← catalogue

Fore!

by Charles E. Van Loan · English · Gutenberg #36682 · 441,715 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fore!
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Fore!

Author: Charles E. Van Loan


        
Release date: July 9, 2011 [eBook #36682]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36682

Credits: Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORE! ***




Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









                             FORE!

                    BY CHARLES E. VAN LOAN

AUTHOR OF BUCK PARVIN AND THE MOVIES, TAKING THE COUNT, SCORE BY
INNINGS, ETC.


    GROSSET & DUNLAP
    PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

    Made in the United States of America

    COPYRIGHT, 1918,
    BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

    Copyright, 1914, 1916, by P. F. Collier & Son

    Copyright, 1917, 1918, by The Curtis Publishing Company

    PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




     My dear Ed. Tufts:--

     Once, when a mere child, I strayed as far away from home as
     Pico Street, and followed that thoroughfare westward until the
     houses gave way to open country, hedged by a dense forest of
     real estate signs.

     In the midst of that wilderness I chanced upon a somewhat
     chubby gentleman engaged in the pursuit of a small white ball,
     which, when he came within striking distance, he beat savagely
     with weapons of wood and iron. That, sir, was my first sight of
     you, and my earliest acquaintance with the game of golf. I
     remember scanning the horizon for your keeper.

     Times have changed since then. The old Pico Street course is
     covered with bungalows and mortgages. Golf clubs are
     everywhere. The hills are dotted with middle-aged gentlemen who
     use the same weapons of wood and iron and the same red-hot
     adjectives. A man may now admit that he commits golf and the
     statement will not be used against him. Everybody is doing it.
     The pastime has become popular.

     But it took courage to be a pioneer, to listen to the sneers
     about "Cow-pasture pool" and to remain cool, calm and collected
     when putting within sight of the country road and within
     hearing of the comments of the Great Unenlightened. That
     courage entitles you to this small recognition, and also
     entitles you to purchase as many copies of this book as you can
     afford.

     Yours as usual,

     CHARLES E. VAN LOAN

     To Mr. Edward B. Tufts of the Los Angeles Country Club.

     Los Angeles, Cal., January 17, 1918.




CONTENTS


GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH

LITTLE POISON IVY

THE MAJOR, D.O.S.

A MIXED FOURSOME

"SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR"

A CURE FOR LUMBAGO

THE MAN WHO QUIT

THE OOLEY-COW

ADOLPHUS AND THE ROUGH DIAMOND




GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH!


I

     There has been considerable argument about it--even a mention
     of ethics--though where ethics figures in this case is more
     than I know. I'd like to take a flat-footed stance as claiming
     that the end justified the means. Saint George killed the
     Dragon, and Hercules mopped up the Augean stables, but little
     Wally Wallace--one hundred and forty-two pounds in his summer
     underwear--did a bigger job and a better job when the betting
     was odds-on-and-write-your-own-ticket that it couldn't be done.
     I wouldn't mind heading a subscription to present him with a
     gold medal about the size of a soup plate, inscribed as
     follows, to wit and viz.:

     _W. W. Wallace--He Put the Fore in Foursome._

Every golfer who ever conceded himself a two-foot putt because he was
afraid he might miss it has sweated and suffered and blasphemed in the
wake of a slow foursome. All the clubs that I have ever seen--and I've
travelled a bit--are cursed with at least one of these Creeping
Pestilences which you observe mostly from the rear.

You're a golfer, of course, and you know the make-up of a slow foursome
as well as I do: Four nice old gentlemen, prominent in business circles,
church members, who remember it even when they top a tee shot, pillars
of society, rich enough to be carried over the course in palanquins, but
too proud to ride, too dignified to hurry, too meek to argue except
among themselves, and too infernally selfish to stand aside and let the
younger men go through. They take nine practice swings before hitting a
shot, and then flub it disgracefully; they hold a prayer meeting on
every putting green and a _post-mortem_ on every tee, and a rheumatic
snail could give them a flying start and beat them out in a fifty-yard
dash. Know 'em? What golfer doesn't?

But nobody knows why it is that the four slowest players in every club
always manage to hook up in a sort of permanent alliance. Nobody knows
why they never stage their creeping contests on the off days when the
course is clear. Nobody knows why they always pick the sunniest
afternoons, when the locker room is full of young men dressing in a
hurry. Nobody knows why they bolt their luncheons and scuttle out to the
first tee, nor where that speed goes as soon as they drive and start
down the course. Nobody knows why they refuse to walk any faster than a
bogged mooley cow. Nobody knows why they never look behind them. Nobody
knows why they never hear any one yell "Fore!" Nobody knows why they are
so dead set against letting any one through.

Everybody knows the fatal effect of standing too long over the ball, all
dressed up with nowhere to go. Everybody knows of the tee shots that are
slopped and sliced and hooked; of the indecision caused by the long wait
before playing the second; of the change of clubs when the first choice
was the correct one; of the inevitable penalty exacted by loss of temper
and mental poise. Everybody knows that a slow foursome gives the
Recording Angel a busy afternoon, and leaves a sulphurous haze over an
entire course. But the aged reprobates who are responsible for all this
trouble--do they care how much grief and rage and bitterness simmers in
their wake? You think they do? Think again. Golf and Business are the
only games they have ever had time to learn, and one set of rules does
for both. The rest of the world may go hang! Golf is a serious matter
with these hoary offenders, and they manage to make it serious for
everybody behind them--the fast-walking, quick-swinging fellows who are
out for a sweat and a good time and lose both because the slow foursome
blocks the way.

Yes, you recognise the thumb-nail sketch--it is the slow foursome which
infests your course; the one which you find in front of you when you go
visiting. You think that four men who are inconsiderate enough to ruin
your day's sport and ruffle your temper ought to be disciplined, called
up on the carpet, taken in hand by the Greens Committee. You think they
are the worst ever--but wait! You are about to hear of the golfing
renegades known as the Big Four, who used to sew us up twice a week as
regularly as the days came round; you are about to hear of Elsberry J.
Watlington, and Colonel Jim Peck, and Samuel Alexander Peebles, and W.
Cotton Hamilton--world's champions in the Snail Stakes, undisputed
holders of the Challenge Belt for Practice Swinging, and undefeated
catch-as-catch-can loiterers on the Putting Green.

Six months ago we would have backed Watlington, Peck, Peebles and
Hamilton against the wide world, bet dollars against your dimes and
allowed you to select your own stakeholders, timekeepers and judges.
That's how much confidence we had in the Big Four. They were without
doubt and beyond argument the slowest and most exasperating quartette of
obstructionists that ever laid their middle-aged stomachs behind the
line of a putt.

Do I hear a faint murmur of dissent? Going a little strong, am I? All
right, glad you mentioned it, because we may as well settle this
question of supremacy here and now.

To save time, I will admit that your foursome is slower than Congress
and more irritating than the Senate. Permit me to ask you one question:
Going back over the years, can you recall a single instance when your
slow foursome allowed you to play through?... A lost ball, was it?...
Well, anyway, you got through them.... Thank you, and your answer puts
you against the ropes. I will now knock you clear out of the ring with
one well-directed statement of fact. Tie on your bonnet good and tight
and listen to this: The Big Four held up our course for seven long and
painful years, and during that period of time they never allowed any one
to pass them, lost ball or no lost ball.

That stops you, eh? I rather thought it would. It stopped us twice a
week.


II

Visitors used to play our course on Wednesdays and Saturdays--our big
days--and then sit in the lounging room and try hard to remember that
they were our guests. There were two questions which they never failed
to ask:

"Don't they ever let anybody through?"

And then:

"How long has this been going on?"

When we answered them truthfully they shook their heads, looked out of
the windows, and told us how much better their clubs were handled. Our
course was all right--they had to say that much in fairness. It was well
trapped and bunkered, and laid out with an eye to the average player;
the fair greens were the best in the state; the putting greens were like
velvet; the holes were sporty enough to suit anybody; but----And then
they looked out of the window again.

You see, the trouble was that the Big Four practically ran the club as
they liked. They had financed it in its early days, and as a reward had
been elected to almost everything in sight. We used to say that they
shook dice to see who should be president and so forth, and probably
they did. They might as well have settled it that way as any other, for
the annual election and open meeting was a joke.

It usually took place in the lounging room on a wet Saturday afternoon.
Somebody would get up and begin to drone through a report of the year's
activities. Then somebody else would make a motion and everybody would
say "Ay!" After that the result of the annual election of officers would
be announced. The voting members always handed in the printed slips
which they found on the tables, and the ticket was never scratched--it
would be Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton all the way. The only
real question would be whether or not the incoming president of the club
would buy a drink for all hands. If it was Peck's turn the motion was
lost.

As a natural result of this sort of thing the Big Four never left the
saddle for an instant. Talk about perpetuation in office--they had it
down to a fine point. They were always on the Board of Directors; they
saw to it that control of the Greens Committee never slipped out of
their hands; they had two of the three votes on the House Committee, and
no outsider was even considered for treasurer. They were dictators with
a large D, and nobody could do a thing about it.

If a mild kick was ever made or new blood suggested, the kicker was made
to feel like an ingrate. Who started the club anyway? Who dug up the
money? Who swung the deal that put the property in our hands? Why,
Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton, to be sure! Could any one blame
them for wanting to keep an eye on the organisation? Cer-tain-ly not.
The Big Four had us bluffed, bulldozed, buffaloed, licked to a whisper.

Peck, Peebles and Hamilton were the active heads of the Midland
Manufacturing Company, and it was pretty well known that the bulk of
Watlington's fortune was invested in the same enterprise. Those who knew
said they were just as ruthless in business as they were in golf--quite
a strong statement.

They seemed to regard the Sundown Golf and Country Club as their private
property, and we were welcome to pay dues and amuse ourselves five days
a week, but on Wednesdays and Saturdays we were not to infringe on the
sovereign rights of the Big Four.

They never entered any of the club tournaments, for that would have
necessitated breaking up their foursome. They always turned up in a
body, on the tick of noon, and there was an immediate scramble to beat
them to Number One tee. Those who lost out stampeded over to Number Ten
and played the second nine first. Nobody wanted to follow them; but a
blind man, playing without a caddie, couldn't have helped but catch up
with them somewhere on the course.

If you wonder why the club held together, you have only to recall the
story of the cow-puncher whose friend beckoned him away from the faro
layout to inform him that the game was crooked.

"Hell!" said the cow-puncher. "I know that; but--it's the only game in
town, ain't it?"

The S.G. & C.C. was the only golf club within fifty miles.


III

When Wally Wallace came home from college he blossomed out as a regular
member of the club. He had been a junior member before, one of the
tennis squad.

Wally is the son of old Hardpan Wallace, of the Trans-Pacific
outfit--you may have heard of him--and the sole heir to more millions
than he will ever be able to spend; but we didn't hold this against the
boy. He isn't the sort that money can spoil, with nothing about him to
remind you of old Hardpan, unless it might be a little more chin than
he really needs.

Wally's first act as a full-fledged member of the club was to qualify
for the James Peck Annual Trophy--a pretty fair sort of cup, considering
the donor.

He turned in a nice snappy eighty-one, which showed us that a college
education had not been wasted on him, and also caused several of the
Class-A men to sit up a bit and take notice.

He came booming through to the semi-finals with his head up and his tail
over the dash-board. It was there that he ran into me. Now I am no Jerry
Travers, but there are times when I play to my handicap, which is ten,
and I had been going fairly well. I had won four matches--one of them by
default. Wally had also won four matches, but the best showing made
against him was five down and four to go. His handicap was six, so he
would have to start me two up; but I had seen enough of his game to know
that I was up against the real thing, and would need a lot of luck to
give the boy anything like a close battle. He was a strong, heady match
player, and if he had a weakness the men whom he had defeated hadn't
been able to spot it. Altogether it wasn't a very brilliant outlook for
me; but, as a matter of fact, I suppose no ten-handicap man ever ought
to have a brilliant outlook. It isn't coming to him. If he has one it is
because the handicapper has been careless.

Under our rules a competitor in a club tournament has a week in which
to play his man, and it so happened that we agreed on Wednesday for our
meeting. Wally called for me in his new runabout, and we had lunch
together--I shook him and stuck him for it, and he grinned and remarked
that a man couldn't be lucky at everything. While we were dressing he
chattered like a magpie, talking about everything in the world but golf,
which was a sign that he wasn't worrying much. He expected easy picking,
and under normal conditions he would have had it.

We left the first tee promptly at one-forty-five P.M., our caddies
carrying the little red flags which demand the right of way over
everything. I might have suggested starting at Number Ten if I had
thought of it, but to tell the truth I was a wee mite nervous and was
wondering whether I had my drive with me or not. You know how the
confounded thing comes and goes. So we started at Number One, and my
troubles began. Wally opened up on me with a four-four-three, making the
third hole in a stroke under par, and when we reached the fourth tee we
were all square and my handicap was gone.

It was on the fourth tee that we first began to notice signs of
congestion ahead of us. One foursome had just driven off and beckoned us
to come through, another was waiting to go, and the fair green on the
way to the fifth looked like the advance of the Mexican standing army.

"Somebody has lost the transmission out of his wheel chair," said Wally.
"Well, we should worry--we've got the red flags and the right of way.
Fore!" And he proceeded to smack a perfect screamer down the middle of
the course--two hundred and fifty yards if it was an inch. I staggered
into one and laid my ball some distance behind his, but on the direct
line to the pin. Then we had to wait a bit while another foursome putted
out.

"There oughtn't to be any congestion on a day like this," said Wally.
"Must be a bunch of old men ahead."

"It's the Big Four," said I. "Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton.
They always take their time."

From where we were we could see the seventh and eighth fair greens.
There wasn't a player in sight on either one.

"Good Lord!" said Wally. "They've got the whole United States wide open
ahead of 'em. They're not holding their place on the course."

"They never do," said I, and just then the foursome moved off the
putting green.

"Give her a ride, old top!" said Wally.

I claim that my second shot wasn't half bad--for a ten-handicap man. I
used a brassy and reached the green about thirty feet from the pin, but
the demon Wally pulled a mid-iron out of his bag, waggled it once or
twice, and then made my brassy look sick. When we reached the top of the
hill, there was his ball ten feet from the cup. I ran up, playing it
safe for a par four, but Wally studied the roll of the green for about
ten seconds--and dropped a very fat three. He was decent enough to
apologise.

"I'm playing over my head," said he.

I couldn't dispute it--two threes on par fours might well be over
anybody's head. One down and fourteen to go; it had all the earmarks of
a massacre.

We had quite an audience at the fifth tee--two foursomes were piled up
there, cursing. "What's the matter, gentlemen?" asked Wally. "Can't you
get through?"

"Nobody can get through," said Billy Williams. "It's the Big Four."

"But they'll respect the red flags, won't they?"

It was a perfectly natural question for a stranger to ask--and Wally was
practically a stranger, though most of the men knew who he was. It
brought all sorts of answers.

"You think they will? I'll bet you a little two to one, no limit, that
they're all colour-blind!"

"Oh, yes, they'll let you through!"

"They'll _ask_ you to come through--won't they, Billy? They'll insist on
it, what?"

"They're full of such tricks!"

Wally was puzzled. He didn't quite know what to make of it. "But a red
flag," said he, "gives you the right of way."

"Everywhere but here," said Billy Williams.

"But in this case it's a rule!" argued Wally.

"Those fellows in front make their own rules."

"But the Greens Committee----" And this was where everybody laughed.

Wally stooped and teed his ball.

"Look here," said he, "I'll bet you anything you like that they let us
through. Why, they can't help themselves!"

"You bet that they'll let you through of their own accord?" asked Ben
Ashley, who never has been known to pass up a plain cinch.

"On our request to be allowed to pass," said Wally.

"If you drive into 'em without their permission you lose," stipulated
Ben.

"Right!" said Wally.

"Got you for a dozen balls!" said Ben.

"Anybody else want some of it?" asked Wally.

Before he got off the tee he stood to lose six dozen balls; but his
nerve was unshaken and he slammed out another tremendous drive. I sliced
into a ditch and away we went, leaving a great deal of promiscuous
kidding behind us. It took me two shots to get out at all, and Wally
picked up another hole on me.

Two down--murder!

On the sixth tee we ran into another mass meeting of malcontents. Old
Man Martin, our prize grouch, grumbled a bit when we called attention to
our red flags.

"What's the use?" said he. "You're on your way, but you ain't going
anywhere. Might just as well sit down and take it easy. Watlington has
got a lost ball, and the others have gone on to the green so's nobody
can get through. Won't do you a bit of good to drive, Wally. There's two
foursomes hung up over the hill now, and they'll be right there till
Watlington finds that ball. Sit down and be sociable."

"What'll you bet that we don't get through?" demanded Wally, who was
beginning to show signs of irritation.

"Whatever you got the most of, sonny--provided you make the bet this
way: they got to _let_ you through. Of course you might drive into 'em
or walk through 'em, but that ain't being done--much."

"Right! The bet is that they let us through. One hundred fish."

Old Martin cackled and turned his cigar round and round in the corner of
his mouth--a wolf when it comes to a cinch bet.

"Gosh! Listen to our banty rooster crow! Want another hundred, sonny?"

"Yes--grandpa!" said Wally, and sent another perfect drive soaring up
over the hill.

Number Six is a long hole, and the ordinary player never attempts to
carry the cross-bunker on his second. I followed with a middling-to-good
shot, and we bade the congregation farewell.

"It's ridiculous!" said Wally as we climbed the hill. "I never saw a
foursome yet that wouldn't yield to a red flag, or one that wouldn't let
a twosome through--if properly approached. And we have the right of way
over everything on the course. The Greens Committee----"

"Is composed," said I, "of Watlington, Peck and Peebles--three members
of the Big Four. They built the club, they run the club, and they have
never been known to let anybody through. I'm sorry, Wally, but I'm
afraid you're up against it."

The boy stopped and looked at me.

"Then those fellows behind us," said he, "were betting on a cinch, eh?"

"It was your proposition," I reminded him.

"So it was," and he grinned like the good game kid he is. "The Greens
Committee, eh? 'Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou
go.' I'm a firm believer in the right method of approach. They wouldn't
have the nerve----"

"They have nerve enough for anything," said I, and dropped the subject.
I didn't want him to get the idea that I was trying to argue with him
and upset his game. One foursome was lying down just over the hill; the
other was piled up short of the bunker. Watlington had finally found his
ball and played onto the green. The others, of course, had been standing
round the pin and holding things up for him.

I took an iron on my second and played short, intending to pitch over
the bunker on my third. Wally used a spoon and got tremendous height and
distance. His ball carried the bunker, kicked to the right and stopped
behind a sandtrap. It was a phenomenal shot, and with luck on the kick
would have gone straight to the pin.

I thought the Big Four would surely be off the green by the time I got
up to my ball, but no, Peck was preparing to hole a three-foot putt. Any
ordinary dub would have walked up to that pill and tapped it in, but
that wasn't Peck's style. He got down on all fours and sighted along the
line to the hole. Then he rose, took out his handkerchief, wiped his
hands carefully, called for his putter and took an experimental stance,
tramping about like a cat "making bread" on a woollen rug.

"Look at him!" grunted Wally. "You don't mind if I go ahead to my ball?
It won't bother you?"

"Not in the least," said I.

"I want to play as soon as they get out of the way," he explained.

The Colonel's first stance did not suit him, so he had to go all through
the tramping process again. When he was finally satisfied, he began
swinging his putter back and forth over the ball, like the pendulum of a
grandfather's clock--ten swings, neither more nor less. Could any one
blame Wally for boiling inside?

After the three-footer dropped--he didn't miss it, for a wonder--they
all gathered round the hole and pulled out their cards. Knowing each
other as well as they did, nobody was trusted to keep the score.

"Fore!" called Wally.

They paid not the slightest attention to him, and it was fully half a
minute before they ambled leisurely away in the direction of the seventh
tee.

I played my pitch shot, with plenty of back-spin on it, and stopped ten
or twelve feet short of the hole. Wally played an instant later, a
mashie shot intended to clear the trap, but he had been waiting too long
and was burning up with impatience. He topped the ball, hit the far edge
of the sandtrap and bounced back into a bad lie. Of course I knew why he
had been in such a hurry--he wanted to catch the Big Four on the seventh
tee. His niblick shot was too strong, but he laid his fifth dead to the
hole, giving me two for a win. Just as a matter of record, let me state
that I canned a nice rainbow putt for a four. A four on Number Six is
rare.

"Nice work!" said Wally. "You're only one down now. Come on, let's get
through these miserable old men!"

Watlington was just addressing his ball, the others had already driven.
He fussed and he fooled and he waggled his old dreadnaught for fifteen
or twenty seconds, and then shot straight into the bunker--a wretchedly
topped ball.

"Bless my heart!" said he. "Now why--why do I always miss my drive on
this hole?"

Peck started to tell him, being his partner, but Wally interrupted,
politely but firmly.

"Gentlemen," said he, "if you have no objection we will go through. We
are playing a tournament match. Mr. Curtiss, your honour, I believe."

Well, sir, for all the notice they took of him he might have been
speaking to four graven images. Not one of them so much as turned his
head. Colonel Peck had the floor.

"I'll tell you, Wat," said he, "I think it's your stance. You're playing
the ball too much off your right foot--coming down on it too much. Now
if you want it to rise more----" They were moving away now, but very
slowly.

