The Nevada County picayune., 1907-08-29
m Harvard. My classmate and

Va, was graduated with me. He was class poet, I. yard marshal. We had been four years together at St Paul's previous to entering Harvard. No girl and lover were fonder than we of each other.
 My people had money and to spare, and with it hard-headed, northern horse sense. The Brownleys were poor as church mice, but they had the 1 brilliant, yirile blood of the old southern oligarchy and the romantic, "salaam-to-no-one' DiXie-land pride of before-thewar days, when southern prodigality and hospitality were found wherever women were fair and mems mirrors in the bottom of their julep- l glasses.
 Bobs father, one of the big, white 1 pillars of southern aristocracy, had l gone through congress and the senate l of his country to the tune of Spend and Not Spare which left his widow and three younger daughters and small son dependent upon Bob. his eldest,
 Many a warm summer afternoon, as Bob and I padded down the l Charles and often on a cold, crispy night as We sat in my shooting box on the Cape Cod shore, had we matched 1 up for our future. 1 was to have the inside run of the great banking busi- nses of Randolph & Randolph, and Bob was eventually to represent my fathers firm on the floor of the stock | exchange. I'd die in an office Bob used to say, and the floor of the stock exchange is just the chimney place to roast my hoe-cake in" So when our college days were over my able old father stood us up against the wall in his office, and tried us by his tests, and proud we both were when dad said: Jim, you and Bob have chosen well. You, Jim, are just the chap to step into my shoes, and Bob is cut to a thirty-second and sixty-fourth for the floor" Proud We were, not | so much because of what my fathers 1 decision meant for our future, for we knew we should get into the busi- ness all right, but because our judg. l ment was indorsed by one we both thought as near infallible as man could be in anything pertaining to i business affairs.
 Bob was then % and I year old. er-I one of your raw -boned New Eng land lads, not much for prettiness, but willing to weigh in raceday with any of them for steadiness and stay ing qualities: Bob as handsome as they made them. six feet tall in his gym sandals straight as an arrow. with the form of an Indian, and one of those clean. brave, all-for-heartnoth- ing for-policy smiling faces to which men yield willing friendliness, and women. idolatry. Bob's eyes were as big and round and purple-brown as an | English bulldog S. unfathomable at once mild and stern. with q childish come-and-go perpleXty; his nose as straight as though chiselcd by mas ter for a Greek medallion, with thin curved lips to correspond. and high. broad forehead, whose whteness was set off by a luXuriance of hair that seemed jet-black, but was of the same rare purple-brown as his eyes. But it was the pose of Bob's head that gave his good looks their crown. Who ever has seen a bunch of two-year-old colts in a long-grass Kentucky pad dock, when the darky boy lets loose his shrill whistle at "takiug-up time, is sure to remember one that threw up it's head and kept 1t poised to make sure 1t had caught the call. ,i,,, T ward leadership are there personifed, Some such suggestion was ever in the carriage of Bobs shapely head and vigorous figure, and dull indeed would be the man or woman who failed to recognize the mans rare distinction and masterfulness.
 Indeed, as l said a bit back Bob Brownley was by all odds one of the handsomest men l have ever seen, but besides that. he was sterling, manly unaffected fellow as true as steel, as brave as a lion and the best comrade friend ever had
 Perhaps it was because his fathers death had sadded Bob's youth with the heavy responsibilities of husband | finances that he took to business as a swallow to the air We entered the office of Randolph X Randolph on the same day, and on its anniversary, a year later. my father summoned Us into his office for a sort of tallyup talk. Neither of lis quite knew what was coming, and we thrilled with ! Bloa Surp when he said
 Jim, you and Bob have fairly out done my expectations have had my eye on both of you and I want you to know that the kind of industry and business intelligence you have shown here would have won you recognition in any banking house on the street l want you both in the firm-Jim to learn his way round so he can step into my shoes; you, Bob. to take one of the firms seats on the stock ex-