I'm going to golf some, you
bet.

"I'm not boring you, young friend?" he asked suddenly.

"Not a bit," I laughed. "Go on,--I am as interested as can be."

"I believe there's a kind of a lay-out they call a golf course, in one
of the outlying districts round here. What do you say to making the
day of it? You aren't busy, are you?" he added.

"No! no!--not particularly," I answered. I did not tell him that in a
few days, if I did not get busy at something or other, I should starve.

"Good!" he cried. "Go to your room and get your sticks. I'll find out
all about the course and how to get to it."

The brusk good-nature of the man hit me somehow; besides, I had not had
a game for over three weeks. Think of it--three weeks! And goodness
only knew when I should have the chance of another after this one. As
for looking for work;--work was never to be compared with golf. Surely
work could wait for one day!

"All right!--I'm game," I said, jumping up and entering into the spirit
of gaiety that lay so easily on my new acquaintance.

"Good boy!" he cried, getting up and holding out his hand. "My name's
Horsfal,--K. B. Horsfal,--lumberman, meat-packer, and the man whose
name is on every trouser-suspender worth wearing. What's yours?"

"George Bremner," I answered simply.

"All right, George, my boy,--see you in ten minutes. But, remember, I
called this tune, so I pay the piper."

That was music in my ears and I readily agreed.

"Make it twenty minutes," I suggested. "I have a short letter to
write."

I wrote my letter, gave it to the boy to deliver for me and presented
myself before my new friend right up to time.

In the half hour's run we had in the electric tram, I learned a great
deal about Mr. K. B. Horsfal.

He had migrated from the Midlands of England at the age of seventeen.
He had kicked,--or had been kicked,--about the United States for some
fifteen years, more or less up against it all the time, as he
expressively put it; when, by a lucky chance, in a poverty-stricken
endeavour to repair his broken braces, he hit upon a scheme that
revolutionised the brace business: was quick enough to see its
possibilities, patented his idea and became famous.

Not content to rest on his laurels,--or his braces,--he tackled the
lumbering industry in the West and the meat-packing industry in the
East, both with considerable success. Now he had to sit down and do
some figuring when he wished to find out