"_Fore!_"

This time they had to notice the boy. He was mad clear through, and his
voice showed it. They all turned, took one good look at him, and then
toddled away, keeping well in the middle of the course. Peck was still
explaining the theory of the perfect drive. Wally yelled again; this
time they did not even look at him. "Well!" said he. "Of all the damned
swine! I--I believe we should drive anyway!"

"You'll lose a lot of bets if you do." Perhaps I shouldn't have said
that. Goodness knows I didn't want to see his game go to pieces behind
the Big Four--I didn't want to play behind them myself. I tried to
explain. The kid came over and patted me on the back.

"You're perfectly right," said he. "I forgot all about those fool bets,
but I'd gladly lose all of 'em if I thought I could hit that long-nosed
stiff in the back of the neck!" He meant the Colonel. "And so that's the
Greens Committee, eh? Holy jumping Jemima! What a club!"

I couldn't think of much of anything to say, so we sat still and watched
Watlington dig his way out of the bunker, Peck offering advice after
each failure. When Watlington disagreed with Peck's point of view he
took issue with him, and all hands joined in the argument. Wally was
simply sizzling with pent-up emotion, and after Watlington's fifth shot
he began to lift the safety-valve a bit. The language which he used was
wonderful, and a great tribute to higher education. Old Hardpan himself
couldn't have beaten it, even in his mule-skinning days.

At last the foursome was out of range and I got off a pretty fair tee
shot. Wally was still telling me what he thought of the Greens Committee
when he swung at the ball, and never have I seen a wider hook. It was
still hooking when it disappeared in the woods, out of bounds. His next
ball took a slice and rolled into long grass.

"Serves me right for losing my temper," said he with a grin. "I can play
this game all right, old top, but when I'm riled it sort of unsettles
me. Something tells me that I'm going to be riled for the next half hour
or so. Don't mind what I say. It's all meant for those hogs ahead of
us."

I helped him find his ball, and even then we had to wait on Peebles and
Hamilton, who were churning along down the middle of the course in easy
range. I lighted a cigarette and thought about something else--my income
tax, I think it was. I had found this a good system when sewed up behind
the Big Four. I don't know what poor Wally was thinking about--man's
inhumanity to man, I suppose--for when it came time to shoot he failed
to get down to his ball and hammered it still deeper into the grass.

"If it wasn't for the bets," said he, "I'd pick up and we'd go over to
Number Eight. I'm afraid that on a strict interpretation of the terms of
agreement Martin could spear me for two hundred fish if we skipped a
hole."

"He could," said I, "and what's more to the point, he would. They were
to let us through--on request."

Wally sighed.

"I've tried one method of approach," said he, "and now I'll try another
one. I might tell 'em that I bet two hundred dollars on the suspicion
that they were gentlemen, but likely they'd want me to split the
winnings. They look like that sort."

Number Seven was a gift on a golden platter. I won it with a frightful
eight, getting into all sorts of grief along the way, but Wally was
entirely up in the air and blew the short putt which should have given
him a half.

"All square!" said he. "Fair enough! Now we shall see what we shall
see!"

His chin was very much in evidence as he hiked to Number Eight tee, and
he lost no time getting into action. Colonel Peck was preparing to drive
as Wally hove alongside. The Colonel is very fussy about his drive. He
has been known to send a caddie to the clubhouse for whispering on the
bench. Wally walked up behind him.

"Stand still, young man! Can't you see I'm driving?"

It was in the nature of a royal command.

"Oh!" said Wally. "Meaning me, I presume. Do you know, it strikes me
that for a golfer with absolutely no consideration for others, you're
quite considerate--of yourself!"

Now I had always sized up the Colonel for a bluffer. He proved himself
one by turning a rich maroon colour and trying to swallow his Adam's
apple. Not a word came from him.

"Quiet," murmured old Peebles, who looks exactly like a sheep. "Absolute
quiet, please."

Wally rounded on him like a flash.

"Another considerate golfer, eh?" he snapped. "Now, gentlemen, under the
rules governing tournament play I demand for my opponent and myself the
right to go through. There are open holes ahead; you are not holding
your place on the course----"

"Drive, Jim," interposed Watlington in that quiet way of his. "Don't pay
any attention to him. Drive."

"But how can I drive while he's hopping up and down behind me? He puts
me all off my swing!"

"I'm glad my protest has some effect on you," said Wally. "Now I
understand that some of you are members of the Greens Committee of this
club. As a member of the said club, I wish to make a formal request that
we be allowed to pass."

"Denied," said Watlington. "Drive, Jim."

"Do you mean to say that you refuse us our rights--that you won't let us
through?"

"Absolutely," murmured old Peebles. "Absolutely."

"But why--why? On what grounds?"

"On the grounds that you're too fresh," said Colonel Peck. "On the
grounds that we don't want you to go through. Sit down and cool off."

"Drive, Jim," said Watlington. "You talk too much, young man."

"Wait a second," said Wally. "I want to get you all on record. I have
made a courteous request----"

"And it has been refused," said old Peebles, blinking at both of us.
"Gentlemen, you can't go through!"

"Is that final?"

"It is--absolutely."

And Watlington and Peck nodded.

"Drive, Jim!"

This time it was Hamilton who spoke.

"Pardon me," said Wally. He skipped out in front of the tee, lifted his
cap and made a low bow. "Members of the Greens Committee," said he, "and
one other hog as yet unclassified, you are witnesses that I default my
match to Mr. Curtiss. I do this rather than be forced to play behind
four such pitiable dubs as you are. Golf is a gentleman's game, which
doubtless accounts for your playing it so poorly. They tell me that you
never let any one through. God giving me strength, the day will come
when you will not only allow people to pass you, but you will _beg_ them
to do it. Make a note of that. Come along, Curtiss. We'll play the last
nine--for the fun of the thing."

"Oh, Curtiss!" It was Watlington speaking. "How many did you have him
down when he quit?"

The insult would have made a saint angry, but no saint on the calendar
could have summoned the vocabulary with which Wally replied. It was a
wonderful exhibition of blistering invective. Watlington's thick hide
stood him in good stead. He did not turn a hair or bat an eye, but
waited for Wally to run out of breath. Then:

"Drive, Jim," said he.

Now I did not care to win that match by default, and I did everything in
my power to arrange the matter otherwise. I offered to play the
remaining holes later in the day, or skip the eighth and begin all
square on the ninth tee.

"Nothing doing," said Wally. "You're a good sport, but there are other
men still in the tournament, and we're not allowed to concede anything.
The default goes, but tell me one thing--why didn't you back me up on
that kick?"

I was afraid he had noticed that I had been pretty much in the
background throughout, so when he asked me I told him the truth.

"Just a matter of bread and butter," said I. "My uncle's law firm
handles all the Midland's business. I'm only the junior member, but I
can't afford----"

"The Midland?" asked Wally.

"Yes, the Midland Manufacturing Company--Peck, Peebles and Hamilton.
Watlington's money is invested in the concern too."

"Why," said Wally, "that's the entire gang, isn't it--Greens Committee
and all?"

"The Big Four," said I. "You can see how it is. They're rather
important--as clients. There has been no end of litigation over the site
for that new plant of theirs down on Third Avenue, and we've handled all
of it."

But Wally hadn't been listening to me.

"So all the eggs are in one basket!" he exclaimed. "That simplifies
matters. Now, if one of 'em had been a doctor and one of 'em a lawyer
and one of 'em----"

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"Blest if I know!" said Wally.

So far as I could learn no official action was taken by the Big Four
because of conduct and language unbecoming a gentleman and a golfer.
Before I left the clubhouse I had a word or two with Peebles. He was
sitting at a table in the corner of the lounging room, nibbling at a
piece of cheese and looking as meek as Moses.

"We--ah--considered the source," said he. "The boy is young and--rash,
quite rash. His father was a mule-skinner--it's in the blood--can't help
it possibly. Yes, we considered the source. Absolutely!"

I didn't see very much of Wally after that, but I understood that he
played the course in the mornings and gave the club a wide berth on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. His default didn't help me any. I was
handsomely licked in the finals--four and three, I believe it was. About
that time something happened which knocked golf completely out of my
mind.


IV

I was sitting in my office one morning when Atkinson, of the C. G. & N.,
called me on the phone. The railroad offices are in the same building,
on the floor above ours.

"That you, Curtiss? I'll be right down. I want to see you."

Now, our firm handles the legal end for the C. G. & N., and it struck me
that Atkinson's voice had a nervous worried ring to it. I was wondering
what could be the matter, when he came breezing in all out of breath.

"You told me," said he, "that there wouldn't be any trouble about that
spur track along Third Avenue."

"For the Midland people, you mean? Oh, that's arranged for. All we have
to do is appear before the City Council and make the request for a
permit. To-morrow morning it comes off. What are you so excited about?"

"This," said Atkinson. He pulled a big red handbill out of his pocket
and unfolded it. "Possibly I'm no judge, Curtiss, but this seems to be
enough to excite anybody."

I spread the thing out on my desk and took a look at it. Across the top
was one of those headlines that hit you right between the eyes:

    SHALL THE CITY COUNCIL
    LICENSE CHILD MURDER?

Well, that was a fair start, you'll admit, but it went on from there. I
don't remember ever reading anything quite so vitriolic. It was a bitter
attack on the proposed spur track along Third Avenue, which is the
habitat of the down-trodden workingman and the playground of his
children. Judging solely by the handbill, any one would have thought
that the main idea of the C. G. & N. was to kill and maim as many
toddling infants as possible. The Council was made an accessory before
the fact, and the thing wound up with an appeal to class prejudice and a
ringing call to arms.

"Men of Third Avenue, shall the City Council give to the bloated
bondholders of an impudent monopoly the right to torture and murder your
innocent babes? Shall your street be turned into a speedway for a modern
car of Juggernaut? Let your answer be heard in the Council Chamber
to-morrow morning--'No, a thousand times, no!'"

I read it through to the end. Then I whistled.

"This," said I, "is hot stuff--very hot stuff! Where did it come from?"

"The whole south end of town is plastered with bills like it," said
Atkinson glumly. "What have we done now, that they should be picking on
us? When have we killed any children, I would like to know? What started
this? Who started it? Why?"

"That isn't the big question," said I. "The big question is: Will the
City Council stand hitched in the face of this attack?"

The door opened and the answer to that question appeared--Barney
MacShane, officially of the rank and file of the City Council of our
fair city, in reality the guiding spirit of that body of petty pirates.
Barney was moist and nervous, and he held one of the bills in his right
hand. His first words were not reassuring.

"All hell is loose--loose for fair!" said he. "Take a look at this
thing."

"We have already been looking at it," said I with a laugh intended to be
light and carefree. "What of it? You don't mean to tell me that you are
going to let a mere scrap of paper bother you?"

Barney mopped his forehead and sat down heavily.

"You can laugh," said he, "but there is more than paper behind this. The
whole west end of town is up in arms overnight, and I don't know why.
Nobody ever kicked up such a rumpus about a spur track before. That's my
ward, you know, and I just made my escape from a deputation of women and
children. They treed me at the City Hall--before all the newspaper
men--and they held their babies up in their arms and they dared me--yes,
dared me--to let this thing go through. And the election coming on and
all. It's hell, that's what it is!"

"But, Barney," I argued, "we are not asking for anything which the city
should not be glad to grant. Think what it means to your ward to have
this fine big manufacturing plant in it! Think of the men who will have
work----"

"I'm thinking of them," said Barney sorrowfully. "They're coming to the
Council meeting to-morrow morning, and if this thing goes through I may
as well clean out my desk. Yes, they're coming, and so are their wives
and their children, and they'll bring transparencies and banners and God
knows what all----"

"But listen, Barney! This plant means prosperity to every one of your
people----"

"They're saying they'll make it an issue in the next campaign," mumbled
MacShane. "They say that if that spur track goes down on Third Avenue
it's me out of public life--and they mean it too. God knows what's got
into them all at once--they're like a nest of hornets. And the women
voting now too. That makes it bad--awful bad! You know as well as I do
that any agitation with children mixed up in it is the toughest thing in
the world to meet." He struck at the poster with a sudden spiteful
gesture. "From beginning to end," he snarled, "it's just an appeal not
to let the railroad kill the kids!"

"But that's nonsense--bunk!" said Atkinson. "Every precaution will be
taken to prevent accidents. You've got to think of the capital
invested."

Barney rolled a troubled eye in his direction.

"You go down on Third Avenue," said he, "and begin talking to them
people about capital! Try it once. What the hell do they care about
capital? They was brought up to hate the sound of the word! You know and
I know that capital ain't near as black as it's painted, but can you
tell them that? Huh! And a railroad ain't ever got any friends in a
gang standing round on the street corners!"

"But," said I, "this isn't a question of friends--it's a straight
proposition of right and wrong. The Midland people have gone ahead and
put up this big plant. They were given to understand that there would be
no opposition to the spur track going down. They've got to have it! The
success of their business depends on it! Surely you don't mean to tell
me that the Council will refuse this permit?"

"Well," said Barney slowly, "I've talked with the boys--Carter and
Garvey and Dillon. They're all figuring on running again, and they're
scared to death of it. Garvey says we'd be damned fools to go against an
agitation like this--so close to election, anyhow."

I argued the matter from every angle--the good of the city; the benefit
to Barney's ward--but I couldn't budge him.

"They say that the voice of the people is the voice of God," said he,
"but we know that most of the time it's only noise. Sometimes the noise
kind of dies out, and then's the time to step in and cut the melon. But
any kind of noise so close to election? Huh! Safety first!"

Before the meeting adjourned it was augmented by the appearance of the
president and vice-president of the Midland Manufacturing Company,
Colonel Jim Peck and old Peebles, and never had I seen those
stiff-necked gentlemen so humanly agitated.

"This is terrible!" stormed the Colonel. "Terrible! This is unheard of!
It is an outrage--a crime--a crying shame to the city! Think of our
investment! Other manufacturing plants got their spur tracks for the
asking. There was no talk of killing children. Why--why have we been
singled out for attack--for--for blackmail?"

"You can cut out that kind of talk right now!" said Barney sternly.
"There ain't a nickel in granting this permit, and you know it as well
as I do. Nobody ain't trying to blackmail you! All the dough in town
won't swing the boys into line behind this proposition while this rumpus
is going on. And since you're taking that slant at it, here's the last
word--sit tight and wait till after election!"

"But the pl-plant!" bleated Peebles, tearing a blotter to shreds with
shaking fingers. "The plant! Think of the loss of time--and we--we
expected to open up next month!"

"Go ahead and open up," said Barney. "You can truck your stuff to the
depots, can't you? Yes, yes--I get you about the loss! Us boys in the
Council--we got something to lose too. Now here it is, straight from the
shoulder, and you can bet on it." Barney spoke slowly, wagging his
forefinger at each word. "If that application comes up to-morrow
morning, with the Council chamber jammed with folks from the south end
of the town--good-a-by, John! Fare thee well! It ain't in human nature
to commit political suicide when a second term is making eyes at you.
Look at our end of it for a while. We got futures to think of, too, and
Garvey--Garvey wants to run for mayor some day. You can't afford to have
that application turned down, can you? Of course not. Have a little
sense. Keep your shirts on. Get out and see who's behind this thing.
Chances are somebody wants something. Find out what it is--rig up a
compromise--get him to call off the dogs. Then talk to me again, and
I'll promise you it'll go through as slick as a greased pig!"

"I believe there's something in that," said I. "We've never run into
such a hornets' nest as this before. There must be a reason. Atkinson,
you've got a lot of gumshoe men on your staff. Why don't you turn 'em
loose to locate this opposition?"

"You're about two hours late with that suggestion," said the railroad
representative. "Our sleuths are on the job now. If they find out
anything I'll communicate with you P. D. Q."

"Good!" ejaculated Colonel Peck. "And if it's money----"

"Aw, you make me sick!" snapped Barney MacShane. "You think money can do
everything, don't you? Well, it can't! For one thing, it couldn't get me
to shake hands with a stiff like you!"

       *       *       *       *       *

I was called away from the dinner table on the following Friday
evening. Watlington was on the telephone.

"That you, Curtiss? Well, we think we've got in touch with the bug under
the chip. Can you arrange to meet us in Room 85 at the Hotel Brookmore
at nine to-night?... No, I can't tell you a thing about it. We're asked
to be there--you're asked to be there--and that's as far as my
information goes. Don't be late."

When I entered Room 85 four men were seated at a long table. They were
Elsberry J. Watlington, Colonel Jim Peck, Samuel Alexander Peebles and
W. Cotton Hamilton. They greeted me with a certain amount of nervous
irritability. The Big Four had been through a cruel week and showed the
marks of strain.

"Where's Atkinson?" I asked.

"It was stipulated, expressly stipulated," said old Peebles, "that only
the five of us should be present. The whole thing is most mysterious.
I--I don't like the looks of it."

"Probably a hold-up!" grunted Colonel Peck.

Watlington didn't say anything. He had aged ten years, his heavy
smooth-shaven face was set in stern lines and his mouth looked as if it
might have been made with a single slash of a razor.

Hamilton mumbled to himself and kept trying to light the end of his
thumb instead of his cigar. Peck had his watch in his hand. Peebles
played a tattoo on his chin with his fingers.

"Good thing we didn't make that application at the Council meeting,"
said Hamilton. "I never saw such a gang of thugs!"

"Male and female!" added Colonel Peck. "Well, time's up! Whoever he is,
I hope he won't keep us waiting!"

"Ah!" said a cheerful voice. "You don't like to be held up on the tee,
do you, Colonel?"

There in the doorway stood Wally Wallace, beaming upon the Big Four. Not
even on the stage have I ever seen anything to match the expressions on
the faces round that table. Old Peebles' mouth kept opening and
shutting, like the mouth of a fresh caught carp. The others were frozen,
petrified. Wally glanced at me as he advanced into the room, and there
was a faint trembling of his left eyelid.

"Well," said Wally briskly, "shall we proceed with the business of the
meeting?"

"Business!" Colonel Peck exploded like a firecracker.

"With--you?" It was all Watlington could do to tear the two words out of
his throat. He croaked like a big bullfrog.

"With me," said Wally, bowing and taking his place at the head of the
table. "Unless," he added, "you would prefer to discuss the situation
with the rank and file of the Third Avenue Country Club."

The silence which followed that remark was impressive. I could hear
somebody's heart beating. It may have been my own. As usual Colonel Peck
was first to recover the power of speech, and again as usual he made
poor use of it.

"You--you young whelp!" he gurgled. "So it was----"

"Shut up, Jim!" growled Watlington, whose eyes had never left Wally's
face. Hamilton carefully placed his cigar in the ashtray and tried to
put a match into his mouth. Then he turned on me, sputtering.

"Are you in on this?" he demanded.

"Be perfectly calm," said Wally. "Mr. Curtiss is not in on it, as you so
elegantly express it. I am the only one who is in on it. Me, myself, W.
W. Wallace, at your service. If you will favour me with your attention,
I will explain----"

"You'd better!" ripped out the Colonel.

"Ah," said the youngster, grinning at Peck, "always a little nervous on
the tee, aren't you?"

"Drive, young man!" said Watlington.

A sudden light flickered in Wally's eyes. He turned to Elsberry J. with
an expression that was almost friendly.

"Do you know," said he, "I'm beginning to think there may be human
qualities in you after all."

Watlington grunted and nodded his head.

"Take the honour!" said he.

Wally rose and laid the tips of his fingers on the table.

"Members of the Greens Committee and one other"--and here he looked at
Hamilton, whose face showed that he had not forgotten the unclassified
hog--"we are here this evening to arrange an exchange of courtesies. You
think you represent the Midland Manufacturing Company at this meeting.
You do not. You represent the Sundown Golf and Country Club. I represent
the Third Avenue Country Club--an organisation lately formed. You may
have heard something of it, though not under that name."

He paused to let this sink in.

"Gentlemen," he continued, "you may recall that I once made a courteous
request of you for something which was entirely within my rights. You
made an arbitrary ruling on that request. You refused to let me through.
You told me I was too fresh, and advised me to sit down and cool off. I
see by your faces that you recall the occasion.

"You may also recall that I promised to devote myself to the task of
teaching you to be more considerate of others. Gentlemen, I am the
opposition to your playing through on Third Avenue. I am the Man Behind.
I am the Voice of the People. I am a singleton on the course, holding
you up while I sink a putt. If you ask me why, I will give you your own
words in your teeth: You can't go through because I don't want you to go
through."

Here he stopped long enough to light a cigarette, and again his left
eyelid flickered, though he did not look at me. I think if he had I
should have erupted.

"You see," said he, flipping the match into the air, "it has been
necessary to teach you a lesson--the lesson, gentlemen, of courtesy on
the course, consideration for others. I realised that this could never
be done on a course where you have power to make the rules--or break
them. So I selected another course. Members of the Greens Committee and
one other, you do not make the rules on Third Avenue. You are perfectly
within your rights in asking to go through; but I have blocked you. I
have made you sit down on the bench and cool off. Gentlemen, how do you
like being held up when you want to play through? How does it feel?"

I do not regret my inability to quote Colonel Peck's reply to this
question.

"Quit it, Jim!" snapped Watlington. "Your bark was always worse than
your bite, and it's not much of a bark at that--'Sound and fury,
signifying nothing.' Young man, I take it you are the chairman of the
Greens Committee of this Third Avenue Country Club, empowered to act.
May I ask what are our chances of getting through?"

