harding, and I doubt if Carter was pleased with that evidence of his popularity. LaHume walked with Miss Ross and talked and laughed, but I could see he was angry.

It suddenly occurred to me that Miss Lawrence would probably meet Bishop's hired man, Wallace, and I presume LaHume was thinking of the same thing. It was apparent they had quarrelled over something.

Marshall and Chilvers were together, their wives trailing on behind, as usual. The way these two married men neglect these lovely women makes me angry every time I am out with them, but the ladies do not seem to care, and I presume it is none of my business.

Harding walked with everybody, and was happy as a lark. He threw stones at a telegraph pole, and was in ecstasy when a lucky shot shivered one of the glass insulators.

"How was that for a shot, mother?" he shouted, as the glass came flying down. "Hav'n't hit one of those since I was fourteen years old. Say, I wish I was fourteen years old now, barefooted, and sitting on the bank of that creek catching shiners."

"I wouldn't throw any more stones, Robert," Mrs. Harding said, laying her hand on his arm and looking up to his happy face. "The last time you threw stones you were lame for a week, and I had to rub you with arnica."

"But think of the fun I had," he said, and then he went back and told Marshall and Chilvers some yarn which must have been very amusing from the way they laughed.

I had been praising the beauties of the country around Woodmere, and asked Mrs. Harding how she liked the club house, and if she were enjoying her summer there.

"I would enjoy it much better," she said, "if I did not know that I should be home."

"I presume you feel that you are neglecting your social duties," I ventured.

"Social fiddlesticks," she laughed. "I should be home canning tomatoes and putting up fruit. We won't have a thing in the house fit to eat all next winter."

"But the servants," I began. "The servants----"

"If you knew as much about housekeeping as you do about golf," she said, "you would know that servants do not know how to preserve fruit. Last year I put up more than two hundred cans, and unless I can drag Mr. Harding away from here, it will be too late for everything except pears and quinces, and he does not care much for either."

Think of the wife of a multi-millionaire standing over a hot kitchen fire and preserving tomatoes, cherries, grapes, jams, jells, and all that kind of thing! I did not exactly know how to sympathise with her.

"It is nice down here," she said, after a pause, "but there's nothing to do."

"The drives are splendid," I said, "and I'm sure you would become interested in golf or tennis if you took them up."

"I mean that there's no work to do," she said. "I nearly had a row with my husband before he would let me darn his socks. He does not know it, but I keep the maid out of our rooms so that I can do the work myself. It's awful to sit around all day with nothing to do but read and do fancy work. I hate fancy work. If you have any socks which need darning, Mr. Smith, I wish you would let me have them."

We both laughed, but she was in earnest and made me promise I would turn over to her any socks which show signs of wear. I shall keep them as a memento.

That is the kind of a woman I should like for a mother-in-law.

And the more I see of Mr. Harding the better I like him. But I must record the many things which happened that afternoon and evening at Bishop's.

The fine old farmhouse is ideally located on a rising slope of ground. It is surrounded with the most beautiful grove of horse-chestnut trees in this section of the country.

The house is more than a hundred years old, and Bishop has the sense not to attempt an improvement in its exterior architecture. When a boy I spent most of my spare time in and around the Bishop house. Joe Bishop and I were chums, but when I went away to college, Joe wandered out West, and it is years since I have seen him. I have often thought that I must have been an awful source of bother to the Bishops, but they never seemed to mind it much. All of their children are grown up and married, but here the old folks are, working away as hard as when I was a child.

I suppose James Bishop is about Mr. Harding's age, somewhere between fifty and fifty-five. He in no way resembles the farmer of the cartoons. He wears a stubby moustache, and looks more the prosperous horseman than the typical farmer. He is a big man, a trifle taller than Mr. Harding, but not so broad of shoulder. Either of them would tip the beam at 230 pounds.

Bishop was at the gate waiting for us, and back of him two good-natured dogs bayed a noisy welcome.

"Come right in," he said, shaking hands with Harding. "If I'd known that you had to walk I'd hitched up a rig and come after ye. This is Mrs. Harding, I reckon," he said, grasping that lady's hand. "Glad to meet ye, Mrs. Harding! I knowed that thar husband of your'n when he wasn't bigger nor a pint of cider."

"Robert has often spoken of you, Mr. Bishop," said that lady. "How is Mrs. Bishop?"

"She's well; first-rate, thank ye. Come right in and we'll hunt her up," he said, leading the way. "I suppose she's puttering around in the kitchen."

I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Bishop through the window. She was hurriedly shedding a large calico apron, and met us as we were on the steps of the veranda. A woman trained in the conventionalities of society could not have conducted herself better than did this American wife of an American farmer, and I was proud of her as if she had been my own mother. She had the rare tact of making her guests feel perfectly at home.

Bishop had disappeared, but soon returned with an enormous glass pitcher and a tray of glasses.

"Here's some new sweet cider for the ladies," he said, pouring out a glass and handing it to Mrs. Harding. "Pressed it out this afternoon, and picked out the apples myself. Try some, Miss Harding. Here's a glass for you, Miss----, blamed if I hav'n't forgot your name already," proffering a glass to Miss Lawrence, "but we don't mind a little thing like that, do we."

"Indeed we do not," laughed Miss Lawrence.

"How about this?" demanded Chilvers. "What was that you said about cider for the ladies? My friend Marshall is dying for a drink, and my throat is as dusty as his boots. Do we walk two miles and then choke to death? We don't want to lose Marshall like this."

"You hold your horses a minute," grinned Bishop. "The ladies like sweet cider, God bless 'em, and I made this for them. If any of you fellows would like to try some real cider, the best that ever was raised in this State, come on and follow me. I reckon the ladies have seen all they want to of you for a while. Come on; I'll show you some cider that is cider."

He led us around the house until he came to a cellar door, which he threw back and we followed him. When our eyes became accustomed to the dim light we saw long rows of huge casks, mounted on frames so that the spigots were eighteen inches from the floor. The air was deliciously cool. It was permeated with the subtle odour of apple juice long confined in wood. Films of cobwebs softened the sharp lines of the cask heads and faintly gleamed between the rafters where the light struck them.

"Here's cider that is cider!" declared Bishop, proudly tapping on the heads of the great casks as he led the way into the darker recesses of the cellar. "I reckon, Bob," he said to Harding, "that it's a long time since you've had a chance to try a swig of real old Down East hard cider."

"It's been a long time, Jim," admitted Harding. "How old is this?"

"I've put in a cask every year since I took the place," he replied, "and that's more'n thirty years ago, and not a cask here but has cider in it."

"Cider thirty years old!" exclaimed Chilvers. "You mean vinegar, don't you?"

"I said cider, young man; an' when I say cider I mean cider," retorted Bishop, rather indignantly. "It is no more vinegar than brandy's vinegar, nor champagne's vinegar. Now, I don't reckon none of you, barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real hard cider. Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of ye?"

Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard cider was a beverage which had started to ferment.

Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask. It was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an authenticated Raphael.

"I don't tap this here very often," he said, "but in honour of this occasion I'll let it run a bit. This here cider is fifty years old!"

He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light to examine it. It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any tint can describe it. I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few things of which he was afraid.

We all solemnly sampled it from small glasses, which Bishop produced from some mysterious hiding place.

"There is no taste to it," declared Chilvers. "It's smooth as oil, but it has no flavour."