side bet of the dinners for
the four of us that his individual score would be better than mine.

Miss Harding won an automobile which will cost not less than $15,000; I
won fifty-six dozen golf balls, enough to last me two years; Carter lost
a dinner which I thoroughly enjoyed, and Mr. Harding lost his temper,
but I will give him credit for finding it the moment the game was over.

He laughed as if it were the greatest joke in the world.

"You threw me down, Kid," he said to Miss Harding, "but I'll forgive
you. You get the buzz wagon and Smith gets a cartload of balls, but I'll
tell you one thing, and that is this: I'm going to learn how to hit one
of those blamed balls in the nose every time I swipe at it, even if I
have to resign the presidency of the R.G. & K. railroad."

I can see that the golf microbe has marked him for a shining victim.

ENTRY NO. IX

MR. SMITH GETS BUSY

I have had to neglect my golf and attend to business. For nearly a week
I have not seen Miss Harding. And all on account of that miserable N.O.
& G. stock.

Early in the week it dropped to more than ten points below the figure at
which I purchased it. This meant a loss of $20,000.

Tuesday morning I called on my broker and he informed me that if N.O. &
G. dropped two more points he would have to call on me for margins.
There were rumours, he said, that it would pass its next dividend, or at
least reduce it. Then I got busy.

I called on Jones, the kind friend who steered me against this
investment. Jones informed me that certain powerful banking interests
were raiding the stock. He could not identify them, and I saw that he
knew nothing about it.

"We are the lambs, Smith," he sadly said. "I'm in for a thousand shares
myself."

"They have not an ounce of my fleece yet," I declared, and turned and
left him.

I served two years on Wall Street under my father, and there was no
streak of mutton in him. It made me furious to think that I should be
made to "hold the bag" for a lot of unscrupulous tricksters.

I set about ascertaining the exact status of the business of the N.O. &
G. In my search for information I was thwarted again and again, but I do
not think it was entirely luck which led me to solve the mystery to my
personal satisfaction. I employed detectives to assist me, and in four
days had the information on which to act.

It is as neat a conspiracy as ever was hatched by financial brigands,
but I think I know every