"I _know_ I'm going to like you--in time!" exclaimed Wally. "I feel it
coming on. Let's see, to-morrow is Saturday, isn't it?"

"What's that got to do with it?" mumbled Hamilton.

"Much," answered Wally. "Oh, much, I assure you! I expect to be at the
Sundown Club to-morrow." His chin shot out and his voice carried the
sting of a lash. "I expect to see you gentlemen there, playing your
usual crawling foursome. I expect to see you allowing your fellow
members to pass you on the course. You might even invite them to come
through--you might _insist_ on it, courteously, you understand, and with
such grace as you may be able to muster. I want to see every member of
that club play through you--every member!"

"All d-damned nonsense!" bleated Peebles, sucking his fingers.

"Shut up!" ordered Watlington savagely. "And, young man, if we do
this--what then?"

"Ah, then!" said Wally. "Then the reward of merit. If you show me that
you can learn to be considerate of others--if you show me that you can
be courteous on the course where you make the rules--I feel safe in
promising that you will be treated with consideration on this other
course which has been mentioned. Yes, quite safe. In fact, gentlemen,
you may even be _asked_ to play through on Third Avenue!"

"But this agitation?" began Hamilton.

"Was paid for by the day," smiled the brazen rascal, with a graceful
inclination of his head. "People may be hired to do anything--even to
annoy prominent citizens and frighten a City Council." Hamilton stirred
uneasily, but Wally read his thought and froze him with a single keen
glance. "Of course," said he, "you understand that what has been done
once may be done again. Sentiment crystallises--when helped out with a
few more red handbills--a few more speeches on the street corners----"

"The point is well taken!" interrupted Watlington hurriedly. "Damn well
taken! Young man, talk to me. _I'm_ the head of this outfit. Pay no
attention to Jim Peck. He's nothing but a bag of wind. Hamilton doesn't
count. His nerves are no good. Peebles--he's an old goat. _I'm_ the one
with power to act. Talk to me. Is there anything else you want?"

"Nothing," said Wally. "I think your streak of consideration is likely
to prove a lasting one. If not--well, I may have to spread this story
round town a bit----"

"Oh, my Lord!" groaned Colonel Peck.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a noble and inspiring sight to see the Big Four, caps in hand,
inviting the common people to play through. The entire club marched
through them--too full of amazement to demand explanations. Even Purdue
McCormick, trudging along with a putter in one hand and a mid-iron in
the other, without a bag, without a caddie, without a vestige of right
in the wide world, even Purdue was coerced into passing them. At dusk he
was found wandering aimlessly about on the seventeenth fairway, babbling
to himself. We fear that he will never be the same again.

I have received word from Barney MacShane that the City Council will be
pleased to grant a permit to lay a spur track on Third Avenue. The voice
of the people, he says, has died away to a faint murmuring. Some day I
think I will tell Barney the truth. He does not play golf, but he has a
sense of humour.




LITTLE POISON IVY


I

The leopard cannot change his spots--possibly he wouldn't if he could;
and, this being the case, the next best thing is to overlook as many of
his freckles as possible.

Yesterday I sat on the porch at the Country Club and listened while the
Dingbats said kind and complimentary things about young Ambrose Phipps,
alias Little Poison Ivy, alias The Pest, alias Rough and Reddy. One
short week ago the Dingbats would have voted him a nuisance and a menace
to society in general. Yesterday they praised him to the skies. It just
goes to show that good can be found in anybody--if that is what you are
looking for.

Understand me: there has been no change in Ambrose. He is still as fresh
as a mountain breeze. Unquestionably he will continue to treat his
elders with a shocking lack of respect and an entire absence of
consideration. He was born with a deep depression where his bump of
reverence should have been located, and neither realises nor regrets his
deficiency.

He will never change. It is the Dingbats who have changed. The whole
club has changed, so far as Ambrose is concerned.

We are all trying to overlook the dark spots in his character and see
good in him, whether it is there or not.

Now as to the Dingbats: if you do not know them you have missed
something rich and rare in the golfing line. There are four of them, all
retired capitalists on the shady side of sixty. They freely admit that
they are the worst golfers in the world, and in a pinch they could prove
it. They play together six days a week--a riotous, garrulous, hilarious
foursome, ripping the course wide open from the first tee to the home
green; and they get more real fun out of golf than any men I know. They
never worry about being off their game, because they have never been on
it; they know they can be no worse than they are and they have no hope
of ever being better; they expect to play badly, and it is seldom that
they are disappointed. Whenever a Dingbat forgets to count his shots in
the bunkers, and comes home in the nineties, a public celebration takes
place on the clubhouse porch.

Yesterday it was Doc Pinkinson who brought in the ninety-eight--and
signed all the tags; and between libations they talked about Ambrose
Phipps, who was practising brassy shots off the grass beside the
eighteenth green.

Little Poison Ivy was unusually cocky, even for him, and every move was
a picture. At the end of his follow-through he would freeze, nicely
balanced on the tip of his right toe, elbows artistically elevated,
clubhead up round his neck; and not a muscle would he move until the
ball stopped rolling. He might have been posing for a statue of the
Perfect Golfer. When he walked it was with a conscious little swagger
and a flirting of the short tails of his belted sport coat. He was
hitting them clean, he was hitting them far, he had an audience--and
well he knew it. Ambrose was in his glory yesterday afternoon!

"By golly!" exclaimed Doc Pinkinson. "Ain't that a pretty sight? Ain't
it a treat to see that kid lambaste the ball?"

"Certainly is," agreed Old Treanor with a sigh. "Perfect form--that's
what he's got."

"And confidence in himself," put in Old Myles. "That's the big secret.
You can see it in every move he makes. Confidence is a wonderful thing!"

"And youth," said Daddy Bradshaw. "That's the most wonderful thing of
all. It's his youth that makes him so--so flip. Got a lot to say, for a
kid; but--somehow I always liked him for it."

"Me too!" chimed in Doc Pinkinson. "Doggone his skin! He used to make me
awful mad, that boy.... Oh, well, I reckon I'm kind of cranky,
anyway.... Yes; I always liked Ambrose."

Now that was all rot, and I knew it. What's more, the Dingbats knew it
too. They hadn't always liked Ambrose. A week ago they would have marked
his swaggering gait, the tilt of his chin, the conscious manner in which
he posed after every shot; and they would have said Ambrose was showing
off for the benefit of the female tea party at the other end of the
porch--and they wouldn't have made any mistake, at that.

No; they hadn't always liked young Mr. Phipps. Nobody had liked him. To
be perfectly frank about it, we had disliked him openly and cordially,
and had been at no pains to keep him from finding it out. We had snubbed
him, insulted him and ignored him on every possible occasion. Worst of
all, we had made a singleton of him. We had forced him to play alone,
because there wasn't a man in all the club who wanted him as a partner
or as an opponent. There is no meaner treatment than this; nor is there
anything more pathetically lonely than a singleton on a crowded golf
course. It is nothing more or less than a grown-up trip to Coventry. I
thought of all these things as I listened to the prattling of the
Dingbats.

"Guess he won't have any trouble getting games now, hey?" chuckled Old
Treanor.

"Huh!" grunted Doc Pinkinson. "He's dated up a week ahead--with Moreman
and that bunch! _A week ahead!_"

"And he'll make 'em step!" chirped Daddy Bradshaw. "Here's to him,
boys--a redhead and a fighter! Drink her down!"

"A redhead and a fighter!" chorused the Dingbats, lifting their glasses.

Yes; they drank to Ambrose Phipps, and one short week ago they wouldn't
have tolerated him on the same side of the course with them. Our pet
leopard still has his spots, but we are now viewing him in the friendly
shade cast by a battered old silver cup: namely and to wit, the Edward
B. Wimpus Team Trophy, permanently at home on the mantelpiece in the
lounging room.


II

Going back to the beginning, we never had a chance to blame Ambrose on
the Membership Committee; he slipped in on us via the junior-member
clause. Old Man Phipps does not play golf; but he is a charter member of
the club and, according to the by-laws, the sons of members between the
ages of sixteen and twenty-one enjoy all the privileges of the
institution.

Ambrose was nineteen when he returned rather hurriedly from college. He
did this at the earnest and unanimous request of the Faculty and, it was
whispered, the police department of the university town. He hadn't done
much of anything, but he had tried very hard to drive a touring car and
seven chorus girls through a plate-glass window into a restaurant. The
press agent of the show saw his chance to get some publicity for the
broilers, and after an interview with the Faculty Ambrose caught the
first train for home.

Having nothing to do and plenty of time in which to do it, Ambrose
decided to become a golfer. Old Dunn'l MacQuarrie, our professional,
sold him a large leather bag full of tools and gave him two lessons.
Thus equipped and fortified, young Mr. Phipps essayed to brighten our
drab lives by allowing us to play golf with him. Now this sort of thing
may be done in some clubs, but not in ours. We do not permit our sacred
institutions to be "rushed" by the golfing novice. We are not snobbish,
but we plead guilty to being the least bit set in our ways. They are
good ways, and they suit us. The club is an old one, as golf clubs go in
this country, and most of the playing members are men past forty years
of age. Nearly all of the foursomes are permanent affairs, the same men
playing together week after week, season in and season out. The other
matches are made in advance, by telephone or word of mouth, and the
member who turns up minus a game on Saturday afternoon is out of luck.

We do not leap at the stranger with open arms. We do not leap at him at
all. We stand off and look him over. We put him on probation; and if he
shapes up well, and walks lightly, and talks softly, and does not try
to dynamite his way into matches where he is not wanted, some day he
will be invited to fill up a foursome. Invited--make a note of that. Now
see what Ambrose did.

With his customary lack of tact, he selected the very worst day in the
week to thrust himself upon our notice. It was a Saturday, and the
lounging room was crowded with members, most of whom were shaking dice
for the luncheons. With a single exception, all the foursomes were made
up for the afternoon.

A short, sturdily built youngster came through the doorway from the
locker room and paused close to the table where I was sitting. His hair
was red--the sort of red that will not be ignored--and he wore it combed
straight back over the top of his head. His slightly irregular features
were covered with large brown freckles, and on his upper lip was a
volunteer crop of lightish fuzz, which might, in time, become a
moustache. His green sport coat was new, his flannel trousers were new,
his shoes were new--from neck to sole he fairly shrieked with newness.
Considering that he was a stranger in a strange club, a certain amount
of reticence would not have hurt the young man's entrance; but he burst
through the swinging door with a skip and a swagger, and there was a
broad grin on his homely countenance. It was quite evident that he
expected to find himself among friends.

"Who wants a game?" he cried. "Don't all speak at once, men!"

A few of the members nearest the door glanced up, eyed the youth
curiously, and returned to their dice boxes. The others had not heard
him at all. Harson and Billford looked at me.

"Who's the fresh kid?" asked Billford.

"That," said I, "is Ambrose Phipps, only son of Old Man Phipps."

"Humph!" grunted Harson. "The living, breathing proof that marriage is a
failure. What's he want?"

Ambrose himself answered the question. He had advanced to our table.

"You gentlemen got a game?" he asked, laying his hand on Billford's
shoulder.

Now if there is anything that Billford loathes and detests, it is
familiarity on short acquaintance. He hadn't even met this fresh youth;
so he shrugged his shoulder in a very pointed manner and glared at
Ambrose. The boy did not remove his hand.

"'S all right, old top," said he reassuringly. "It's clean--just washed
it. Clean as your shirt." He bent down and looked at Billford's collar.
"No," said he; "cleaner.... Well, how about it? Got your game fixed up?"

"We are waiting for a fourth man." I answered because Billford didn't
seem able to say anything; he looked on the point of exploding.

"Oh, a fourth man, eh? Well, if he doesn't turn up you know me." And
Ambrose passed on to the next table.

"Insufferable young rotter!" snarled Billford.

"Quite so," said Harson; "but he'll never miss anything by being too
bashful to ask for it. Look! He's asking everybody!"

Ambrose made the entire circuit of the room. We could not hear what he
said, but we felt the chill he left in his wake. Men glanced up when he
addressed them, stared for an instant, and went back to their dice. Some
of them were polite in their refusals, some were curt, some were merely
disgusted. When he reached the table where Bishop, Gilmore, Moreman and
Elder were sitting, they laughed at him. They are our star golfers and
members of the team. The Dingbats were too much astonished to show
resentment; but when Ambrose left them he patted Doc Pinkinson on the
head, and the old gentleman sputtered for the best part of an hour.

It was a discouraging tour, and any one else would have hunted a quiet
corner and crawled into it; but not Ambrose. He returned to our end of
the room, and the pleased and expectant light in his eyes had given way
to a steely glare. He beckoned to one of the servants.

"Hey, George! Who's the boss here? Who's the Big Finger?"

"Misteh Harson, he's one of 'em, suh. He's a membeh of the Greens
Committee."

"Show him to me!"

"Right there, suh, settin' by the window."

Ambrose strode across to us and addressed himself to Harson.

"My name is Phipps," said he. "I'm a junior member here, registered and
all that, and I want to get a game this afternoon. So far, I haven't had
any luck."

Harson is really a mild and kindly soul. He hates to hurt any one's
feelings.

"Perhaps all the games are made up," he suggested. "Saturday is a bad
day, unless your match is arranged beforehand."

"Zat so? Humph! Nice clubby spirit you have here. You make a fellow feel
so much at home!"

"So we notice," grunted Billford.

Ambrose looked at him and smiled. It wasn't exactly a pleasant smile.
Then he turned back to Harson.

"How about that fourth man of yours?" he demanded. "Has he shown up
yet?"

Billford caught my eye.

"Some one must have left the outside door open," said he. "Seems to me I
feel a strong draught."

"Put on another shirt!" Ambrose shot the retort without an instant's
hesitation. "Now say, if your fourth man isn't here, what's the matter
with me?"

"Possibly there is nothing the matter with you," said Harson
pleasantly; "but if you are a beginner----"

"Aw, you don't need to be afraid of my game!" grinned Ambrose. "I'll be
easy picking."

"That isn't the point," explained Harson. "Our game would be too fast
for you."

"Well, what of it? How am I ever going to learn if I never play with
anybody better than I am? Don't you take any interest in young blood, or
is this a close corporation, run for the benefit of a lot of old
fossils, playing hooky from the boneyard?"

"Oh, run away, little boy, and sell your papers!" Billford couldn't
stand it any longer.

"I will if you lend me that shirt for a make-up!" snapped Ambrose. "Now
don't get mad, Cutie. Remember, you picked on me first. A man with a
neck as thick as yours ought not to let his angry passions rise. First
thing you know, you'll bust something in that bonemeal mill of yours,
and then you won't know anything." Ambrose put his hands on his hips and
surveyed the entire gathering. "A nice, cheerful, clubby bunch!" he
exclaimed. "Gee! What a picnic a hermit crab could have in this place,
meeting so many congenial souls!"

"If you don't like it," said Billford, "you don't have to stay here a
minute."

"That's mighty sweet of you," said Ambrose; "but, you see, I've made up
my mind to learn this fool game if it takes all summer. I'd hate to
quit now, even to oblige people who have been so courteous to me....
Well, good-by, you frozen stiffs! Maybe I can hire that sour old
Scotchman to go round with me. He's not what you might call a cheerful
companion, but, at that, he's got something on you. He's _human_,
anyway!"

Ambrose went outside and banged the door behind him. Billford made a few
brief observations; but his remarks, though vivid and striking, were not
quite original. Harson shook his head, and in the silence following
Ambrose's exit we heard Doc Pinkinson's voice:

"If that pup was mine I'd drown him; doggone me if I wouldn't!"

Young Mr. Phipps, you will observe, got in wrong at the very start.


III

Bad news travels fast when a few press agents get behind it, and not all
the personal publicity is handed out by a man's loving friends. Those
who had met Ambrose warned those who had not, and whenever his fiery red
head appeared in the lounging room there was a startling drop in the
temperature.

For a few weeks he persisted in trying to secure matches with members of
the club, but nobody would have anything to do with him--not even old
Purdue McCormick, who toddles about the course with a niblick in one
hand and a mid-iron in the other, _sans_ bag, _sans_ caddie, _sans_
protection of the game laws. When such a renegade as Purdue refused to
go turf-tearing with him Ambrose gave up in disgust and devoted himself
to the serious business of learning the royal and ancient game. He
infested the course from dawn till dark, a solitary figure against the
sky line; our golfing Ishmael, a wild ass loose upon the links, his hand
against every man and every man's hand against him.

He wore a chip on his shoulder for all of us; and it was during this
period that Anderson, our club champion and Number One on the team,
christened Ambrose "Little Poison Ivy," because of the irritating effect
of personal contact with him.

Ambrose couldn't have had a great deal of fun out of the situation; but
MacQuarrie made money out of it. The redhead hired the professional to
play with him and criticise his shots. The dour old Scotch mercenary did
not like Ambrose any better than we did, but toward the end of the first
month he admitted to me that the boy had the makings of a star golfer,
though not, he was careful to explain, "the pr-roper temperament for the
game."

"But it's just amazin', the way he picks up the shots," said Dunn'l.
"Ay, he'll have everything but the temperament."

As the summer drew to a close the annual team matches began, and we
forgot Ambrose and all else in our anxiety over the fate of the Edward
B. Wimpus Trophy.

Every golf club, you must know, has its pet trophy. Ours is the worn old
silver cup that represents the team championship of the Association. A
pawnbroker wouldn't look at it twice; but to us, who are familiar with
its history and the trips it has made to different clubhouses, the
Edward B. Wimpus Trophy is priceless, and more to be desired than
diamonds or pearls.

When the late Mr. Wimpus donated the cup he stipulated that it should be
held in trust by the club winning the annual team championship, and that
it should become the property of the club winning it three times in
succession. For twenty years we had been fighting for permanent
possession of the trophy, and engraved on its shining surface was the
record of our bitter disappointment--not to mention the disappointment
of the Bellevue Golf Club. Twice we had been in a position to add the
third and final victory, and twice the Bellevue quintet had dashed our
hopes. Twice we had retaliated by preventing them from retiring the
Wimpus Trophy from competition; and now, with two winning years behind
us and a third opportunity in sight, we talked and thought of nothing
else.

According to the rules governing team play in our Association, each club
is represented by five men, contesting from scratch and without
handicaps of any sort. In the past, two teams have outclassed the field,
and once more history repeated itself, for the Bellevue bunch fought us
neck and neck through the entire period of competition. With one match
remaining to be played, they were tied with us for first place, and that
match brought the Bellevue team to our course last Friday afternoon.

I was on hand when the visitors filed into the locker room at
noon--MacNeath, Smathers, Crane, Lounsberry and Jordan--five seasoned
and dependable golfers, veterans of many a hard match; fighters who
never know when they are beaten. They looked extremely fit, and not in
the least worried at the prospect of meeting our men on their own
course.

They brought their own gallery, too, Bellevue members who talked even
money and flashed yellow-backed bills. The Dingbats formed a syndicate
and covered all bets; but this was due to club pride rather than any
feeling of confidence. We knew our boys were in for a tough battle, in
which neither side would have a marked advantage.

Four of our team players were on hand to welcome the enemy--Moreman,
Bishop, Elder and Gilmore--and they offered their opponents such
hospitality as is customary on like occasions.

"Thanks," said MacNeath with a grin; "but just now we're drinking water.
After the match you can fill the cup with anything you like, and we'll
allow you one drink out of it before we take it home with us. Once we
get it over there it'll never come back. It's not in the cards for you
to win three times running.... Where's Anderson?"

"He hasn't shown up yet," said Bishop.

"He's on the way out in his car," added Moreman. "I rang up his house
five minutes ago. He'd just left."

"Oh, very well," said MacNeath, who is Number One man for Bellevue, as
well as captain of the team. "Suppose we have lunch now, Bishop; and
while we're eating you can give me the list of your players and I'll
match them up."

In team play it is customary for the home captain to submit the names of
his players, ranked from one to five, in the order of their ability. The
visiting captain then has the privilege of making the individual
matches; and this is supposed to offset whatever advantage the home team
has by reason of playing on its own course.

Bishop, our captain, handed over a list reading as follows: 1--Anderson;
2--Moreman; 3--Bishop; 4--Elder; 5--Gilmore. MacNeath bracketed his own
name with Anderson's, and paired Crane with Moreman, Lounsberry with
Bishop, Smathers with Elder, and Jordan with Gilmore.

After luncheon the men changed to their golfing togs; but still there
was no sign of Anderson. Another telephone call confirmed the first
message; his wife reported that he had left his home nearly an hour
before, bound for the club.

"Queer!" said MacNeath. "Engine trouble or a puncture--possibly both.
It's not like the Swede to be late. Might as well get started, eh?
Anderson and I will go last, anyhow."

A big gallery watched the first pair drive off, Gilmore getting a better
ball than Jordan, and cheering those who believe in omens. Then at
five-minute intervals, came Lounsberry and Bishop, Smathers and Elder,
and Crane and Moreman. Each match attracted a small individual gallery,
but most of the spectators waited to follow the Number One men.
MacNeath, refusing to allow himself to be made nervous by the delay,
went into the clubhouse; and many and wild were the speculations as to
the cause of Anderson's tardiness. The wildest one of them fell short of
the bitter truth, which came to us at the end of a telephone wire
located in the professional's shop. It had been relayed on from the
switchboard in the club office:

"Anderson blew a front tire at the city limits. Car turned over with him
and broke his leg."

