luggage.

ENTRY NO. III

MR. HARDING WINS A BET

I have met Harding, the western railroad magnate, and he is a character.
His wife is in the city, but will be out here in a few days.

Harding—I call him Mister when addressing him, since he is worth thirty millions or more, and he is old enough to be my father—Harding strolled out to the first tee early this morning and stood with his hands in his pockets watching some of the fellows drive off.

I should judge him to be a man of about fifty-five, or perhaps a year of two older. He stands more than six feet, is broad of shoulder and equally broad of waist, ruddy of complexion, clear of eye and quick of motion. He is of the breezy, independent type peculiar to those who have risen to fortune with the wonderful development of our western country, and it is difficult to realise that he is a real live magnate.

His close-cropped beard shows few gray hairs, and does not entirely hide the lines of a resolute chin. He looks like a prosperous farmer who has been forced to become familiar with metropolitan conventionalities, but whose rough edges have withstood the friction. His voice is heavy but not unpleasant, and his laugh jovial but defiant. He reminds me of no one I have seen, and I shall study him with much interest.

He was with Carter, who seemed well acquainted with him, and he greeted each drive whether it was good or bad with a sneering smile. This told me that he had never played the game, and that he had all of the outsider's contempt for it. I knew exactly what he thought, for I was once as ignorant and unappreciative as he is now.

A mutual contempt exists between those who play golf and those who do not. Those who have not played are sure they could become expert in a week, if they had so little sense as to waste time on so simple and objectless a game. Those who are familiar with the game know that no man living can ever hope to approach its possibilities, and they also know that it is the grandest sport designed since man has inhabited this globe.

I have sometimes thought that this old globe of ours is nothing more nor less than a golf ball, brambled with mountains and valleys, and scarred with ravines where the gods in their play have topped their drives. The spin around its axis causes it to slice about the sun. This strikes me as rather poetic, and when I write a golf epic I shall elaborate on this fancy.

Harding has no such conception of this whirling earth of ours. He is fully convinced that it was created for the purpose of being cross-hatched with railroads, and that it never had any real utility until he gridironed the western prairies with ten thousand miles of rust and grease. I thought of that as I watched him standing by the side of Carter, his huge hands thrust deep in his pockets, his bushy head thrown back, and a tolerant grin on his bearded lips.

I was practising putting on a green set aside for that purpose, and Carter saw me and motioned me to come to him. He introduced Harding, who shook hands and then glanced curiously at my putter.

"What do you call that?" he asked, taking it from my hand. It was an aluminum putter of my own design, and I have won many a game with it. I told him what it was.

"Looks like a brake shoe on the new-model hand-cars," he said, swinging it viciously with one hand. "How far can you knock one of those little pills with it?"

"I see that you do not play golf," I said, rather offended at his manner.

"No, there are a lot of things I do not do, and this is one of them," he replied, and then he laughed. "But let me tell you," he added, "I used to be a wonder at shinny."

I would have wagered he would make some such remark.

"Do you see that scar on the bridge of my nose?" he asked. "That came from a crack with a shinny club when I was not more than ten years old. Shinny is a great game; a great game! It requires quickness of eye and limb, and more than that it demands a high degree of courage. It teaches a boy to stand a hard knock without whimpering. Yes, sir, shinny is a great game, and all boys should play it," and he rubbed the scar on his nose tenderly.

A man who would compare golf with shinny is capable of contrasting Venice with a drainage canal, and I came near telling him so. Golf and shinny! Whist and old maid! Pink lemonade and champagne!

"No, sir, I never could see much in this golf game," said Harding, handing back my putter. "It certainly isn't much of a trick to hit one of those balls with a mallet like that. When I was your age," turning to Carter, "I could swing a maul and send a railroad spike into five inches of seasoned oak, and never miss once a week, and I'll bet that if I had to I could do it again. That was what your father used to do for a living, and if he hadn't worked up from a section boss to the presidency of a railroad you would have something else to do besides batting balls around a farm and then hunting for 'em. But I suppose you must like it or you wouldn't do it."

"I think you would find the game interesting if you took it up," suggested Carter, whose father is nearly as rich as Harding. "Smith and I will initiate you into the mysteries of the game."

"Oh, I suppose I'll have to play now that I'm here," he said, with the most exasperating complacency. "My daughter plays some, and she is as crazy about it as the rest of them. I don't see where the fascination comes in. I called the other day on a man who was once in the Cabinet. He is rich and famous, and can have anything or do anything he likes, but he spends most of his time playing golf. I went to him and attempted to induce him to represent us in a big railway lawsuit, but he said it would prevent his playing in some tournament where he expected to win five dollars' worth of plated pewter. What do you think of that? Wouldn't take the case, and there was fifty thousand in it for him! I roasted the life out of him."

"'If you would drop this fool game and pay the same amount of attention to your political fortunes,' I said to him, 'you would have a right to aspire to the Presidency of the United States.' And what do you suppose he said to me?"

I assured him that I had not the slightest idea.

"'Mr. Harding,' he said to me in perfect seriousness, when I attempted to put this presidential bee in his bonnet, 'Mr. Harding, I would rather be able to drive a golf ball two hundred and fifty feet than be President of the United States for life.' That's what he said, and I told him he was crazy, and he is so mad at me that I don't dare go near him."

"Didn't he say two hundred and fifty yards?" asked Carter, who had been listening intently. "Two hundred and fifty feet is no drive."

"Mebbe it was yards," admitted Harding, disgusted that Carter ignored the point of his story, "but let me tell you that I'd rather be President of the United States for one minute than to be able to drive one of those little pellets two hundred and fifty miles! I'll tell you what I'll do!" he exclaimed, turning fiercely on both of us. "I never tried to play this idiotic game in my life, but I'll bet the Scotch and soda for the three of us that I can drive a ball further than either of you."

"That would hardly be fair," I protested, though I was delighted at the chance to take some of the conceit out of him. I have seen many of his type before, and it is a pleasure to witness their downfall.

"Why wouldn't it be fair?" he demanded.

"Because you know nothing of the swing of a club or of the follow through," I attempted to explain.