The Nevada County picayune., 1907-09-19

the opera, now weeks went by without our seeing him at our house. In the office it used to be a saying that out. side gong-strikes, Bob Brownley did not know he was in the stock business. Formerly every clerk knew when Bob came or went, for it was with a rush, a shout, laugh, and hang of doors; and on the floor of the stock exchange no man played so many pranks, or filled his orders with so much jolly good-nature and hilarious boisterous. ness. But from the day the Virginan girl crossed his path Bob Brownley was a man who was thinking, think ing, thinking all the time. 1t was only with an effort that he would keep his eyes on whenever he was talking with long enough to take in what was said and if the saying occupied much time it would be apparent to the talker that Bob was off in the clouds. All his friends and associates remarked the change, but l alone, except perhaps Kate, had any idea of the cause. knew that two million dollars and the coming New Year were hurdling like kangaroos over Bobs mental rails and ditches, though l did not know it from anything he told me, for after that talk on the upper deck of the Tribes man he had shut up like a clam.
 He did not exactly shun me, but showed me in many ways that he had entered into a new world, in which he desired to be alone. That Beulah Sands plight had reused into intense activity all the latent romance of my friends nature, did not sur prise me. l foresaw from the first that Bob would fall head over heels in love with this beautiful, sorrow laden girl, and it was soon obvious that the longdelayed shaft had plant ed it's point in the innermost depths a fervid idolatry now had possession of his soul, mind and body. Yet it's outward manifestations were the op- posite of what one would have looked for in this gay and optimistic south. erner It was rather priest-like wor-
 
 nothing seemed to distract or upset at least in the presence of the goddess who was it's object. Every morning he would pass through my office head zd straight for the little room she oc- cupied as if it were his one objective point of the day. but once he heard his own Good morning, Miss Sands, he seemed to round to, and while in her presence was the Bob BrOWnley of old He would be in and out ali day on any and every preteXt al ways entering with an undisguised .eagerness. leaving with a slow, dreamy reluctance That he never saw her outside the office, l am sure, for she said good-nigh to him when he or she left for the day, with the same don'tcome-with-me dignity that she exhibited to all the rest of us. l had not attempted to say a word 10 Bob about his feeling for Beulah Sands. nor had he ever brought up the subject to me. On the contrary. he studiously avoided it.
 Three months of the six had now passed, and with each day l thought I noted an increasing anxiety in Bob. He had opened a special account for Miss Sands on the books of the house in his name as agent, with a credit of $60. 900. and we both watched it with painful tenseness of scrutiny. It had grown by uneven jerks, until the balance on October 1 WIS almost S400,000. On some of the trades Bob in particular where he closed up after a few days operations with nearly $200,000 profit, l did not even know what the trading was based on until the stocks had been sold. Then he said:
 Jim, that little lady from Virginia can give us a big handicap and play LIS to a standstill at our own game She told me to buy all the Burlington and Sugar her account would stand, and did not even ask my opinion In both cases 1 thought the operations were more the result of a wakeful night, and an must-dO-something de. ClSlOu lHdu any lLlNS ttSt, anu l ldCk- led both with a shiyer; but when she told me to sell them out at time I thought they looked like going high CT, and the next day they slumped, I could not help thinking about the des tiny that shapes our ends
 On my part l tried to help. On one occasion without consulting her. I put her account in on sure thing underwriting. wherein she stood 10 make profit of a quarter of mil. l lion. but when Bob told her what had done, she insisted with great dig nifty that her name be withdrawu After that neither of us dared help her to any short cuts. Bob was deep l ly impressed by her principles, and. | commenting on them said: Jim, if all Wall street had code similar to l Beulah Sands to hew to in their gam bles, ours would be a tairer and more manly game and many of the multi. | ! T | T..