A bombshell exploding under our noses could not have created more
consternation. There we were, with four of the matches under way, our
best man crippled, and up against the proposition of providing an
opponent for MacNeath, admittedly the most dangerous player on the
Bellevue team. Harson, as a member of the Greens Committee and an
officer of the club, assumed charge of the situation as soon as he heard
the news.

"No good sending word to poor old Bishop," said he. "He's the team
captain, of course; but he can't do anything about it. Besides, he's
already playing his match, and this would upset him terribly. Is there
any one here who can give MacNeath a run for his money?"

"Not unless you want to try it," said I.

"He'd eat me alive!" groaned Harson. "We might as well forfeit one
match, and put it up to the boys to win three out of four. Oh, if we
only had one more good man!"

"Ye have," said MacQuarrie, who had been listening. "Ye've overlooked
young Mister Phipps."

"That kid?" demanded Harson. "Nonsense!"

"Ay," said Dunn'l; "that kid! Call it nonsense if ye like, sir, but he
was under eighty twice yesterday. This mor-rnin' he shot a
seventy-seven, with two missed putts the length o' your ar-rm. He's on
top of his game now, an' goin' strong. If he'll shoot back to his
mor-rnin' round he'll give Mister MacNeath a battle; but the lad has
never been in a competition, so ye'll have to chance his ner-rves."

"Ambrose!" I exclaimed. "I never should have thought of him!"

"Of course ye wouldn't," said MacQuarrie. "Ye've never played with
him--never even seen him play."

"But he's such a little rotter!" mumbled Harson.

"Ay," said Dunn'l; "an', grantin' ye that, he's still the best ye have.
He's in the clubhouse now, dressed an' ready to start, once the crowd is
out of the way."

"And he really did a seventy-seven this morning?" asked Harson.

"With two missed putts--wee ones."

I looked at Harson and Harson looked at me.

"You go in and put it up to him," said he at last. "I can't talk to him
without losing my temper."

I found our little red hope banging the balls about on the billiard
table, carefree as a scarlet tanager.

"Young man," said I, "your country calls you."

"I'm under age," said Ambrose, calmly squinting along his cue. "Don't
bother me. This is a tough shot."

"Well, then," said I, "your club calls you."

"My club, eh?" remarked the redhead with nasty emphasis. "Any time this
club calls me I'm stone-deaf."

"Listen to me a minute, Phipps. This is the day of the big team match
and we're up against it hard. Anderson turned his car over on the way
out and broke his leg. We want you to take his place."

"Anderson," repeated Ambrose. "Ain't that the squarehead who calls me
Little Poison Ivy? Only his leg, eh? Tough luck!"

"You bet it is!" I exclaimed, ignoring his meaning. "Tough luck for all
of us, because if we can't dig up a man to take Anderson's place we'll
have to forfeit that particular match to MacNeath. We'd set our hearts
on winning this time, because it would give us the permanent possession
of the team trophy that we've been shooting at for twenty years----"

"Let your voice fall right there!" commanded Ambrose. "Trophies are
nothing in my young life. This club is nothing in my life. Everybody
here has treated me worse than a yellow dog. Go ahead and take your
medicine; and I hope they lick you and make you like it!"

I saw it was time to try another tack. Ambrose had used one word that
had put an idea into my head.

"All right," said I. "Have it your own way. Perhaps it was a mistake to
mention MacNeath's name."

"What do you mean--a mistake?" He fired up instantly.

"Well," said I, "you must know Mac by reputation. He's one of the best
golfers in the state and a tough proposition to beat. He's their Number
One man--their star player. He shoots pretty close to par all the time."

"What's that got to do with it?" asked Ambrose.

"Why, nothing; only----"

"Only what?"

"Well, they all said you wouldn't want to go up against such a strong
player."

"Who said that?"

"Oh, everybody. Yes; it was a mistake to mention his name. I'm frank
enough to say that I wouldn't tackle him without a handicap. MacNeath is
hard game."

"Look here!" snapped the redhead. "You're off on the wrong foot
entirely. You're barking up the wrong tree. It's not because I'm afraid
of this MacNeath, or anybody else. I licked that sour old Scotchman this
morning, and I guess you'll agree he's not soft picking. It's just that
I don't feel that this club ought to ask a favour of me."

"A favour! Why, man alive, it's a compliment to stick you in at Number
One--the biggest compliment we can pay you!"

"Well," said Ambrose slowly, "if you look at it in that light----"

"I most certainly do.... But if you'd rather not meet MacNeath----"

Ambrose dropped his cue with a crash.

"You don't really think I'm _yellow_, do you?" he cried.

"If you are," said I, "you're the first redhead that ever got his colour
scheme mixed."

The little rascal grinned like a gargoyle.

"Listen!" said he confidentially. "You've used me pretty well--to my
face, anyhow--and I'll tell yon this much: I don't care the snap of my
fingers for your ratty old cup. I care even less for the members of this
club--present company excepted, you understand; but I can't stand it to
have anybody think I'm not _game_. Ever since I was a runt of a kid I've
had to fight, and they can say anything about me except that I'm a
quitter.... Why, I've stuck round here for nearly five months just
because I wouldn't let a lot of old fossils drive me out and make me
quit--five months without a friend in the place, and only MacQuarrie to
talk to.

"If I'd been yellow it would have shown that first Saturday when
everybody turned me down so cold. I wanted to walk out and never come
back. I wanted to; but I stuck. Honest, if I'm anything at all I'm
game--game enough to stand the gaff and take the worst of it; and I'll
prove it to you by playing this bird, no matter how good he is. I'll
fight him every jump of the way, and if he licks me he'll have to step
out some to do it. What's a licking, anyway? I've had a thousand of 'em!
Plenty of people can lick me; but you bet your life nobody ever scared
me!"

"Good kid!" said I, and held out my hand.

After an instant's hesitation Ambrose seized it. "Now lead me to this
MacNeath person," said he. "I suppose we ought to be introduced, eh? Or
has he been told that I'm the Country Club leper?"

It was a sorely disappointed gallery that welcomed the
substitute--disappointed and amazed; but the few Bellevue members were
openly jubilant. They had reason to be, for word had been brought back
to them that Lounsberry and Crane were running away with their matches.
Between them and the cup they saw only a golfing novice, a junior member
without a war record. They immediately began offering odds of two to one
on the MacNeath-Phipps match; but there were no takers. The Dingbats
held a lodge of sorrow in the shade of the caddie house and mournfully
estimated their losses, while our feminine contingent showed signs of
retreating to the porch and spending the afternoon at bridge.

MacNeath was first on the tee--a tall, flat-muscled, athletic man of
forty; and, as the veteran was preparing to drive, Ambrose and
MacQuarrie held a whispered conversation.

"I'd like to grab some of that two to one," said the boy.

"Don't be foolish," counselled the canny Scot. "Ye'll have enough on
your mind wi'out makin' bets; an' for pity's sake, remember what I've
told ye--slow back, don't press, keep your head down, an' count three
before ye look up. Hit them like ye did this mor-rnin' an' ye've a grand
chance to win."

MacNeath sent his usual tee shot straight down the course, a long,
well-placed ball; and Ambrose stepped forward in the midst of a silence
that was almost painful.

"Mighty pretty," said he with a careless nod at his opponent. "Hope I do
as well."

"Ye can," muttered old Dunn'l, "if ye'll keep your fool mouth shut an'
your eye on the ball!"

As Ambrose stooped to arrange his tee he caught a glimpse of the
gallery--a long, triple row of spectators, keenly interested in his next
move--expectant, anxious, apprehensive. Something of the mental attitude
of the audience communicated itself to the youngster, and he paused for
an instant, crouched on one knee. When he rose all the nonchalant ease
was gone from his manner, all the cocksureness out of his eyes. He
looked again at MacNeath's ball, a white speck far down the fairway.
MacQuarrie groaned and shook his head.

"Never mind that one!" he whispered to himself savagely. "Play the one
on the tee!"

Ambrose fidgeted as he took his stance, shifted his weight from one foot
to the other, and his first practise swing was short and jerky. He
seemed to realise this, for he tried again before he stepped forward to
the ball. It was no use; the result was the same. He had suddenly
stiffened in every muscle and joint--gone tense with the nervous strain.
He did manage to remember about the back swing--it was slow enough to
suit anybody; but at the top of it he faltered, hesitating just long
enough to destroy the rhythm that produces a perfect shot. He realised
this, too, and tried to make up for it by lunging desperately at the
ball; but as the club-face went through he jerked up his head and turned
it sharply to the left. The inevitable penalty for this triple error was
a wretchedly topped ball, which skipped along the ground until it
reached the bunker.

"Well, by the sweet and suffering----"

This was as far as Ambrose got before he remembered that he had a
gallery. He scuttled off the tee, very much abashed; and MacNeath
followed, covering the ground with long, even strides. There was just
the thin edge of a smile on the veteran's lean, bronzed face.

Moved by a common impulse, the spectators turned their backs and began
to drift across the lawn to the Number Ten tee. They had seen quite
enough. Old Doc Pinkinson voiced the general sentiment:

"No use following a bad match when you can see a good one, folks.
Gilmore and Jordan are just driving off at Ten. I knew that redhead was
a fizzer--a false alarm."

"Can't understand why they let him play at all!" scolded Daddy Bradshaw.
"Might just as well put _me_ in there against MacNeath! Fools!"

MacQuarrie obstinately refused to quit his pupil.

"He boggled his swing," growled Dunn'l; "he fair jumped at the ball, an'
he looked up before he hit it. He'll do better wi'out a gallery. Come
along, sir!"

I followed as far as the first bunker. Though his ball was half buried
in the sand, Ambrose attempted to skim it over the wall with a mashie,
an idiotic thing to do, and an all but impossible shot. He got exactly
what his lunacy deserved--a much worse lie than before, close against
the bank--and this exhibition of poor judgment cost him half his
audience.

"What, not going already?" asked Ambrose after he had played four and
picked up his ball. "Stick round a while. This is going to be _good_."

I said I wanted to see how the other matches were coming on.

"Everybody seems to feel the same way," said the redhead, looking at the
retreating gallery. "All because I slopped that drive! I'll have that
audience back again--see if I don't! And I'll bet you I won't look up on
another shot all day!"

"If ye do," grumbled MacQuarrie, "I'll never play wi'ye again as long as
ye live!"

"That's a promise!" cried Ambrose. "One down, eh? Where do we go from
here?"


IV

Our team veterans did not lack sympathetic encouragement on the last
nine holes, and all four matches tightened up to such an extent that we
wavered between hope and fear until Crane's final putt on the
seventeenth green dropped us into the depths of despair.

Gilmore, setting the pace with Jordan, gave us early encouragement by
maintaining a safe lead throughout and winning his match, 3 to 2. First
blood was ours, but the period of rejoicing was a short one; for the
deliberate Lounsberry, approaching and putting with heartbreaking
accuracy, disposed of Bishop on the seventeenth green.

"One apiece," said Doc Pinkinson. "Now what's Elder doing?"

The Elder-Smathers match came to Number Seventeen all square; but our
man ended the suspense by dropping a beautiful mashie pitch dead to the
pin from a distance of one hundred yards. Smathers' third shot also
reached the green; but his long putt went wide and Elder tapped the ball
into the cup, adding a second victory to our credit.

"It's looking better every minute!" chirped the irrepressible Doc
Pinkinson. "Now if Moreman can lick his man we're all hunky-dory. If he
loses--good-a-by, cup! No use figuring on that red-headed snipe of a
kid. MacNeath has sent him to the cleaner's by now, sure!"

The gallery waited at the seventeenth green, watching in anxious silence
as Crane and Moreman played their pitch shots over the guarding bunker.
Both were well on in threes; but the Bellevue caddie impudently held his
forefinger in the air as a sign that his man was one up. Moreman made a
good try, but his fourth shot stopped a few inches from the cup; and
Crane, after studying the roll of the green for a full minute, dropped a
forty-foot putt for a four--and dropped our spirits with it.

"That settles it!" wheezed Daddy Bradshaw. "No need to bother about that
other match.... Oh, if Anderson was so set on breaking his leg, why
didn't he wait till to-morrow?"

"Then he could have busted 'em both," remarked the unfeeling Pinkinson,
"and nobody would have said a word. Might's well pay those bets, I
reckon. We got as much chance as that snowball they're always talking
about. If it didn't melt, somebody would eat it."

He turned and looked back along the course. Two figures appeared on the
skyline, proceeding in the direction of the sixteenth tee. The first one
was tall, and moved with long, even strides; the second was short, and
even at the distance it seemed to strut and swagger.

"Hello!" ejaculated Pinkinson. "Ain't that MacNeath and the kid, going
to Sixteen? It is, by golly! D'you reckon they're playing out the bye
holes just for fun--or what?"

"It can't be anything else," said Bradshaw. "The boy couldn't have
carried him that far."

Somebody plucked at my sleeve. It was a small dirty-faced caddie, very
much out of breath.

"Mister Phipps says--if you want to see--some reg'lar golf--you'd
better catch the finish--of his match. He says--bring all the gang with
you."

"The finish of his match!" I cried. "Isn't it over? You don't mean that
they're still playing?"

"Still playin' is right!" panted the caddie. "They was all square-when I
left 'em."

All square! Like a flash the news ran through the gallery. The various
groups, already drifting disconsolately in the direction of the
clubhouse, halted and began buzzing with excitement and incredulity. All
square? Nonsense! It couldn't be true. A green kid like that holding
MacNeath to an even game for fifteen holes? Rot! But, in spite of the
doubts so openly expressed, there was a brisk and general movement
backward along the course, with the sixteenth putting green as an
objective point.

It was a much augmented gallery that lined the side hill above the
contestants. All the other team members were there, our men surprised
and skeptical, and the Bellevue players nervous and apprehensive. There
was also a troop of idle caddies, who had received the word by some
mysterious wireless of their own devising.

"MacNeath is down in four," whispered one of the youngsters; "and Reddy
has got to sink this one."

Ambrose's ball was four feet from the cup. He walked up to it, took one
look at the line, one at the hole, and made the shot without an
instant's hesitation--a clean, firm tap that gave the ball no chance to
waver, but sent it squarely into the middle of the cup. MacQuarrie
himself could not have shown more confidence. MacNeath's caddie replaced
the flag in the hole, dropped both hands to his hips, and moved them
back and forth in a level, sweeping gesture. His sign language answered
the question uppermost in every mind. Still all square! A patter of
applause gave thanks for the information and Ambrose looked up at us
with a quizzical grin. I caught his eye, and the rascal winked at me.

He was first on the seventeenth tee, and this time there was no sign of
nervous tension. After a single powerful practise swing he stepped
forward to his ball, pressed the sole of his club lightly behind it, and
got off a tremendous tee shot. I noticed that his lips moved; and he did
not raise his head until the ball was well down the course.

"He's countin' three before he looks up!" whispered a voice in my ear;
and there was MacQuarrie, the butt of a dead cigar between his teeth,
and his eyes alive with all the emotions a Scot may feel but can never
express in words.

"Then he's really been playing good golf?" I asked.

"Ay. Grand golf! They both have. It's a dingdong match, an' just a
question which one will crack fir-rst."

MacNeath's drive held out no hope that he was about to crack under the
strain of an even battle. He executed the tee shot with the machinelike
precision of the veteran golfer--stance, swing and follow-through
standardised by years of experience.

Our seventeenth hole is a long one, par 5, and the approach to the
putting green is guarded by an embankment, paralleled on the far side by
a wide and treacherous sand trap, put there to encourage clean mashie
pitches. The average player cannot reach the bunker on his second, much
less carry the sand trap on the other side of it; but the long drivers
sometimes string two tremendous wooden-club shots together and reach the
edge of the green. More frequently they get into trouble and pay the
penalty for attempting too much.

The two balls were close together; but Ambrose's shot was the longer one
by a matter of feet, and it was up to MacNeath to play first. Would he
gamble and go for the green, or would he play short and make sure of a
five? The veteran estimated the distance, looked carefully at his lie,
and then pulled an iron from his bag. Instantly I knew what was passing
in his mind--sensed his golfing strategy: MacNeath intended to place his
second shot short of the bunker, in the hope that Ambrose would be
tempted into risking the long, dangerous wooden-club shot across to the
green.

"Aha!" whispered MacQuarrie. "The old fox! He'll not take a chance
himself, but he wants the lad to take one. '"Will ye walk into my
parlour!" says the spider to the fly.' Ay; that's just it--will he,
now?"

Ambrose gave us no time for suspense. MacNeath's ball had hardly stopped
rolling before his decision was made--and a sound one at that! He
whipped his mid-iron from the bag.

"'Fraid I'll have to fool you, old chap," said he airily. "You wanted me
to go for the green--eh, what? Well, I hate to disappoint you; but I
can't gamble in an even game--not when the kitty is a sand trap....
Ride, you little round rascal; ride!"

The last remark was addressed to the ball just before the blade of the
mid-iron flicked it from the grass. Again there were two white specks in
the distance, lying side by side. If MacNeath was disappointed he did
not show it, but tramped on down the course, silent as usual and
absorbed in the game. Both took fives on the hole, missing long putts;
and the battle was still all square.

Our home hole is a par 4--a blind drive and an iron pitch to the green;
and the vital shot is the one from the tee. It must go absolutely
straight and high enough to carry the top of the hill, one hundred and
forty yards away. To the right is an abrupt downward slope, ending in a
deep ravine. To the left, and out of sight from the tee, is a wide sand
trap, with the father of all bunkers at its far edge. The only safe ball
is the one that sails over the direction post.

Ambrose drove; and a smothered gasp went up from the gallery. The ball
had the speed of a bullet, as well as a perfect line; and, at first, I
thought it would rise enough to skim the crest of the hill. Instead of
that, it seemed to duck in flight, caught the hard face of the incline,
and kicked abruptly to the left. It was that crooked bound which broke
all our hearts; for we knew that, barring a miracle, our man was in the
sand trap.

"Hard luck!" said MacNeath; and I think he really meant to be
sympathetic.

Ambrose looked at him as a bulldog might look at a mastiff.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" he answered, rather stiffly. "I like to play
my second shot from over there."

"You're welcome!" said MacNeath; and completed our discomfiture by
poling out a tremendous shot, which carried well over the direction post
and went sailing on up the plateau toward the clubhouse.

No man ever hit a longer ball at a more opportune time. As we toiled up
the hill I tried to say something hopeful.

"He may have stopped short of the trap."

"Not a hope!" said MacQuarrie, chewing at his cigar. "He'll be in--up to
his neck."

Sure enough, when we reached the summit there was the caddie, a mournful
statue on the edge of the sand trap. The crowd halted at a proper
distance and Ambrose and MacNeath went forward alone. MacQuarrie and I
swung off to the left, for we wanted to see how deep the ball was in
and what sort of a lie it had found.

"Six feet in from the edge," muttered Dunn'l, "an' twenty feet away from
the wall. Lyin' up on top of the sand too. An iron wi' a little loft to
it, a clean shot, a good thir-rd, an' he might get a four yet. It's just
possible."

"But not probable," said I. "What on earth is he waiting for?"

Ambrose had taken a seat on the edge of the trap; and as he looked from
the ball to the bunker looming in front of it, he rolled a cigarette.

"You don't mind if I study this situation a bit?" said he to MacNeath.

"Take your time," said the veteran.

"Because I wouldn't want to use the wrong club here," continued Ambrose.

The caddie said something to him at this point; but Phipps shook his red
head impatiently and continued to puff at his cigarette. He caught a
glimpse of me and beckoned.

"How do the home boys stand on this cup thing?" he asked.

"All even--two matches to two."

"That," said Ambrose after a thoughtful pause, "seems to put it up to
me."

At last he rose, tossed away the cigarette end and, reaching for his
bag, drew out a wooden club. Again the caddie said something; but
Ambrose waved him away. There was not a sound from his audience, but a
hundred heads wagged dolefully in unison. A wooden club--out of a trap?
Suicide! Sheer suicide! An iron might give him a fighting chance to
halve the hole; but my last lingering hope died when I saw that club in
the boy's hand. The infernal young lunatic! I believe I said something
of the sort to MacQuarrie.

"Sh-h!" he whispered. "Yon's a baffy. I made it for him."

"What's a baffy?"

"Well, it's just a kind of an exaggerated bulldog spoon--ye might almost
call it a wooden mashie, wi' a curvin' sole on it. It's great for
distance. The lie is good, the wind's behind him, an' if he can only hit
it clean--clean!----Oh, ye little red devil, keep your head down--keep
your head down an' hit it clean!"

I shall never forget the picture spread out along the edge of that green
plateau--the red-headed stocky youngster in the sand trap taking his
stance and whipping the clubhead back and forth; MacNeath coolly leaning
on his driver and smiling over a match already won; the two caddies in
the background, one sneeringly triumphant, the other furiously angry;
the rim of spectators, motionless, hopeless.

Everybody was watching Ambrose, and I think Old MacQuarrie was the only
onlooker who was not absolutely certain that the choice of a wrong club
was throwing away our last slender chance.

When the tension was almost unbearable the redhead turned and grinned at
MacNeath.

"I suppose you'd shoot this with an iron," said he; "but the baffy is a
great club--if you've got the nerve to use it."

