. 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