I have converted everything except my equity in Woodvale into money, and counting the margins in the hands of my brokers I find that I have nearly $3,000,000.  I suppose I could get out with a loss of half a million, and there are moments when my cowardice struggles against me and when I am tempted to abandon this hazardous enterprise.

I shall stick it out, however.  I know the conspiracy which has been hatched, and I do not believe they will dare force the price down much lower.  I am going to buy another block of ten thousand shares if it continues to decline, and then await developments.  If it goes to zero I shall still have a little money left, and I shall have the income from the old farm—­but I shall not have the hardihood to ask for the hand of Grace Harding.

You may talk as much as you please but money is a commanding factor in love and marriage.  It is all very well for a wealthy man to fall in love and marry a poor girl, but it is an entirely different thing for a poor man to aspire to the hand and heart of a wealthy woman.

Honestly, I don’t believe it right that women should be permitted under the law to inherit vast sums of money—­at least marriageable women.  No man of ordinary means who possesses a proper self-respect will espouse a woman whose income overshadows his own.

I would limit the inheritances of marriageable women to a maximum amount of $100,000.  I wish Miss Harding did not have a dollar.

The contest for the Harding Trophy—­I mean the bronze, and not the real Harding Trophy—­has narrowed down to four of us, Carter, Boyd, Marshall and myself.  I have a sort of a premonition that as that ‘bronze gent’ goes, so will go everything which I hold dear.  I am making the fight of my life for it.  I play Marshall to-morrow morning.

ENTRY NO.  XVIII

MR. HARDING’S STRUGGLE

I won my match with Marshall after a contest which went to the twentieth hole.  He had me dormie one coming to the eighteenth, but by perfect playing I won it in a five and halved the match.  Nothing happened on the first extra hole, but on the following I held a fifteen putt for a three and won a beautifully contested match.

Miss Harding went around with us and was my Mascot.  I broke my record for the course, making a medal score of seventy-eight.  Miss Harding congratulated me and I was so happy I could have yelled.  Dear old Marshall did not take his defeat the least to heart, but he is not playing for the stakes that I am.

I have dreamed twice that if I won the Harding Trophy I should win everything.

Carter beat Boyd handily, and the prize will go to one of us.  I must beat him; I shall beat him!

After having declared innumerable times that he would master the secrets of golf without aid from anyone, Harding finally surrendered and took his first lesson this afternoon.