Ambrose settled his feet firmly in the sand, craned his neck for a final
look at the flag, two hundred yards away, dropped his chin on his chest,
waggled the clubhead over the ball, and then swung with every ounce of
strength in his sturdy body. I heard a sharp click, saw a tiny feather
of sand spurt into the air, and against the blue sky I caught a glimpse
of a soaring white speck, which went higher and higher until I lost it
altogether. The next thing I knew, the spectators were cheering,
yelling, screaming; and some one was hammering me violently between the
shoulder blades. It was the unemotional Dunn'l MacQuarrie, gone
completely daft with excitement.

"Oh, man!" he cried. "He picked it up as clean as a whistle, an' he's on
the green--on the green!"

"Told you that was a sweet little club!" said Ambrose as he climbed out
of the trap. "Takes nerve to use one though. On the green, eh? Well, I
guess that'll hold you for a while."

His prediction soon had a solid backing of fact. MacNeath, the iron man,
the dependable Number One, the match player without nerves, was not
proof against a miracle. Ambrose's phenomenal recovery had shaken the
veteran to the soles of his shoes.

MacNeath's second shot was an easy pitch to the green, but he lingered
too long over it; the blade of his mashie caught the turf at least three
inches behind the ball and shot it off at an angle into the thick, long
grass that guards the eighteenth green. He was forced to use a heavy
niblick on his third; but the ball rolled thirty feet beyond the pin. He
tried hard for the long putt, but missed, and picked up when Ambrose
laid his third shot on the lip of the cup.

By the most fortunate fluke ever seen on a golf course our little red
Ishmael had won for us the permanent possession of the Edward B. Wimpus
Trophy.

MacNeath was game. He picked up his ball with the left hand and offered
his right to Ambrose. "Well done!" said he.

"Thanks!" responded Ambrose. "Guess I kind of jarred you with that baffy
shot. It's certainly a dandy club in a pinch. Better let MacQuarrie make
you one."

MacNeath swallowed hard and nearly managed a smile.

"It wasn't the club," said he. "It was just burglar's luck. You couldn't
do it again in a thousand years!"

"Maybe not," replied the victor; "but when you get back to Bellevue you
tell all the dear chappies there that I got away with it once--got away
with it the one time when it counted!"

At this point the gallery closed in and overwhelmed young Mr. Phipps.
Inside of a minute he heard more pleasant things about himself than had
come to his ears in a lifetime. He did not dispute a single statement
that was made; nor did he discount one by so much as the deprecating
lift of an eyebrow. For once in his life he agreed with everybody. In
the stag celebration that followed--with the Edward B. Wimpus Cup in the
middle of the big round table--he was easily induced to favour us with a
few brief remarks. He informed us that tin cups were nothing in his
young life, club spirit was nothing, but that gameness was
everything--and the cheering was led by the Dingbats!

       *       *       *       *       *

Now you know why we feel that we owe Ambrose something; and, if I am any
judge, that debt will be paid with heavy interest. Dunn'l MacQuarrie is
also a winner. He has booked so many orders for baffles that he is now
endeavouring to secure the services of a first-class club maker.

As Ambrose often tells us, the baffy is a sweet little club to have in
the bag--provided, of course, you have the nerve to use it.




THE MAJOR, D.O.S.


I

I despise the sort of man who gloats and pokes his finger at you and
reminds you that he told you so. I hope I am not in that class, and I
would be the last to rub salt into an open wound; still I see no harm in
calling attention to the fact that I once expressed an opinion which had
to do with Englishmen in general and Major Cuthbert Eustace
Lawes--D.S.O., and a lot of other initials--in particular. What is more,
that opinion was expressed in the presence of Waddles Wilmot and one
other director of the Yavapai Golf and Country Club.

"You can't tell much about an Englishman by looking at him."

Those were my very words, and I stand by them. I point to them with
pride. If Waddles had listened to me--but Waddles never listens to
anybody. Sometimes he looks as if he might be listening, when as a
matter of fact he is only resting his voice and thinking up something
cutting and clever to say next.

Speaking of Waddles, the fault is not all his. We have indulged him with
too much authority. We have allowed him to become a sort of autocrat, a
golfing Pooh-Bah, a self-appointed committee of one with arbitrary
powers. He began looking after the club when it was in its infancy, and
now that the organisation has grown to quite respectable proportions he
does not seem to know how to let go gracefully. He still looks after us,
whether we want him to or not, and if it is only the getting out of a
new score card Waddles must attend to it, having the first word, the
last word and all the words between.

If any one presumes to disagree with him Waddles merely snorts in that
disdainful way of his and goes on talking louder and louder until
finally the opposition succumbs, blown down by sheer lung power, as it
were, gassed before reaching the trenches. Wind is all right in its
place, and in moderation, but a steady gale gets on the nerves in time.
Waddles is a human simoom, carrying dust, sand and cactus.

I say this in all kindness, for I am really fond of the old boy. He has
many admirable qualities, and frequently tells us what they are, but
consideration for others is not one of them; and when he plays golf the
things he does to an opponent are sinful. He is just as ruthless and
overbearing on the links as he is in committee meeting--but of this,
more anon--much more. I made my remark about Englishmen a month or so
after the Major became a member of the club. We understood that Lawes
was a retired infantry officer in poor health, and when he arrived in
our part of the world he brought with him a Hindu servant with his head
wrapped up in about forty yards of cheesecloth, an unquenchable thirst,
some gilt-edged letters of introduction from big people, and a hobnail
liver. He was proposed by two of our financial moguls and passed the
membership committee without a whisper of dissent.

"This old bird," said Waddles, "is probably a cracking good golfer.
Nearly all Englishmen are. We can use him to plug up that weak spot on
the team." And of course he looked straight at me when he said it.
Goodness knows, I never asked to be put on the club team, and I play my
worst golf in competition.

Some of the other men thought that the Major would lend a bit of tone to
the organisation. I presume they got the idea from the string of
initials after his name.

As to his golfing, the Major proved a disappointment. He did not seem in
any haste to avail himself of the privileges of active membership, and
when at the club he spent all his time sitting on the porch and staring
at the mountains in the distance. I don't remember ever seeing him
without a tall brandy highball at his elbow.

Personally, the Major wasn't much to look at. You could just as easily
have guessed the age of a mummy. He was long-legged and cadaverous,
with thin, sandy hair and a yellowish moustache that never seemed to be
trimmed. His mouth was always slightly ajar, his front teeth were unduly
prominent, and his chin was short and receded at an acute angle. A side
view of the Major suggested a tired, half-starved old rabbit that had
lost all interest in life. His eyes were a faded light blue in colour
and blinked constantly without a vestige of human expression. He was
freckled like a turkey egg--freckled all over, but mostly on the neck
and the forearms. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was in a thin,
hesitating treble, reminiscent of a strayed sheep, and he had an
exasperating habit of leaving a sentence half finished and beginning on
another one. He could sit for hours, staring straight in front of him
and apparently seeing nothing at all. When addressed he usually jumped
half out of his chair and said something like this:

"Eh? Oh! God-bless-me! God-bless-me! What say?"

Socially he was a very mangy-looking lion, but we understood that he was
very well connected in the old country and not so stupid as he seemed.
He couldn't have been, and lived. He was a bachelor of independent
means; he bought a bungalow on Medway Hill and a six-cylinder runabout,
which the servant learned to drive, after a fearsome fashion. This put
the Major out of the winter-visitor class--which was reassuring--but as
the weeks passed and he was never seen with a golf club in his hands
Waddles began to worry about that weak spot on the team.

Three of us were watching Lawes one afternoon through a window of the
lounging room, which commands a view of the porch. The Major was spread
out in a big wicker chair, and, save for certain mechanical movements of
the right hand and arm, was as motionless as a turtle on a log. As
usual, Waddles was doing most of the talking.

"Ain't he the study in still life, eh?... With the accent on the
still--get me? Still! Ho, ho! Not bad a bit.... Gaze upon him,
gentlemen; the world's most consistent rum hound! He hasn't moved a
muscle in the last hour except to lift that glass. Wonderful type of the
athletic Englishman, what-oh? Devoted to sports and pastimes, my word,
yes! He wouldn't qualify for putting the shot, but for putting the
highball I'll back him against all comers."

"Oh, I don't know," said Jay Gilman, who is a conservative sort of chap
and knows Waddles well enough not to believe everything he says. "I
don't know. The old boy makes a drink last a long time. He doesn't order
many in the course of an afternoon. I've never seen him the least bit
edged."

"Fellow like that never gets edged," argued Waddles. "The skin stays
just so full all the time. Can't get any fuller. Did you ever try to
talk with his royal jaglets? Sociable as an oyster! I tried to get him
opened up the other day. He's been in India and Africa and everywhere
else, they tell me, and I thought he might want to gas about his
experiences. War stuff. Nothing stirring. A frost. Kidded him about the
Boers, and the way the embattled farmers hung it on perfidious Albion.
Couldn't even get a rise out of him. All he did was stare at me with
those fishy eyes of his and make motions with his Adam's apple! Ever
notice the way he watches you when you're talking to him? It's enough to
make a man nervous! A major, eh? If he was a major, I wonder what the
shave-tail lieutenants were like! D.S.O.! They got the initials balled
up when they hitched that title to him. It should have been D.O.S.!"

"All right," said Gilman; "I'll bite. I'll be the Patsy. Why D.O.S.?"

"Dismal Old Souse, of course!" cackled Waddles. "Fits him like a glove,
eh?"

It was then that I expressed my opinion, as previously quoted: "You
can't tell much about an Englishman by looking at him."

But Waddles only laughed. He usually laughs at his own witticisms.

"D.O.S.," said he. "Impromptu, but good. I'll have to tell it to the
boys!"


II

But for Cyril, I suppose the Major would have remained a chair warmer
indefinitely.

Cyril was the Major's nephew, doing a bit of globe trotting after
getting out of college, and he dropped in out of a clear sky, taking the
Major entirely by surprise. We heard later that all the Major said was,
"Bless me, it's Cyril, isn't it?"

Looking at the boy, you knew at once what the Major had been like at
twenty-five or thereabouts; so it goes without saying that Cyril was no
motion-picture type for beauty. He was tall and thin and gangling, his
feet were always in his way, his clothes did not fit him and would not
have fitted anything human, his cloth hats were really not hats at all
but speckled poultices, and he was as British as the unicorn itself. He
was almost painfully shy when among strangers, and blushed if any one
spoke to him; but his coming seemed to cheer the Major tremendously. It
hadn't occurred to me before, but I presume the D.O.S. had been lonely
for his kind. Cyril was his kind--no question about that--and the pair
of them held a love feast which lasted all of one afternoon. Waddles
witnessed this touching family reunion and told us about it afterward,
but it is likely he handled the truth in his usual nonchalant manner.
Waddles would never spoil a good story for the sake of mere accuracy.

"It was great stuff!" said he. "They sat out there on the porch and
gabbled terribly. A dumb man couldn't have got a word in edge-wise. The
Major was never at a loss for a topic of conversation. As fast as one
was exhausted he would look in his glass and say, 'Shan't we have
another, dear boy?' Friend Nephew never missed his cue once. 'Rawther!'
he'd say, or 'Right-oh!' Then the Major would hoist signals of distress
and make signs at the waiter. Oh, it was lovely to see them taking so
much comfort in each other's society--and so much nourishment."

"What I want to know is this," put in Jay Gilman: "Did it liven 'em up
any?"

"Not so you could notice it with the naked eye. For all the effect that
anybody could see, the stuff might just as well have been poured into a
pair of gopher holes. They went away at six o'clock, solemn and
dignified, loaded to capacity but not even listing the least bit from
the cargo they'd taken on. A lot of raw material wasted. That sort of
thing is inhuman--uncanny. It must be a gift that runs in
families--what?"

Before long we had a real sensation--the Major blossomed out into a
playing member. A mummy doing a song and dance wouldn't have created any
more excitement round the clubhouse. Even the caddies were talking about
it.

Sam broke the news to me while I was practising mid-iron shots on the
other side of the eighteenth green. Sam has carried my bag for years. He
is too old to be a caddie, too young to be a member of the Supreme
Court, and too wise for either job. He shoots the course in the
seventies every time he can dodge the greens keeper--play by employes
being strictly prohibited. He has forgotten more golf than I shall ever
know, and tries hard to conceal the superiority he feels, but never
quite makes the grade. You know the sort of caddie I mean--every club
has a few like Sam.

"There you go again! What did I tell you about playin' the ball too far
off your right foot? Stiffen up those wrists a bit--don't let 'em flop
so. Put some forearm into the shot, and never mind lookin' up to see
where the ball goes.... Say, that long, thin gentleman, him with the
nose and teeth--the one they call the Major, that sits on the porch so
much liftin' tall ones--I caddied for him this morning."

"You don't tell me so!"

"Yeh, I do. Sure! Him and his relative--the young fellah. Serial, ain't
it? Well, they was both out early this morning, the Major beefin' a
little about losin' his sleep, and sayin' he wouldn't make a fool of
himself for anybody else on earth; but after he connected with a few
shots he began to enjoy it and talk about what a lovely day it was goin'
to be. You know how it is: any weather looks good to you when your shots
are comin' off."

"Can he play at all?"

"Who, the Major? A shark, I tell you! That old boy has been a great
golfer in his day, and it wasn't so long ago neither. To look at him you
wouldn't think he had a full cleek shot in his system, but that's where
he'd fool you. What's more, he knows where it's goin' when he ties into
it. The young fellah plays a mighty sweet game--mighty sweet. He hits
everything clean and hard and right on the line, but give the Major a
few days' practise and he'll carry my small change every time. Knows
more golf than Serial--got more shots, and he's a whale with his irons.
He's a little wild with his wood off the tee--hooks too much and gets
into trouble--but when he straightens out that drive he'll have Serial
playin' the odd behind him. Say, it'd be great to get 'em both into the
Invitation Tournament, eh?"

Now our Invitation Tournament is the big show of the year in golfing
circles. Waddles sees to that. All members of the association are
eligible, but visitors have to have a card and an invitation as well.

Waddles always scans these visitors very closely, and if a man is known
as a cup hunter no amount of pressure can get him in. The Major, being a
member of the club, was automatically invited to participate, but Cyril
must be classed as a visitor.

I went to Waddles and told him what Sam had told me, suggesting that
here was the chance to coax the Major off the porch for good, and
perhaps get him onto the team later. I said that I thought it would be a
graceful thing to issue an invitation to Cyril without waiting for a
request from the Major.

"You poor fish!" said Waddles. "I was going to do that anyway. Do you
think I'm asleep all the time?"

That is the way with Waddles. He can catch an idea on the fly, and
before it settles he has adopted it as his own. He doesn't care a
brass-mounted continental who scared it up in the first place. Before it
lights it is his--all his. He said he didn't believe the Major was half
so good as his advance notices, and, as for the full cleek shot, he
pooh-poohed that part of the story entirely. Waddles has never mastered
the cleek, but he is a demon with a bulldog spoon or with a brassy.

"I'll do this thing--as a common courtesy to a member," said Waddles;
"but I'm not counting on the Major's golf. A man can't lay off for
months and come back playing any sort of a game."

So the invitation was issued in Cyril's name, and we went in search of
the Major. He was on the porch and Cyril was practising putts on the
clock green.

Waddles can be very formal and dignified and diplomatic when he wants to
be, and as a salve spreader he has few equals and no superiors. He pays
a compliment in such a bluff, hearty fashion that it carries with it an
air of absolute sincerity.

"Major," he began, "I can't tell you how delighted I am to hear that you
have taken up the game again. Aside from the pleasure, it is bound to
benefit your health."

"Eh?" said the Major, staring at Waddles intently. "Oh, yes! I'm feeling
quite well at present, thanks."

"And you'll feel better for taking exercise," continued Waddles. "We are
hoping that you will enter our Invitation Tournament next week. You'll
get a number of good matches, meet some charming people and make some
friends. Play begins on Wednesday."

"Ah!" said the Major.

"You can pick your own partner in the qualifying round." And here
Waddles brought out the envelope containing the invitation. "I thought
likely you might want to play with your nephew."

The Major took the envelope and opened it. After he had read the
inclosure he looked up at Waddles and smiled.

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," said he. "Most kind. Cyril will appreciate
this.... Shan't we have a drink?"

"Can you beat him?" said Waddles to me when we were back in the lounging
room. "Just about as chummy as an oyster!"

"Either that or very inattentive," said I; "but just the same I think
he'll play. Cyril will persuade him."

"I don't care a whoop whether he plays or not," growled Waddles. "I hate
a man who can't loosen up and _talk_!"

"There is only one thing worse," said I, "and that is a man who talks
too much."

Waddles took my remark as personal and wolfed at me for half an hour.
Why is it that the man who has no consideration for your feelings is
always so confoundedly sensitive about his own?


III

Flashing now to a close-up of the scores for the qualifying round, there
were two strange faces in the first sixteen--Cyril's and the
Major's--and Cyril walked off with the cup offered for low man. His
seventy-three created quite a commotion among the Class A men, but the
Major's eighty-one was what knocked them all a twister. Even Waddles was
amazed. Waddles had turned in an eighty-five, which barely got him into
the championship flight, but medal scores are nothing in Waddles' life.
Match play is where he shines--match play against a nervous opponent.

"The old rum-hound must have been shooting over his head," said Waddles.
"I'll bet he holed a lot of niblick shots."

I might have been in the fourth flight if I had not picked up my ball
after playing eleven in the ditch at the fifth hole, and by that act
eliminated myself from the tournament. I finished the round, of course,
and signed my partner's card, becoming thereafter a mere spectator and a
bit of the gallery.

Sam was disgusted with me--so much so that he refused me advice or
sympathy. As a usual thing Sam walks up on a drive and selects the club
which he thinks I should use. I may disagree with him, but I notice that
in the end I always make the shot with the club of his selection. If I
am short he tells me that I spared the shot; if I am over he says I hit
it too hard.

After the catastrophe at the fifth hole Sam stood the bag on end and
turned his back, a statue of silent contempt. When he allows me to pick
out a club I know that he has washed his hands of me; when he will not
accept a cigarette I am past praying for. I can think of nothing more
keenly humiliating than to feel myself a disappointment to a caddie like
Sam, but I have disappointed him so often that he should be getting
hardened to it by now.

The first and second rounds of match play took place on Thursday, and
the pairings put Cyril at the top of the drawing and the Major at the
bottom. When the day was over the first flight had assumed a distinctly
international aspect, for the semifinalists appeared as follows:

Waddles versus Cyril; Jay Gilman versus the Major.

Cyril had won his matches quite handily and without being pressed, but
the Major had caught a brace of seasoned campaigners, one of whom took
him to the twentieth hole before he passed out on the end of a long
rainbow putt.

Gilman had played his usual steady game--nothing brilliant about it, but
extremely dependable; and, as for Waddles, he had staggered along on the
ragged edge of defeat both morning and afternoon, annoying his opponents
as much as possible and winning quite as much with his head as with his
clubs.

The time has come to say a few brief but burning words about the way
friend Waddles plays the royal and ancient game of golf when there is
anything in sight for the victor. I trust that when he reads this he
will have the decency to remember that he had already cut my handicap to
the quick, as it were.

To begin with, Waddles has no more form than an apple woman or a Cubist
nude. He is so constructed that he cannot take a full swing to save his
immortal soul. Everything has to be wrist and forearm with Waddles, but
somehow or other he manages to snap his foolish little tee shots
straight down the middle of the course, popping them high over the
bunkers and avoiding all the traps and pits. The special providence that
cares for taxicab drivers, sailors and drunken men seems to take charge
of Waddles' ball in flight, imparting to it a tremendous overspin that
gives it distance. I never saw Waddles square away at a drive without
pitying him for his short, choppy swing; but he usually beats me about
ten yards on account of the run that he gets. I never watched him jab at
a putt without feeling certain that the ball was hit too hard to stay in
the hole; but stay it does. Waddles actually putts with an overspin, and
his ball burrows like a mole, dropping into the cup as if made of lead.

His brassy shots are just pusillanimous--there is no other word which
describes them accurately--but somehow they keep on bouncing toward the
pin. His irons run half-way and creep the rest of the distance. He
always gets better results than his shots deserve, and complains that he
should have had more. This one little trick of his is enough to drive an
opponent crazy. Every golfer knows the moral--no, immoral--effect of
going up against some one who gets more out of every shot than he puts
into it, and still is not satisfied. It is like sitting in a poker game
with a man who draws four to a deuce, makes an ace full, wins the pot,
and then wolfs because it wasn't four aces.

I never played with Waddles without feeling certain that I could show
him up on the long game, and it was straining to do it that ruined me.
Trying to pick the tail feathers out of that lame duck has ruined many a
golfer, the secret being that the duck isn't as lame as he looks.
Waddles makes 'em all press--a big factor in his match play; but there
are others, and not nearly so legitimate.

Playing the game strictly on merit, observing all the little niceties of
demeanour and the courtesies due an opponent, Waddles would be a
desperately hard man to beat; but he does not stop at merit. When he is
out to win he does not stop anywhere. He has made a lifelong study of
the various ways in which an opponent may be annoyed and put off his
game, and he is the acknowledged master of all of them.

