"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 how many millions of dollars he was worth. His wife had died years ago and his only daughter was at home in Baltimore. Altogether, he was a new and delightful type to one like me,--a young man fresh from his ancestral roof in the north of staid and conventional old England. He was healthy, vigorous, and as keen as the edge of a razor. On and on he talked, telling me of himself, his work and his projects. I got to wondering if he were merely setting the proverbial sprat; but the sprat in his case proved the whale. Every moment I expected him to ask me for some confidences in return, but on this point Mr. K. B. Horsfal was silent. We discovered our golfing ground, which proved to be a fairly good, little, nine-holed country course, rough and full of natural hazards. K. B. Horsfal could play golf, that I soon found out. He entered into his game with the enthusiasm and grim determination which I imagined he displayed in everything he took a hand in. He seldom spoke, so intent was he on the proper placing of his feet and the proper adjustment of his hands and his clubs. Three times we went round that course and three times I had the pleasure of beating him by a margin. He envied me my full swing and my powerful and accurate driving; he studied me every time I approached a green and he scratched his head at some of my long putts; but, most of all, he rhapsodised on my manner of getting out of a hole. "Man,--if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to keep out of."