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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 certai