For instance, if he plays Doc Jones, who is chatty and conversational
and likes to talk between shots, Waddles never opens his mouth once, but
plods along with a scowl on his face and his lower lip sticking out a
foot. Before long the poor little Doc begins to wonder whether he has
said anything to hurt Waddles' feelings--and that is the end of Jones.
But if Waddles plays Chester Hodge, who believes that the secret of a
winning game is concentration, he is a perfect windmill, talking to
Chester every minute, telling him funny stories, asking him questions,
and literally conversing him off his feet.

Bill Mulqueen is nervous and impatient and hates to wait on his second
shots; so when Waddles plays him he drives short and takes five minutes
to play the odd, while Bill fumes and frets and accumulates steam for
the final explosion, which never fails to strew the last nine with his
mangled remains. On the other hand, old Barrison is deliberation itself,
and Waddles beats him by playing his own shots quickly and then crowding
Barry--hurrying him up, nagging at him, riding him from shot to shot,
trying to speed up an engine that can't be speeded without racking
itself to pieces. Joe Bowhan hates to have any one moving about the tee
when he is setting himself to drive. Waddles licks him by washing his
ball fresh on every hole. Joe can't see him, but he can hear him
scouring away behind him. "Hand-laundered out of the contest again" is
what Joe tells us when he comes into the clubhouse.

Perhaps the cruelest thing Waddles ever did was in the finals of the
Spring Handicap against young Archie Gatter. The kid was inclined to
think fairly well of himself and his game, but on the day of the match
Waddles lugged a visiting golf architect round the course with him,
planning improvements in the way of traps and bunkers, discussing
various kinds of grass for the greens, arguing about soil, and paying no
attention whatever to the wretched Archie--not even watching him make
his shots. It broke the boy's heart to be ignored so completely, and he
shot the last nine holes in a fat fifty-seven, finishing a total wreck.

These are only a few of Waddles' little villainies, and the fact that he
is a consistent winner at match play bears out the theory that the best
study of golf is golfers--splitting it fifty-fifty with the late Mr.
Pope.

The most exasperating thing about Waddles is the bland, unconscious
manner in which he perpetrates these outrages upon his opponents. He
never seems aware that he is doing anything wrong or taking an unfair
advantage; he pleads thoughtlessness if driven into a corner--and gets
away with it too. You have to know Waddles very well before you are
certain that every little movement has a meaning all its own and is part
of a cold-blooded and deliberate plan of campaign.

With all these things in mind, I had a hunch that Friday's match with
Cyril would be worth watching, and I was at the clubhouse at nine in the
morning. Cyril and the Major were already there, driving practise balls.
It was generally understood that the matches in the semi-finals would
start at nine-thirty, and promptly on the dot Jay Gilman and the Major
were on their way--both of them off to perfect drives.

I waited to follow Cyril and Waddles--and a long, weary wait it was.
There is nothing which secures the angora so neatly and completely as to
be all dressed up and keyed up with nowhere to go. Have you ever seen a
boxer fretting and chafing in his corner, waiting for the champion to
put in an appearance; and did you ever stop to think that the champion,
in his dressing room, was counting on the effect of that nervous period
of inactivity? Golf is a game which demands mental poise, and Cyril was
losing his, minute by minute. He prowled all over the place, searching
for Waddles; he walked out and looked down the road toward town; he
practiced putting--and hit every shot too hard. If he had not been an
Englishman, and schooled to keep his feelings to himself, I think he
would have said something of a blistering nature.

It was eleven-fifteen when Waddles arrived, dripping apologies from
every pore. Had Cyril understood that nine-thirty was the hour? Well,
wasn't that a shame--too bad he hadn't telephoned or something! Waddles
stated--and there was and is no reason to doubt his word--that he
thought the matches were scheduled for the afternoon. He dawdled in the
locker room for a scandalously long time, while Cyril made little
journeys to the first tee and back again, growing warmer and warmer with
each trip.

When Waddles finally emerged, neatly swathed in flannels, he suggested
lunch. Cyril replied a bit stiffly that he never took food in the middle
of the day.

"And a hard match in front of you, too," said Waddles. "I couldn't think
of starting without a sandwich. Do you mind waiting while I have one?"

Cyril lied politely, but it was a terrible strain on him, and Waddles
consumed a sandwich, a glass of milk and forty-five minutes more. Then
he had to have one of his irons wrapped where the shaft had
split--another straw for the camel's back. By this time the Major and
Jay had finished their match, the Major winning on the sixteenth green.
They joined the gallery, after the usual ceremonies at the nineteenth
hole.

"Are you ready?" asked Waddles, breezing out on the first tee--and that
was rather nervy, too, seeing that Cyril hadn't been anything else for
three mortal hours.

"After you, sir," said the boy, short and sharp. He knew that he was
getting "the work," and he resented it.

It always suits Waddles to have the honour. He likes to shoot first
because his tee shot usually makes an opponent sore. He popped one of
his dinky little drives into the air, but instead of dropping into the
bunker it floated beyond it to the middle of the course and ran like a
scared rabbit.

"No distance!" grumbled Waddles, slapping his club on the tee. "No
distance. I'm all out of luck to-day."

Well, that was no more than rubbing it in by word of mouth. It produced
the desired effect, because Cyril nearly broke himself in two in an
attempt to beat that choppy half-arm swing. He swung much too hard,
didn't follow through at all, and the ball sliced into a trap far up to
the right.

"Do you know what you did then?" asked Waddles. "You tried to kill it,
you didn't follow through, and----"

"And I sliced. I know perfectly, thanks." And Cyril started down the
course, with Waddles tagging at his hip and telling him what was the
matter with his swing. Coming from a man who never took a full-arm
wallop at a ball in his life, criticism must have seemed superfluous. I
couldn't see Cyril's face, but his ears reddened.

Waddles slapped a brassy to the edge of the putting green, but Cyril,
trying for distance out of a heel print, took too much sand and barely
got back on the course again. His third reached the green, whereupon
Waddles promptly laid his ball dead for a four. Cyril missed a
twenty-footer and lost the first hole.

Again Waddles spatted out a drive that narrowly escaped a cross bunker,
but it struck on a hard spot and ran fully one hundred yards before it
stopped. Waddles knows every hard spot on the course and governs himself
accordingly.

Cyril followed through this time--followed through so vigorously that
the ball developed a hook. A cross wind helped it along into the rough
grass, leaving him a nasty second shot over shrubbery and trees. It
hadn't stopped rolling before Waddles was talking again.

"You know what you did then? Too much right hand; and your club
head----"

"Precisely," said Cyril, and left the tee almost on a dog-trot; but
Waddles trotted with him, explaining what had happened to the club
head. He was so earnest about it, so eager to be of assistance, so
persistent, that Cyril did not know how to take him. Then, to add to the
boy's discomfiture, Waddles played a perfect spoon shot, taking
advantage of the wind, and the ball stopped six feet from the pin. Only
a miracle could have saved Cyril after that, and there were no miracles
left in his system. His ball carried low from the rough, struck the limb
of a tree and glanced out of bounds. He played another, which dropped
into thick weeds, and then picked up, conceding the hole. All the way to
the third tee Waddles expounded the theory of the niblick shot out of
grass, pausing only to spat another perfect ball down the course.

It was here that Cyril left the wood in his bag and took out a cleek. He
wanted distance and he needed direction, our third hole calling for a
well-placed tee shot; but he sliced just enough to put him squarely
behind the largest tree on the entire course.

"I was sure you'd do that," said Waddles, sympathetically. "It's really
a wooden club shot, and when you took your iron I knew you were afraid
of it. Changing clubs is always a sign of weakness, don't you think so?"

Cyril mumbled something and started down the path, and at this point the
old Major, who had been lingering in the background, swung in behind him
with his first and last bit of advice.

"Keep your hair on, dear boy," he bleated. "Keep your hair on. Whatever
happens, don't get waxy."

Cyril grunted but didn't say anything, and the Major dropped to the rear
again, making queer little noises in his throat.

"Now the ideal--shot on this--hole," panted Waddles, overtaking his
victim, "is a little bit--farther to the left. A hook--doesn't hurt
you--as much--as a slice----"

"I'm not hurt yet!" snapped Cyril.

"Why, of course not!" cried Waddles with the heartiest good nature. "Of
course not--but if your ball--had been farther to the left--you wouldn't
have to play--over that tree--and----" There was more, but Cyril did not
wait to hear it.

Waddles, executing his second with mechanical precision, carried the
deep ravine with his mashie and put the ball on the green for a sure
four. Off to the right Cyril prepared to do likewise, but the tree
loomed ahead of him, his nerves were unstrung, his temper was ruffled,
and instead of going cleanly under the ball he caught the turf four
inches behind it and pitched into the ravine, where he found a lie that
was all but unplayable.

"Tough luck!" said Waddles.

Cyril turned and looked at him. I expected an outburst of some sort, but
the boy was evidently trying to keep his hair on.

"I didn't hit it," said he at length, swallowing hard. I heard an odd
choking noise behind me. It was the Major, attempting to remain calm.

"Of course you didn't hit it!" agreed Waddles. "You took a hatful of
turf; and you know why, don't you?"

Cyril groaned and plunged into the ravine.

Why follow the harrying details too closely? With the Major as chief
mourner, and Waddles holding sympathetic postmortems on all his bad
shots, Cyril suffered a complete collapse. I could have beaten him--any
one could have beaten him--and as a matter of fact he beat himself.
Having found his weak spot, Waddles never let up for an instant. Talk,
talk, talk; his flow of conversation was as irritating as a neighbour's
phonograph, and as incessant. I wondered that Cyril contained himself as
well as he did, until I remembered that it is tradition with the English
to lose as silently as they win.

The Major, who saw it all, addressed but one remark to me. It was on the
tenth hole, and Waddles was showing Cyril why he had topped an iron
shot.

"Look here," said the Major, jerking his thumb at Waddles, "does he
always do this sort of thing? Talk so much, I mean?"

I replied, and quite truthfully, that it depended on the way he felt.
The Major grunted, and that ended the conversation.

The match was wound up on the thirteenth; Cyril shook hands,
complimented Waddles on his game, and made a bee line for the
clubhouse. Nobody could blame him for not wanting to finish the round.
Waddles tagged along at his elbow, gesticulating, explaining the theory
of golf, even offering to illustrate certain shots with which Cyril had
had trouble.

The Major spent the rest of the afternoon on the porch, nursing a tall
glass and looking at the hills. After a shower Cyril joined him.

"The blooming Britons are holding a lodge of sorrow," said Waddles, who
was in high spirits. "What's the betting on the finals to-morrow?"

"I'll back the Major," spoke up Jay Gilman, "if you'll promise not to
talk the shirt off his back."

"Another dumb player, eh?" asked Waddles, grinning.

"Never opened his mouth to me but once the entire way round," answered
Jay.

"And what did he say then?"

"As near as I recall," replied Jay, "he said 'Dormie!'"

"I hate a man who can't talk!" exclaimed Waddles.

"How you must hate yourself," I suggested, and was forced to dodge a
match safe.

"Just the same," persisted Jay, "I'll take the Major's end if you'll
promise to keep your mouth shut."

"I'll accept no bets on that basis," Waddles announced. "I like a
friendly, chatty game."

"I've got you for fifty, then, and talk your head off!" And Jay laughed
until I thought he would choke. As a matter of fact, he laughed all the
rest of the afternoon.


IV

Quite a gallery turned out for the finals, and this time there was no
delay. Waddles was on hand early, and so was the Major. There was
considerable betting, for Jay Gilman insisted on backing the Major to
the limit.

"You're only doing that because he beat you," said Waddles in an injured
tone of voice.

"Make it a hundred if you want to," was Jay's come-back.

"Fifty is plenty, thanks."

"What? Not weakening already?" asked Jay. "A hundred, and no limit on
the conversation!"

"Got you!" snapped Waddles.

He would have taken the honour, too, if the Major had not beaten him to
it. The old fellow ambled out on the tee, helped himself to a pinch of
sand, patted it down carefully, adjusted his ball, and hit a screamer
dead on the pin, with just enough hook to make it run well. Then he
stepped back, clapped his hands to his waist and cackled--actually
cackled like a hen.

"Do you know," said he, addressing Waddles--"I believe I've burst my
belt! Yes, I'm quite certain I have; but don't fear, old chap. I
sha'n't be indecent. I have braces on. Ho, ho, ho!"

Waddles paused with his mouth open. At first I thought he was going to
say something, but evidently nothing occurred to him, so he teed his
ball and took his stance.

"It was an old one," said the Major. "I've worn it for ages. Given me by
Freddy Fitzpatrick. Queer chap, Fitz.... You don't mind my babbling a
little, do you? Dare say I'm a bit nervous."

"Oh, not in the least," grunted Waddles, addressing his ball. He hit his
usual drive, with the usual result, but his ball was at least forty
yards short of the Major's.

"Very fortunate, sir!" bleated the Major, following Waddles from the
tee. "Blest if I see how you do it! Your form--you don't mind criticism,
old chap?--your form is wretchedly bad. Atrocious! Your swing is
cramped, your stance is awkward, yet somehow you manage to get over the
bunkers. Extraordinary, I call it. Some day you shall teach me the
stroke if you will, eh?"

Waddles didn't say a word. He tucked his chin down into his collar and
made tracks for his ball, but there was a puzzled look in his eyes. He
didn't seem to know what to make of this sudden flood of conversation.
The Major was with him every step of the way, blatting about his friend
Fitzpatrick.

"He had a stroke like yours, old Fitz. Frightfully crippled up with
rheumatism, poor chap! Abominable golfer! No form, no swing, but the
devil's own luck.... I say, what club shall you use next? I should take
a cleek, but you don't carry one, I've noticed. Too bad. Very useful
club, but it calls for a full, clean swing. You'd boggle a cleek
horribly.... You're taking a brassy? Quite right, old chap, quite right.
I should, too, if I couldn't depend on my irons."

Waddles waved the Major aside, and pulled off his shot; but it seemed to
me that he hurried the least little bit. Perhaps he was expecting
another outburst of language. His ball stopped ten yards short of the
putting green.

"Ah!" said the Major. "You stabbed at that one, dear boy. Old Fitz
stabbed his second shots too. Nervousness, I dare say; but you haven't
the look of a man with nerves. Rather beefy for that, I should think.
Tight match, and all. Too much food, perhaps. Never can tell, eh? Old
Fitz was a gross feeder too.... Now I'm going to take an iron, and if
you don't mind I wish you'd stand behind me and tell me how to shorten
my swing a bit. I'm inclined to play an iron too strong.... A little
farther over, if you please. I don't want you where I can see you, old
chap, but I sha'n't mind your talking."

The Major pulled his mid-iron out of the bag and Waddles obliged with a
steady stream of advice, not one item of which was heeded:

"Advance that left foot a little, and don't drop your shoulder so much!
Come back a bit slower, keep your eye on the ball, start your swing
higher up----"

At this point the blade of the mid-iron connected with the ball and sent
it sailing straight for the pin--a beautiful shot, and clean as a
whistle. A white speck bounded on the green and rolled past the hole.

"You see?" cried the Major. "Too strong--oh, much too strong!"

"You're up there for a putt!" snorted Waddles. "What did you expect--at
this distance?"

"With your assistance," continued the Major, ignoring Waddles' sarcasm,
"I shall shorten my swing. You've the shortest swing I've ever seen.
Shorter than poor old Fitz's. I'm sorry about that belt, but I sha'n't
be indecent. I have braces on--suspenders, I believe you call them." He
squinted at his ball as he advanced. "Too strong. Never mind. I dare say
I shall hole the putt.... You're taking a mashie next? Tricky
shot--very, especially on a fast green."

Waddles composed himself with a visible effort and really achieved a
very fine approach shot. The ball had the perfect line to the hole, but
was three feet short of the cup.

"Never up, never in!" cackled the Major, and proceeded to sink a
three--a nasty, twisting twelve-footer, and downhill at that. There was
a patter of applause from the gallery, started by Gilman and Cyril. The
Major marched to the second tee, babbling continually:

"I owe you an apology. Never had a three there before. Never shall
again. Stroke under par, isn't it? Not at all bad for a beginning.
Better luck next time. Wish I hadn't broken this belt. Puts me off my
shots."

"What do you mean--better luck next time?" demanded Waddles, but got no
response. The Major had switched to his friend Fitzpatrick, and was
chirping about rheumatism and gout and heaven knows what all. He stopped
talking just long enough to peel off another tremendous drive, and if he
had taken the ball in his hand and carried it out on the course he
couldn't have selected a better spot from which to play his second.

It was on this tee that Waddles tried to hand the Major's stuff back to
him, probably figuring that he could stand as much conversation as his
opponent, and last longer at the repartee. He began to tell the story of
the Scotch golfer and his collie dog, which is one of the best things he
does, but I noticed that when it came time for him to drive he grunted
as he hit the ball, and when Waddles grunts it is a sign that he is
calling up the reserves. He got the same old shot and the same old run,
and would have finished the same old story, but the Major horned in with
a long-winded reminiscence of his own, and the collie was lost in the
shuffle. Another animal was lost too--a goat belonging to Waddles. He
spoke sharply to his opponent before playing his second, and then sliced
a spoon shot deep into the rough.

"Ah, too bad!" chirruped the Major. "And the grass is quite deep over
there, isn't it? Now I shall use the mid-iron again, and you shall watch
and tell me about my swing--that is, if you don't mind, old chap."

Waddles didn't mind. He told the Major enough things to rattle a wooden
Indian, and just as the club had started to descend he raised his voice
sharply. It would have made me miss the ball entirely, but it seemed to
have no effect on the Major, who did not even flinch but lined one out
to the green.

Waddles wandered off into the rough, mumbling to his caddie. The third
shot was a remarkable one. He tore the ball out of the thick grass,
raised it high in the air and put it on the green, six feet from the
cup. The Major then laid his third shot stone-dead for a four. Waddles
still had a difficult putt to halve the hole, but while he was studying
the roll of the green the Major spoke up.

"I shan't ask you to putt that," said he. "I concede you a four."

Waddles stared at him with eyes that fairly bulged.

"You--what?" said he. "You give me this putt?"

The Major nodded and walked off the green. Waddles looked first at his
ball, then at the cup, and then at the crowd of spectators. At last he
picked up and followed, and a whisper ran through the gallery. The
general impression prevailed that conceding a six-foot putt at the
outset of an important match was nothing short of emotional insanity.

Of course since he had been offered a four on the hole Waddles could do
nothing but accept it gracefully--and begin wondering why on earth his
opponent had been so generous. I dare any golfer to put himself in
Waddles' place and arrive at a conclusion soothing to the nerves and the
temper. The most natural inference was that the Major held him cheaply,
pitied him, did not fear his game.

I thought this was what the old fellow was getting at, but it was not
until they reached the third putting green that I began to appreciate
the depth of the Major's cunning and the diabolical cleverness of his
golfing strategy.

Waddles had a two-foot putt to halve the third hole--a straight, simple
tap over a perfectly flat surface--the sort of putt that he can make
with his eyes shut, ninety-nine times out of the hundred. The Major had
already holed his four, and I knew by the careless manner in which
Waddles stepped up to his ball that he expected the Major to concede the
putt. It was natural for him to expect it, since he had already been
given a difficult six-footer.

Waddles stood there, waggling his putter behind the ball and waiting for
the Major to say the word, but the word did not come. This seemed to
irritate Waddles. He looked at the Major, and his expression said, plain
as print, "You don't really insist on my making this dinky little putt?"
It was all wasted, for the Major was regarding him with a fishy
stare--looking clear through him in fact. The expectant light faded out
of Waddles' eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and gave his attention to
the shot, examining every inch of the line to the cup. It seemed to be a
straight putt, but was it? Waddles took his lower lip in his teeth and
tapped the ball very gently. It ran off to the left, missing the cup by
at least three inches.

"Aha!" chuckled the Major. "You thought I would give you that one too,
eh? Old Fitz used to say, 'Give a man a hard putt and he'll miss an easy
one. After that he'll never be sure of anything.' Extraordinary how
often it happens just that way. Seems to have an unsettling effect on
the nerves. Tricky beggar, Fitz. Won the Duffers' Cup at Bombay by
conceding a twenty-foot putt on the sixteenth green. Opponent went all
to little pieces. Finished one down, with a fifteen on the last hole.
Queer game, golf!"

"Yes," said Waddles, breathing hard, "and a lot of queer people play it.
Your honour, sir."

The Major smacked out another long one, but Waddles, boiling inside and
scarcely able to see the ball, topped his tee shot and bounded into the
bunker.

"You see what it does," said the Major. "You were still thinking about
that putt. The effect on the nerves----"

"Oh, cut it out!" growled Waddles. "Play the game right if you're going
to play it at all! Your mouth is the best club in your bag!"

The Major did not resent this in the least; paid no attention in fact.
He toddled away, blatting intermittently about his friend Fitz, and
Waddles knocked half the sand out of the bunker before he finally
emerged, spitting gravel and adjectives. Sore was no name for it! He
lost the hole, of course, making him three down.

The rest of the contest was interesting, but only from a psychological
point of view. Evidently considering that he had a safe lead the Major
cut out the conversation and the horseplay and settled down to par golf.
There was no lack of talk, however, for Waddles erupted constantly.
Braced by the thought that he was annoying his opponent by these verbal
outbursts, he managed to halve four holes in a row, but on the ninth
green he missed another short putt. In the explosion that followed he
blew off his safety valve completely, and the rest of the match
degenerated into a riotous procession, so far as noise was concerned.

The thing I could not understand was that the Major held on the even
tenour of his way, unruffled and serene as a June morning. The louder
Waddles talked the better the old fellow seemed to like it. Never once
did he seem disturbed; never once did he hesitate on a shot. With calm,
mechanical precision he proceeded to go through Waddles like a cold
breeze, and the latter was so busy thinking up things to say that he
flubbed disgracefully, and was beaten on the thirteenth green, seven and
five.

Well, Waddles may have his faults, but losing ungracefully is not one of
them. He will fight you to the very last ditch, but once the battle is
over he declares peace immediately. He walked up to the Major and held
out his hand. He grinned, too, though I imagine it hurt his face to do
it.

"You're all right, Major!" said he. "You're immense! You licked me and
you made me like it. If I had your nerves--if I could concentrate on my
shots and not let anything bother me----"

Some one behind me laughed. It was Jay Gilman.

"It has been a pleasure, dear chap," said the Major. "A pleasure, I
assure you!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Several of us had dinner at the club that night, Jay offering to give
the party because of the money he had won from Waddles. When the coffee
came on, America's representative in the finals attempted to explain his
defeat.

"The Major began the gab-fest," said Waddles. "He started off chattering
like a magpie and trying to rattle me, and naturally I went back at him
with the same stuff. Fair for one as for the other, eh? I'll admit that
he out-generalled me by giving me that putt on the second hole, but the
thing that finally grabbed my angora was his infernal concentration.
Never saw anything like it! Why, he actually asked me to stand behind
him and criticise his swing--while he was shooting, mind you? Asked me
to do it! And when I saw that he went along steady as the rock of
Gibraltar--well, I blew, that's all. I went to pieces. The thing reacted
on me. I'll bet that old rascal could listen to you all day long-and
never top a ball!"

"You'd lose that bet," said Jay quietly.

"How do you mean--lose it?" demanded Waddles, bristling. "I talked my
head off, and he didn't top any, did he?"

"No; and he didn't listen any, either. As a matter of fact, you could
have fired a cannon off right at his hip without making him miss a
shot."

"You don't mean to tell me----" said Waddles, gaping.

Jay laughed unfeelingly.

"You had a fat chance of talking the old Major out of anything!" said
he. "He hasn't advertised it much, because he's rather sensitive about
his affliction; but he's----"

"Deaf!" gulped Waddles.

"As a post," finished Jay.

Waddles' jaw dropped.

There was a long, painful silence.

Then Waddles crooked his finger at the waiter.

"Boy!" he called. "Bring me this dinner check!"




A MIXED FOURSOME


I

When the returns were all in, a lot of people congratulated the winners
of the mixed-foursome cups, after which the weak-minded ones sympathised
with Mary Brooke and Russell Davidson.

Sympathy is a wonderful thing, and so rare that it should not be wasted.
Any intelligent person might have seen at a glance that Mary didn't need
sympathy; and as for Russell Davidson, there never was a time when he
deserved it.

And in all this outpouring of sentiment, this hand-shaking and
back-patting, nobody thought to offer a kind word to old Waddles. Nobody
shook him by the hand and told him that he was six of the seven wonders
of the world. It seems a pity, now that I look back on it.

Possibly you remember Waddles. He was, is, and probably always will be,
an extremely important member of the Yavapai Golf and Country Club.
Important, did I say? That doesn't begin to express it.
Omnipotent--that's better.

To begin with, he is chairman of the Greens Committee, holding dominion
over every blade of grass which grows on the course. He is intimately
acquainted with every gopher hole, hoofprint and drain cover on the club
property. Policing two hundred broad acres is a strong man's job, but
Waddles attends to it in his spare moments. He waves his pudgy hand and
says: "Let there be a bunker here," and lo! the bunker springs up as if
by magic. He abolishes sand traps which displease him, and creates new
ones. The heathen may rage, and sometimes they do, but Waddles holds on
the even tenor of his way, hearing only one vote, and that vote his own.

Then again, he is the official handicapper--another strong man's
job--with powers which cannot be overestimated. Some handicappers are
mild and apologetic creatures who believe in tempering justice with
mercy and pleasing as many people as possible, but not our Waddles.

Heaven pity the wily cup hunter who keeps an improved game under cover
in order that he may ease himself into a competition and clean up the
silverware!

Waddles hates a cup hunter with a deep and abiding hatred and deals with
him accordingly. There was once an 18-handicap man who waltzed blithely
through our Spring Handicap, and his worst medal round was something
like 85. His fat allowance made all his opponents look silly and he
took home a silver water pitcher worth seventy-five dollars.

This was bad enough, but he crowned his infamy by boasting openly that
he had outwitted Waddles. The next time the cup hunter had occasion to
glance at the handicap list he received a terrible shock.

"Waddy," said this person--and there were tears in his eyes and a sob in
his voice--"you know that I'll never be able to play to a four handicap,
don't you?"

"Certainly," was the calm response.

"Then what was the idea of putting me at such a low mark?"

"Well," said Waddles with a sweet smile, "I don't mind telling you, in
strict confidence: I cut you down to four to keep you honest."

The wretched cup hunter howled like a wolf, but it got him nothing. He
is still a four man, and if he lives to be as old as the Dingbats he
will never take home another trophy.

Not only is Waddles supreme on the golf course but he dominates the
clubhouse as well. He writes us tart letters about shaking dice for
money and signs them "House Committee, per W." Really serious matters
are dealt with in letters signed "Board of Directors, per W." The old
boy is the law and the prophets, the fine Italian hand, the mailed fist,
the lord high executioner and the chief justice, and if he misses you
with one barrel he is sure to get you with the other.

You might think that this would be power enough for one weak mortal. You
might think that there are some things which Waddles would regard as
beyond his jurisdiction. You might think that the little god of love
would come under another dispensation--you might think all these things,
but you don't know our Waddles. He is afflicted with that strange malady
described by the immortal Cap'n Prowse as "the natural gift of
authority," and such a man recognises no limits, knows no boundaries,
and wouldn't care two whoops if he did. Come to think of it, the Kaiser
is now under treatment for the same ailment.

Since I have given you some faint conception of Waddles and his
character I will proceed with the plain and simple tale of Mary Brooke,
Bill Hawley and Russell Davidson. Beth Rogers was in the foursome too,
but she doesn't really count, not being in love with any one but
herself.


II

Ladies first is a safe rule, so we will start with Mary.
My earliest recollection of this young woman dates back
twenty-and-I-won't-say-how-many-more years, at which time she
entertained our neighbourhood by reciting nursery rimes--"Twinka,
twinka, yitty tar," and all the rest of that stuff.

I knew then that she was an extremely bright child for her age. Her
mother told me so. I used to hold her on my lap and let her listen to my
watch, and the cordial relations which existed then have lasted ever
since. She doesn't sit on my lap any more, of course, but you understand
what I mean.

I watched Mary lose her baby prettiness and her front teeth. I watched
her pass through that distressing period when she seemed all legs and
freckles, to emerge from it a different being--only a little girl still,
but with a trace of shyness which was new to me, and a look in her eyes
which made me feel that I must be growing a bit old.

About this time I was astounded to learn that Mary had a beau. It was
the Hawley kid, who lived on the next block. His parents had named him
William, after an uncle with money, but from the time he had been able
to walk he had been called Bill. He will always be called Bill, because
that's the sort of fellow he is.

As I remember him at the beginning of his love affair Bill was somewhat
of a mess, with oversized hands and feet, a shock of hair that never
would stay put, and an unfortunate habit of falling all over himself at
critical moments. He attached himself to Mary Brooke with all the
unselfish devotion of a half-grown Newfoundland pup, minus the pup's
rough demonstrations of affection.

He carried Mary's books home from school, he took her to the little
neighbourhood parties, he sent her frilly pink valentines, and
once--only once--he stripped his mother's rose garden because it was
Mary's birthday. It also happened to be Mrs. Hawley's afternoon to
entertain the whist club, and she had been counting on those roses for
decorations. If my memory serves me, she allowed Mary to keep the
flowers, but she stopped the amount of a florist's bill out of her son's
allowance of fifty cents a Week. The Hawley's are all practical people.

Mary's father used to fuss and fume and say that he hoped Bill would get
over it and park his big clumsy feet on somebody else's front porch, but
I don't think he really minded it as much as he pretended he did. Mrs.
Brooke often remarked that since it had to be somebody she would rather
it would be Bill than any other boy in the neighbourhood. Even in those
days there was something solid and dependable about Bill Hawley; he was
the sort of kid that could be trusted, and more of a man at sixteen than
some fellows will ever be.

During Mary's high-school days several boys carried her books, but not
for long, and Bill was always there or thereabouts, waiting patiently in
the background. When another youngster had the front porch privilege
Bill did not sulk or rock the boat, and if the green-eyed monster was
gnawing at his vitals there were no outward signs of anguish. We always
knew when one of Mary's little affairs was over because Bill would be
back on the job, nursing his shin on Brooke's front steps and filling
the whole block with an air of silent devotion. I suppose he grew to be
a habit with Mary; such things do happen once in a while.

Then Bill went away to college, and while he was struggling for a
sheepskin Mary entered the debutante period. Some of the women said that
she wasn't pretty, but they would have had a hard time proving it to a
jury of men. Her features may not have been quite regular, but the
general effect was wonderfully pleasing; so the tabbies compromised by
calling her attractive. They didn't have a chance to say anything else,
because Mary was always the centre of a group of masculine admirers, and
if that doesn't prove attraction, what does?

In addition to her good looks she was bright as a new dollar--so bright
that she didn't depend entirely on her own cleverness but gave you a
chance to be clever yourself once in a while. Mary Brooke knew when to
listen. She listened to Waddles once, from one end of a country-club
dinner to the other, and he gave her the dead low down on the reformer
in politics--a subject on which the old boy is fairly well informed. I
think his fatherly interest in her dated from that evening--and
incidentally let me say it was the best night's listening that Mary ever
did, because if Waddles hadn't been interested--but that's getting ahead
of the story.

"There's something to that little Brooke girl!" he told me afterward. "A
society bud with brains! Who'd have thought it?"

Bill came ambling home from time to time and picked up the thread of
friendship again. It grieves me to state that an Eastern college did not
improve his outward appearance to any marked extent. He looked nothing
at all like the young men we see in the take-'em-off-the-shelf clothing
ads. He was just the same old Bill, with big hands and big feet and more
hair than he could manage. He danced the one-step, of course--the only
dance ever invented for men with two left feet--but his conception of
the fox trot would have made angels weep, and I never realised how much
hesitation could be crowded into a hesitation waltz until I saw Bill
gyrate slowly and painfully down the floor. Mary always seemed glad to
see him, though, and we heard whispers of an engagement, to be announced
after Bill had made his escape from the halls of learning. Like most of
the whispering done, this particular whisper lacked the vital element of
truth, but the women had a lovely time passing it along.

"Isn't it just too perfectly ideal--sweethearts since childhood! Think
of it!"

"Yes, we so seldom see anything of the sort nowadays."

"There's one advantage in that kind of match--they won't have to get
acquainted with each other after marriage."

"Well, now, I don't know about that. Doesn't one always find that one
has married a total stranger? Poor, dear Augustus! I thought I knew him
so well, but----"

And so forth, and so on, by the hour. Give a woman a suspicion, and
she'll manage to juggle it into a certainty. Shortly before Bill's
graduation, the dear ladies at the country club had the whole affair
settled, even to the probable date of the wedding, and of course Mary
heard the glad news. Naturally, she was annoyed. It annoys any young
woman to find the most important event of her life arranged in advance
by people who have never taken the trouble to consult her about any of
the details.

At this point I am forced to dip into theory, because I can't say what
took place inside Mary's pretty little head. I don't know. Perhaps she
wanted to teach the gossips a lesson. Perhaps she resented having a
husband pitchforked at her by public vote; but however she figured it
she needn't have made poor old Bill the goat, and she needn't have
fallen in love with Russell Davidson. Waddles says it wasn't love at
all--merely an infatuation; but what I'd like to know is this: How are
you going to tell one from the other when the symptoms are identical?


III

Personally, I haven't a thing in the world against Russell Davidson. He
never did me an injury and I hope he will never do me a favour. Russell
is the sort of chap who is perfectly all right if you happen to like the
sort of chap he is. I don't, and that's the end of the matter so far as
I am concerned.

He hasn't been with us very long, and still it seems long enough. He
came West to grow up with the country, arriving shortly before Bill's
graduation, and he brought with him credentials which could not be
overlooked, together with an Eastern golf rating which caused Waddles to
sit up and take notice.

Ostensibly Russell is in the brokerage business, but he doesn't seem to
work much at it. Those who know tell me that it isn't necessary for him
to work much at anything, his father having attended to that little
matter. Some of the dear ladies were mean enough to hint that Mary had
this in mind, but they'll never get me to believe it.

At any rate the gossips soon had a nice juicy topic for conversation,
and when Bill came home, wagging his sheepskin behind him, he found the
front-porch privilege usurped by a handsome stranger who seemed quite at
home in the Brooke household, and, unless I'm very much mistaken,
inclined to resent Bill's presence on the premises.

It just happened that I was walking up and down the block smoking an
after-dinner cigar on the evening when Bill discovered that he was
slated for second-fiddle parts again. Russell's runabout was standing
in front of the Brooke place, there was a dim light in the living room,
and an occasional tenor wail from the phonograph. I heard quick,
thumping footsteps, a big, lumbering figure came hurrying along the
sidewalk--and there was Bill Hawley, grinning at me in the moonlight.

"Attaboy!" he cried, shaking hands vigorously. "How're you? How're all
the folks? Gee, it's great to be home again! How's Mary?"

"She's fine," said I. "Haven't you seen her yet?"

"Just got in on the Limited at five o'clock. Thought I'd surprise her.
Got a thousand things to tell you. Well, see you later!"

He went swinging up the front steps and rang the bell.

I was finishing my cigar when Bill came out again and started slowly
down the walk. His wonderful surprise party had not lasted more than
twenty minutes. I had to hail him twice before he heard me. We took a
short walk together, and reached the end of the block before Bill opened
his mouth. On the corner Bill swung round and faced me: "Who is that
fellow?" It wasn't a question; it was a demand for information.

"What fellow?"

"Davis, or Davidson, something like that. Who is he?"

There wasn't a great deal I could tell him. Bill listened till I got to
the end of my string, with a perfectly wooden expression on his homely
countenance. Then for the first, last and only time he expressed his
opinion of Russell Davidson.

"Humph!" said he. And after a long pause: "Humph!"

You may think that a grunt doesn't express an opinion, but as a matter
of fact it's one of the most expressive monosyllables in any language.
It can be made to mean almost anything. A ten-minute speech with a lot
of firecracker adjectives wouldn't have made Bill's meaning any clearer.

The two grunts which came out of Bill's system were fairly dripping with
disapproval.

"It's a wonderful night." I felt the need of saying something. "Must be
quite a relief after all that humidity in the East."

"Uh huh."

"I understand you played pretty good golf on the college team, Bill."

"Uh huh."

"We've made a lot of improvements out at the club. You won't know the
last nine now."

"Uh huh."

I couldn't resist the temptation of slipping a torpedo under his bows. I
thought it might wake him up a trifle.

"Mary is playing a better game now. Davidson has been teaching her some
shots."

Bill wanted to open up and say something, but he didn't know how to go
about it. He looked at me almost piteously and I felt ashamed of myself.

"I'll be going now," he mumbled. "Haven't had much sleep the last few
nights. Never sleep on a train anyway. See you later."

That was all I got out of him, but it was enough. It wasn't any of my
affair, of course, but from the bottom of my heart I pitied the big,
clumsy fellow. I felt certain that Mary was giving him the worst of it,
and taking the worst of it herself, but what could I do? Absolutely
nothing. In life's most important game the spectators are not encouraged
to sit on the side lines and shout advice to the players.

As for Bill, I think he fought it out with himself that night and
decided to return to his boyhood policy of watchful waiting. It wasn't
the first time that he had lost the front-porch privilege, and in the
past he had won it back again by keeping under cover and giving the
incumbent a chance to become tiresome. Bill declined to play the
second-fiddle parts; he took himself out of Mary's orchestra entirely.
He did not call on her any more; but I am willing to bet any sum of
money, up to ten dollars, that Bill knew how many times a week Russell's
runabout stood in front of the Brooke place. Five would have been a fair
average.

Russell had things all his own way, and before long we began to hear the
same vague whisperings of a wedding, coupled with expressions of
sympathy for Bill. Bill heard those whisperings too--trust the dear
ladies for that--but he listened to everything with a good-natured grin,
and even succeeded in fooling a portion of the female population; but he
didn't fool Waddles and he didn't fool me. Bill met Mary at dinner
parties and dances now and then, and whenever this happened the women
watched every move that he made, and were terribly disappointed because
he failed to register deep grief; but Bill never was the sort to wear
his heart outside his vest. Russell was very much in evidence at all
these meetings, for he took Mary everywhere, and Bill was scrupulously
polite to him--the particular brand of politeness which makes a real man
want to fight. And thus the summer waned, and the winter season came
on--for in our country we have only two seasons--and it was in November
that old Waddles finally unbuttoned his lip and informed me that young
Mr. Davidson would never do.

It was in the lounging room at the country club. We had finished our
round, and I had paid Waddles three balls as usual. It never costs less
than three balls to play with him. We were sitting by the window,
acquiring nourishment and looking out upon the course. In the near
foreground Russell Davidson was teaching Mary Brooke the true inwardness
of the chip shot. He wasn't having a great deal of luck. Waddles broke
the silence by grunting. It was a grunt of infinite disgust. I searched
my pockets and put a penny on the table.

"For your thoughts," said I.

"They're worth more than that," said Waddles.

"Not to me."

There was a period of silence and then Waddles grunted again.

"Get it off your chest," I advised him.

"That fellow," said Waddles, indicating Russell with a jerk of his
thumb, "gives me a pain."

"And me," said I.

"I thought Mary Brooke had some sense," complained Waddles; "but I see
now that she's like all the rest--anything with a high shine to it is
gold. Now the pure metal often has a dull finish."

"Meaning Bill?" I asked.

"Meaning Bill. He isn't much to look at, but he's on the level, and he
worships the very ground she walks on. Why can't she see it?"

"Why can't any woman see it?" I asked him.

"But somebody ought to tell her! Somebody ought to put her wise!
Somebody----"

"Well," I interrupted, "why don't you volunteer for the job?"

"Oh, Lord!" groaned Waddles. "It's one of the things that can't be done.
Tell her and you'd only make matters that much worse. And I thought Mary
Brooke had brains!"

There was a long break in the conversation, during which Waddles munched
great quantities of pretzels and cheese. Then:

"I wasn't much stuck on that Davidson person the first time I saw him!"
His tone was the tone of a man who seeks an argument. "He's a good
golfer, I admit that, but he's a cup hunter at heart, he's a rotten hard
loser, and--well, he's not on the level!"

"You've been opening his mail?" I asked.

"Not at all. Listen! You know the Santa Ynez Gun Club? Well, he's joined
that, among other things. He's a cracking good duck shot. I was down
there the other night, and we had a little poker game."

"A little poker game?" said I.

"Table stakes," corrected Waddles. "Davidson was the big winner."

"You're not hinting----"

"Nothing so raw as that. Listen! Joe Herriman was in the game, and
playing in the rottenest luck you ever saw. Good hands all the time,
understand, but not quite good enough. If he picked up threes he was
sure to run into a straight, and if he made a flush there was a full
house out against him. Enough to take the heart out of any man. Finally
he picked up a small full before the draw--three treys and a pair of
sevens. Joe opened it light enough, because he wanted everybody in, but
the only man who stayed was Davidson, who drew one card. After the draw
Joe bet ten dollars for a feeler, and Davidson came back at him with
the biggest raise of the night--a cool hundred."

"Well," said I, "what was wrong with that?"

"Wait. The hundred-dollar bet started Joe to thinking. He had been
bumping into topping hands all the evening, and Davidson knew it.

"'If I were you,' says Davidson in a nice kind tone of voice, 'I
wouldn't call that bet. Luck is against you to-night, and I'd advise
you, as a friend, to lay that pat hand down and forget it.'

"Joe looked at him for a long time and then he looked at his cards; you
see he'd been beaten so often that he'd lost his sense of values.

"'You think I hadn't better play these?' asks Joe.

"'I've given you a tip,' says Davidson. 'I hate to see a man go up
against a sure thing.'

"'Well,' says Joe at last, 'I guess you've done me a favour. It wasn't
much of a full anyway,' and he spread his hand on the table. Davidson
didn't show his cards--he pitched 'em into the discard and raked in the
pot--not more than fifteen dollars outside of his hundred."

"And what of that?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," said Waddles; "nothing, only I was dealing the next hand,
and I arranged to get a flash at the five cards that Davidson tried to
bury in the middle of the deck."

"What did he have?"

Waddles snorted angrily.

"Four diamonds and a spade! A four flush, that's what he had! The two
sevens alone would have beaten him! And all that sympathetic talk, that
bum steer, just to cheat the big loser out of one measly pot! What do
you think of a fellow who'd do a trick like that?"

I told him what I thought, and again there was silence and cheese.

"Do you think Mary is going to marry that--that crook?" demanded
Waddles.

"That's what they say."

More cheese.

"I'd like to tell her," said Waddles thoughtfully, "but it's just one of
the things that isn't being done this season. I'd like to give her a
line on that handsome scalawag--before it's too late. I can't waltz up
to her and tell her that he's bogus. There must be some other way. But
how? How?"

Waddles sighed and attacked the cheese again. You'd hardly think that a
man could get an inspiration out of the kind of cheese that our House
Committee buys to give away, but before Waddles left the club that
evening he informed me that a mixed-foursome tournament wouldn't be half
bad--for a change.

"You won't get many entries," said I. "You know how the men fight shy of
any golf with women in it."

"Don't want many."

"Then why a tournament?" I asked. "The entry fees won't pay for the
cups."

"I'm giving the cups," said Waddles, and investigated the cheese bowl
once more. "Two of 'em. One male cup and one female cup. About sixteen
dollars they'll set me back, but I've an idea--just a sneaking,
lingering scrap of a notion--that I'll get my money's worth."

And he went away mumbling to himself and blowing cracker crumbs out of
his mouth.


IV

Of course you know the theory of the mixed foursome. There are four
players, two men and two women, and each couple plays one ball. It
sounds very simple. Miss Jones and Mr. Brown are partners. Miss Jones
drives, and it is up to Mr. Brown to play the next shot from where the
ball lies, after which Miss Jones takes another pop at the pill, and so
on until the putt sinks. Yes, it sounds like an innocent pastime, but of
all forms of golf the mixed foursome carries the highest percentage of
danger and explosive material. It is the supreme test of nerves and
temper, and the trial-by-acid of the disposition.

In our club there is an unwritten law that no wife shall be partnered
with her husband in a mixed-foursome match, because husbands and wives
have a habit of saying exactly what they think about each other--a
practise which should be confined to the breakfast table. There was a
case once--but let us avoid scandal. She has a new husband and he has a
new wife.

Waddles' mixed-foursome tournament was scheduled for a Thursday, and it
was amazing how many of the male members discovered that imperative
business engagements would keep them from participating in the contest.
The women were willing enough to play--they always are, bless 'em!--but
it was only after a vast amount of effort and Mexican diplomacy that
Waddles was able to lead six goats to the slaughter. Six, did I say?
Five. Russell Davidson needed no urging.

The man who gave Waddles the most trouble was Bill Hawley. Bill was
polite about it, but firm--oh, very firm. He didn't want any mixed
foursomes in his young life, thank you just the same. More than that, he
was busy. Waddles had to put it on the ground of a personal favour
before Bill showed the first sign of wavering.

When I arrived at the club on Thursday noon I found Waddles sweating
over the handicaps for his six couples. Now it is a cinch to handicap
two women or two men if they are to play as partners, but to handicap a
woman and a man is quite another matter, and all recognised rules go by
the board. I watched the old boy for some time, but I couldn't make head
or tail of his system. Finally I asked him how he handicapped a mixed
foursome.

"With prayer," said Waddles. "With prayer, and in fear and trembling.
And sometimes that ain't any good."

I noted that he had given Mary Brooke and Russell Davidson the lowest
mark--10. Beth Rogers and Bill Hawley were next with 16, and the other
couples ranged on upward to the blue sky.

"Of course," I suggested, "the low handicap is something of a
compliment, but haven't you slipped Davidson a bit the worst of it?"

"Not at all," growled Waddles. "He was just crazy to get into this
thing, and he wouldn't have been unless he figured to have a cinch;
consequently, hence and by reason of which I've given him a mark that'll
make him draw right down to his hand. He won't play any four-flush
here." Waddles then arranged the personnel of the foursomes, and jotted
down the order in which they would leave the first tee. When I saw which
quartette would start last I offered another suggestion.

"You're not helping Bill's game any," said I. "You know that he doesn't
like Davidson, and----"

Waddles stopped me with his frozen-faced, stuffed-owl stare. In deep
humiliation I confess that at the time I attributed it to his distaste
for criticism. I realise now that it must have been amazement at my
stupidity.

"Excuse me for living," said I with mock humility.

"There is no excuse," said Waddles heavily.

Bill turned up on the tee at the last moment, and if he didn't like the
company in which he found himself he masked his feelings very well.

"How do, Mary? Beth, this is a pleasure. How are you, Davidson? Ladies
first, I presume?"

"Drive, Miss Rogers," said Davidson.

Now a fluffy blonde is all right, I suppose, if she wears a hair net.
Beth doesn't, and her golden aureole would make a Circassian woman
jealous. Still, there are people who think Beth is a beauty. I more than
half suspect that Beth is one of them. Beth drove, and the ball plumped
into the cross bunker.

"Oh, partner!" she squealed. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"That's all right," Bill assured her. "I've often been in there myself.
Takes a good long shot to carry that bunker."

"It's perfectly dear of you to say so!"

"Fore!" said Mary, who was on the tee, and the conversation ceased.

"Better shoot to the left," advised Russell, "and go round the end of
the bunker."

Mary stopped waggling her club to look at him. If there is anything in
which the female of the golfing species takes sinful pride it is the
length of her drive. She likes to stand up on a tee used by the men and
smack the ball over the cross bunker. She wouldn't trade a
two-hundred-yard drive for twenty perfect approach shots. She may be a
wonder on the putting green, but she offers herself no credit for that.
It is the long tee shot that takes her eye--the drive that skims the
bunker and goes on up the course. Waddles says the proposition of sex
equality has a bearing on the matter, but I claim that it is just
ordinary, everyday pride in being able to play a man's game, man
fashion.

Coming from a total stranger, that suggestion about driving to the left
would have been regarded as a deadly insult; coming from Russell----

"But I think I can carry it," said Mary with a tiny pout.

"Change your stance and drive to the left." The suggestion had become a
command.

"Fore!" said Mary again--and whacked the ball straight into the
bunker--straight into the middle of it.

"Now, you see?" Russell was aggravated, and showed it. "If you had
changed your stance and put that ball somewhere to the left you might
have given me a chance to reach the green. As it is----"

He was still enlarging upon her offence as they moved away from the tee.
Mary did not answer him, but she gave Beth a bright smile, as much as to
say, "What care I?" Bill trailed along in the rear, juggling a niblick,
his homely face wiped clean of all expression.

There wasn't much to choose between the second shots--both lies were
about as bad as could be--but Russell got out safely and Bill
duplicated the effort.

Beth then elected to use her brassy, and sliced the ball into the long
grass. Of course she had to wail about it.

"Isn't that just too maddening? Partner, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't you care," grinned Bill. "That's just my distance with a mashie.
And as for long grass, I dote on it."

Mary was taking her brassy out of the bag when Russell butted in
again--with excellent advice, I must confess.

"You can't reach the green anyway," said he, "so take an iron and keep
on the course."

There was a warning flash in Mary's eye which a wiser man would not have
ignored.

"Remember you've got a partner," urged Russell. "Take an iron, there's a
good girl."

"Oh, Russell! Do be still; you fuss me so!"

"But, my dear! I'm only trying to help----"

The swish of the brassy cut his explanation neatly in two, and the ball
went sailing straight for the distant flag--a very pretty shot for any
one to make.

"Oh, a peach!" cried Bill. "A peach!"

"And you," said Mary, turning accusingly to Russell, "you wanted me to
take an iron!"

"Because you can keep straighter with an iron," argued Davidson.

"Wasn't that ball straight enough to please you?" asked Mary with just a
touch of malice.

"You had luck," was the ungracious response, "but it doesn't follow that
all your wooden-club shots will turn out as well. The theory of the
mixed foursome is to leave your partner with a chance to hit the ball."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Beth. "Now you're making me feel like a criminal!"

"Lady," said Bill, "if I don't mind, why should you?"

"I think you're an angel!" gushed Beth.

"Yep," replied Bill, "I am; but don't tell anybody."

While Mary and Russell were discussing the theory of the mixed foursome
old Bill made a terrific mashie shot out of the grass, and the ball
reached the edge of the green. Beth applauded wildly, Mary chimed in,
but Davidson did not open his mouth. He was irritated, and made no
secret of it, but his irritation did not keep him from dropping the next
shot on the putting green.

Bill didn't even blink when Beth took her putter and overran the hole by
ten feet. Beth said she knew he'd never, never speak to her again in
this world, and she couldn't blame him if he didn't.

"Well," said Bill cheerfully, "you gave the ball a chance, anyhow.
That's the main thing. It's better to be over than short."

"You're a perfect dear!" said Beth. "I'll do better--see if I don't."

Mary then prepared to putt, Russell's approach having left her twelve
feet short of the hole. "And be sure to get it there," cautioned her
partner. "It's uphill, you know. Allow for it."

Mary bit her lip and hit the grass an inch behind the ball. It rolled
something less than four feet.

"Hit the ball! Hit the ball!" snapped Russell angrily. "What's the
matter with you to-day?"

Mary apologised profusely--probably to keep Russell quiet; and she
laughed too--a dry, hard little laugh that didn't have any fun in it.
Bill glared at Davidson for an instant, and his mouth opened, but he
swallowed whatever impulse was troubling him, and carefully laid his
ball on the lip of the cup for a two-inch putt that not even Beth could
have missed. Russell then holed his long one, which seemed to put him in
a better humour, and the men started for the second tee. In mixed
foursomes the drive alternates.

Mary and Beth took the short cut used by the caddies, and I followed
them at a discreet distance. Mary babbled incessantly about everything
in the world but golf, which was her way of conveying the impression
that nothing unusual had happened; and Beth, womanlike, helped her out
by pretending to be deeply interested in what Mary was saying. And yet
they tell you that if women could learn to bluff they would make good
poker players!

As I waited for the men to drive I thought of the Mary Brooke I used to
know--the leggy little girl with her hair in pigtails--and I remembered
that in those days she would stand just so much teasing from the boys,
and then somebody would be slapped--hard. Had she changed so much, I
wondered?

On the third hole Russell began nagging again, and Bill's face was a
study. For two cents I think he would have choked him. Mary tried to
carry it off with a smile, but it was a weak effort. Nothing but
absolute obedience and recognition of his right to give orders would
satisfy Russell.

"It's no use your telling me now that you're sorry," he scolded after
Mary had butchered a spoon shot on Number Three. "You won't take advice
when it's offered. I told you not to try that confounded spoon. A spoon
is no club for a beginner."

Mary gasped.

"But--I'm not a beginner! I've been playing ever and ever so long! And I
like that spoon."

"I don't care what you like. If we win this thing you must do as I say."

"Oh! So that's it--because you want to win?"

"What do you think I entered for--exercise? Nothing to beat but a lot of
dubs--and you're not even trying!"

"Bill is no dub." Mary flared up a bit in defence of her old friend.

"Ho!" sneered Russell. "So you call him Bill, do you?"

I lost the thread of the conversation there because Mary lowered her
voice, but she must have told the young man something for the good of
his soul. Anyway he was in a savage frame of mind when he stepped on the
fourth tee. He wanted to quarrel with some one, but it wouldn't have
been healthy to pick on old Bill, and Russell probably realised it. Bill
hadn't spoken to him since the first hole, and to be thus calmly ignored
was fresh fuel on a smouldering fire.

There was another explosion on Number Four--such a loud one that
everybody heard it.

"There you go again!" snarled Russell. "I give you a perfect drive--I
leave you in a position where all you have to do is pop a little mashie
over a bunker to the green--and see what a mess you've made of it! I'm
sorry I ever entered this fool tournament!"

"I'm sorry too," said Mary quietly, and walked away from him leaving him
fuming.

It must have been an uncomfortable situation for Beth and Bill. They
kept just as far away from the other pair as they could--an exhibition
of delicacy which I am sure Mary appreciated--and pretended not to hear
the nasty things Russell said, though there were times when Bill had to
hide his clenched fists in his coat pockets. He wanted to hit
something, and hit it hard, so he took it out on the ball, with
excellent results. And no matter what Beth did or did not do Bill never
had anything for her but a cheery grin and words of encouragement. They
got quite chummy, those two, and once or twice I thought I surprised
resentment in Mary's eye. I may have been mistaken.

Russell grew more rabid as the round proceeded, possibly because Mary's
manner was changing. After the seventh hole, where Russell said it was a
waste of time to try to teach a woman anything about the use of a wooden
club, Mary made not the slightest attempt to placate him. She
deliberately ignored his advice, and did it smilingly. She became very
gay, and laughed a great deal--too much, in fact--and of course her
attitude did not help matters to any appreciable extent. A bully likes
to have a victim who cringes under the lash.

The last nine was painful, even to a spectator, and if Russell Davidson
had been blessed with the intelligence which God gives a goose he would
have kept his mouth shut; but no, he seemed determined to force Mary to
take some notice of his remarks. The strangest thing about it was that
some fairly good golf was played by all hands. Even fuzzy-headed little
Beth pulled off some pretty shots, whereupon Bill cheered uproariously.
I think he found relief in making a noise.

While they were on the seventeenth green I spied old Waddles against
the skyline, cutting off the entire sunset, and I climbed the hill to
tell him the news. You may believe it or not, but up to that moment I
had overlooked Waddles entirely. I had been stupid enough to think that
the show I had been witnessing was an impromptu affair--a thing of pure
chance, lacking a stage manager. Just as I reached the top of the hill,
enlightenment came to me--came in company with Mary's laugh, rippling up
from below. At a distance it sounded genuine. A shade of disappointment
crossed Waddles' wide and genial countenance.

"So it didn't work," said he. "It didn't work--and I'm sixteen dollars
to the bad. Hey! Quit pounding me on the back! Anybody but a born ass
would have known the whole thing was cooked up for Mary's benefit--and
you've just tumbled, eh? Now then, what has he done?"

Briefly, and in words of one syllable, I sketched Russell's activities.
Waddles wagged his head soberly.

"Treated her just the same as if he was already married to her, eh? A
mixed foursome is no-o-o place for a mean man; give him rope enough and
he'll hang himself. How do they stand?"

I had not been keeping the score, so we walked down the hill to the
eighteenth tee.

"Pretty soft for you folks," said Waddles with a disarming grin.
"Pretty soft. You've only got to beat a net 98."

"Zat so?" asked Bill carelessly, but Russell snatched a score card from
his pocket. Instantly his whole manner changed. The sullen look left his
face; his eyes sparkled; he smiled.

"We're here in 94," said Russell. "Ten off of that--84. Why--it's a
cinch, Mary, a cinch! And I thought you'd thrown it away!"

"And you?" asked Waddles, turning to Bill.

"Oh," said Russell casually, "they've got a gross of 102. What's their
handicap?"

"Sixteen," answered Waddles.

"A net 86." Russell became thoughtful. "H'm-m. Close enough to be
interesting. Still, they've got to pick up three strokes on us here.
Mary, all you've got to do is keep your second shot out of trouble. Go
straight, and I'll guarantee to be on the green in three."

Mary didn't say anything. She was watching Waddles--Waddles, with his
lip curled into the scornful expression which he reserves for cup
hunters and winter members who try to hog the course.

Russell drove and the ball sailed over the direction post at the summit
of the hill.

"That'll hold 'em!" he boasted. "Now just keep straight, Mary, and we've
got 'em licked!"

Bill followed with another of his tremendous tee shots--two hundred
pounds of beef and at least a thousand pounds of contempt behind the
pill--and away they went up the path. Russell fell in beside Mary, and
at every step he urged upon her the vital importance of keeping the ball
straight. He simply bubbled and fizzed with advice, and he smiled as he
offered it. I never saw a man change so in a short space of time.

"Well, partner," apologised Beth, "I'm sorry. If I'd only played a tiny
bit better----"

"Shucks!" laughed Bill. "Don't you care. What's a little tin cup between
friends?"

"A tin cup!" growled Waddles. "Where do you get that stuff? Sterling
silver, you poor cow!"

Bill's drive was the long one, so it was up to Mary to play first. Our
last hole requires fairly straight shooting, because the course is
paralleled at the right by the steep slope of a hill, and at the bottom
of that hill is a creek bed, lined on either side by tangled brush and
heavy willows. A ball sliced so as to reach the top of the incline is
almost certain to go all the way down. On the other side of the fair
green there is a wide belt of thick long grass in which a ball may
easily be lost. No wonder Russell advised caution.

"Take an iron," said he, "and never mind trying for distance. All we
need is a six."

"Boy," said Mary, addressing the caddie, "my brassy, please."

"Give her an iron," countermanded Russell. "Mary, you must listen to me.
We've got this thing won now----"

"Fore!" said Mary in the tone of voice which all women possess, but most
men do not hear it until after they are married. Russell fell back,
stammering a remonstrance, and Mary took her practise swings--four of
them. Then she set herself as carefully as if her entire golfing career
depended on that next shot. Her back swing was deliberate, the club head
descended in a perfect arc, she kept her head down, and she followed
through beautifully--but at the click of contact a strangled howl of
anguish went up from her partner. She had hit the ball with the rounded
toe of the club, instead of the flat driving surface, and the result was
a flight almost at right angles with the line of the putting green--a
wretched roundhouse slice ticketed for the bottom of the creek bed. By
running at top speed Russell was able to catch sight of the ball as it
bounded into the willows. Mary looked at Waddles and smiled--the first
real smile of the afternoon.

"Isn't that provoking?" said she.

Judging by the language which floated up out of the ravine it must have
been all of that. Russell found the ball at last, under the willows and
half buried in the sand, and the recovery which he made was nothing
short of miraculous. He actually managed to clear the top of the hill.
Even Waddles applauded the shot.

Beth took an iron and played straight for the flag. Russell picked the
burs from his flannel trousers and counted the strokes on his fingers.

"Hawley will put the next one on the green," said he, "and that means a
possible five--a net of 91. A six will win for us; and for pity's sake,
Mary, for my sake, get up there somewhere and give me a chance to lay
the ball dead!"

Waddles sniffed.

"He's quit bossing and gone to begging," said he. "Well, if I was Mary
Brooke----Holy mackerel! She's surely not going to take another shot at
it with that brassy!"

But that was exactly what Mary was preparing to do. Russell pleaded, he
entreated, and at last he raved wildly; he might have spared his breath.

"Cheer up!" said Mary with a chilly little smile. "I won't slice this
one. You watch me." She kept her promise--kept it with a savage hook,
which sailed clear across the course and into the thick grass. The ball
carried in the rough seventy-five yards from the putting green, and
disappeared without even a bounce.

"That one," whispered Waddles, sighing contentedly, "is buried a foot
deep. It begins to look bad for love's young dream. Bill, you're away."

Russell, his shoulders hunched and his chin buried in his collar,
lingered long enough to watch Bill put an iron shot on the putting
green, ten feet from the flag. Then he wandered off into the rough and
relieved his feelings by growling at the caddie. He did not quit,
however; the true cup hunter never quits. His niblick shot tore through
that tangle of thick grass, cut under the ball and sent it spinning high
in the air. It stopped rolling just short of the green.

We complimented him again, but he was past small courtesies. Our reward
was a black scowl, which we shared with Mary.

"Lay it up!" said he curtly. "A seven may tie 'em. Lay it up!"

By this time quite a gallery had gathered to witness the finish of the
match. In absolute silence Mary drew her putter from the bag and studied
the shot. It was an absurdly simple one--a 30-foot approach over a level
green, and all she had to do was to leave Russell a short putt. Then if
Beth missed her ten-footer----

"It's fast," warned Russell. "It's fast, so don't hit it too hard!"

Even as he spoke the putter clicked against the ball, and instantly a
gasp of dismay went up from the feminine spectators. I was watching
Russell Davidson, and I can testify that his face turned a delicate
shade of green. I looked for the ball, and was in time to see it skate
merrily by the hole, "going a mile a minute," as Waddles afterward
expressed it. It rolled clear across the putting green before it
stopped.

Mary ignored the polite murmur of sympathy from the gallery.

"Never up, never in," said she with a cheerful smile. "Russell, I'm
afraid you're away."

Waddles pinched my arm.

"Did you get that stuff?" he breathed into my ear. "Did you get it? She
threw him down--threw him down cold!"

Russell seemed to realise this, but he made a noble effort to hole the
putt. A third miracle refused him, and then Beth Rogers put her ball
within three inches of the cup.

"Put it down!" grunted Russell. "Sink it--and let's get it done with!"

Bill tapped the ball into the hole, and the match was over.

"Why--why," stuttered Beth, "then--we've _won_!"

At this point the hand-shaking began. I was privileged to hear one more
exchange of remarks between the losers as they started for the
clubhouse.

"We had it won--if you'd only listened to me----" Russell began.

"Ah!" said Mary, "you seem to forget that I've been listening to you all
the afternoon--listening and learning!"

       *       *       *       *       *

That very same evening I was sitting on my front porch studying the
stars and meditating upon the mutability of human relationships.

A familiar runabout drew up at the Brooke house, and a young man passed
up the walk, moving with a stiff and stately stride. In exactly twelve
minutes and thirty-two seconds by my watch the young man came out again,
bounced down the steps, jumped into his car, slammed the door with a
bang like a pistol shot, and departed from the neighbourhood with a
grinding and a clashing of gears which might have been heard for half a
mile.

The red tail light had scarcely disappeared down the street when big
Bill Hawley lumbered across the Brooke lawn, took the front steps at a
bound and rang the doorbell.

Not being of an inquisitive and a prying nature, I cannot be certain 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/36682