Part 10

Frank Woodson dropped his big ham of a hand on Henry Peacock's shoulder.

"I couldn't have been half so tickled if I'd won it myself!" said he. "You see, you never won a cup before. I won one once--runner-up in the fifth flight over at San Gabriel. Nice cup, silver and all that, but you've got to have a magnifying glass to _see_ it. Now this Hemmingway Cup, Henry, is a regular old he cup. You can't put it where your visitors won't find it. You can be proud of it, old son, and we're proud of you."

"Same here," said Peter Miller, and his face twisted into something remotely resembling a smile. "Did my heart good to see the old boy laying those tee shots out in the middle every time. We're all proud of you, Henry."

"Proud!" exclaimed Sam Totten. "I'm so proud I'm all out of shape!"

Peacock didn't have much to say. He sat there smiling his tight little smile and looking at the silver cup. I believe that even then the idea of desertion had entered into his little two-by-four soul. There was a thoughtful look in his eyes, and he didn't respond to Totten's hilarity with any great degree of enthusiasm.

"What was it the admiral said at Santiago?" asked Sam. "'There's glory enough for us all!' Wasn't that it?"

"Mph!" grunted Waddles. "Since you're getting into famous remarks of history, what was it the governor of North Carolina----"

"I think I'll take my bath now," interrupted Henry Peacock, rising.

"You will not!" cried Sam Totten. "I'm going to buy. Jumbo here is going to buy. Pete is going to buy. Where do you get that bath stuff? We don't win a cup every day, Henry. Sit down!"

An hour later Waddles emerged from the shower room, looking very much like an overgrown cupid in his abbreviated underwear. Henry Peacock had been waiting for him. The Hemmingway Cup, in its green felt bag, dangled from his wrist. My locker is directly across the alley from Waddles', and I overheard the entire conversation.

"I--I just wanted to say," began Henry, "that any cut you might want to make in my handicap will be all right with me."

Waddles growled. He has never yet found it necessary to consult a victim before operating on his handicap. There was a silence and then Henry tried again.

"I really think my handicap ought to be cut," said he.

"Oh, it'll be _cut_ all right!" said Waddles cheerfully. "Don't you worry about that. Any old stiff who brings in a net of sixty-four has a cut coming to him. Leave it to me!"

"Well," said Henry, "I just wanted you to know how I felt about it. I--I want to be quite frank with you. Of course, I probably won't shoot an eighty-two every time out"--here Waddles gasped and plumped down on the bench outside his locker--"but when a man brings in a net score that is twelve strokes under the par of the course I think some notice should be taken of it."

"Oh, you do, do you? Listen, Henry! Since we're going to be frank with each other, what do you think your new handicap ought to be?" Waddles was stringing him of course, but Henry didn't realise it.

"I think ten would be about right," said he calmly.

"Ten!" barked Waddles. "The suffering Moses! Ten! Henry, are you sure you're quite well--not overexcited or anything?"

"All I had was four lemonades."

"Ah!" said Waddles. "Four lemonades--and Sam Totten winked at the bar boy every time. Why, if I cut you from eighteen to ten that'll put you in Class A!"

"I think that's where I belong."

"I'll have to talk with the head bar boy," said Waddles. "He shouldn't be so reckless with that gin. It costs money these days. Listen to me, Henry. Take hold of your head with both hands and try to get what I say. You went out to-day and shot your fool head off. You played the best round of golf in your long and sinful career. You made an eighty-two. You'll never make an eighty-two again as long as you live. It would be a crime to handicap you on to-day's game, Henry. It would be manslaughter to put you in Class A. You don't belong there. If you want me to cut you I'll put you down to sixteen, and even then you won't play to that mark unless you're lucky."

"I think I belong at ten," said Peacock. I began to appreciate that line about the terrible insistence of the meek.

"Get out of here!" ordered Waddles, suddenly losing his patience. "Go home and pray for humility, Henry. Lay off the lemonade when Sam Totten is in the crowd. Lemonade is bad for you. It curdles the intelligence and warps the reasoning faculties. Shoo! Scat! Mush on! Vamose! Beat it! Hurry up! _Wiki-wiki!_ Chop-chop! _Schnell!_"

"Then you won't cut me to ten?"

"I--will--not!"

Henry sighed and started for the door. He turned with his hand on the knob.

"I still think I belong there," was his parting shot.

"Might as well settle this thing right now," said Waddles to himself. Then he lifted up his voice in a howl that made the electric lights quiver. "Send Tom in here!"

The head bar boy appeared, grinning from ear to ear.

"Tom," said Waddles, "don't you know you oughtn't to slip a shot of gin into an old man's lemonade?"

"Ain't nobody gits gin in his lemonade, suh, 'less he awdeh it thataway."

"What did Mr. Peacock have?"

"Plain lemonade, suh."

"No kick in it at all?"

"Not even a wiggle, suh."

"That'll do," said Waddles; and Tom went back to his work. There was a long silence. By his laboured breathing I judged that Waddles was lacing his shoes. Once more he thought aloud.

"Tom wouldn't lie to me, so it wasn't gin. Now, I wonder.... I wonder if that old coot has got what they call 'delusions of grandeur'?"

III

On the Monday following the contest for the Hemmingway Cup I met the Bish at the country club. We arrived there between nine and ten in the morning, and the first man we saw was Mr. Henry Peacock. He was out on the eighteenth fairway practising approach shots, and the putting green was speckled with balls.

"Hello!" said the Bish. "Look who's here! Practising too. You don't suppose that old chump is going to try to make a golfer of himself, this late along?"

I said that it appeared that way.

"One-club practise is all right for a beginner," said the Bish, "because he hasn't any bad habits to overcome, but this poor nut didn't take up the game till he was forty, and when he learned it he learned it all wrong. He can practise till he's black in the face and it won't do him any good. Don't you think we'd better page Doc Osler and have him put out of his misery?"

It was then that I told the Bish about Henry's desire to break into Class A, and he whistled.

"It got him quick, didn't it?" said he. "Well, there's no fool like an old fool."

Half an hour later this was made quite plain to us. Henry came into the clubhouse to get a drink of water. Now I did not know him very well, and the Bish had only a nodding acquaintance with him, but he greeted us as long-lost brothers. I did not understand his cordiality at first, but the reason for it was soon apparent. Henry wanted to know whether we had a match up for the afternoon.

"Sorry," lied the Bish; "we're already hooked up with a foursome."

Henry said he was sorry too; and moreover he looked it.

"I was thinking I might get in with you," said he. "What I need is the--er--opportunity to study better players--er--get some real competition. Somebody that will make me do my best all the time. Don't you think that will help my game?"

"Doubtless," said the Bish in his deepest tone; "but at the same time you shouldn't get too far out of your class. There is a difference between being spurred on by competition and being discouraged by it."

"I shot an eighty-two last Saturday," said Henry quickly.

"So I hear. So I hear. And how many brassy shots did you hole out?"

"Not one. It--it wasn't luck. It was good steady play."

"He admits it," murmured the Bish, but Henry didn't even hear him.

"Good steady play," he repeated. "What a man does once he can do again. Eighty-two. Six strokes above the par of the course. My net was twelve strokes below it--due, of course, to a ridiculously high handicap: I--I intend to have that altered. Eighty-two is Class-A golf."

"Or an accident," said the Bish rather coldly.

"Steady golf is never an accident," argued Henry. "I have thought it all out and come to the conclusion that what I need now is keener competition--er--better men to play with; and"--this with a trace of stubbornness in his tone--"I mean to find them."

The Bish kicked my foot under the table.

"That's all very well," said he, "but--how about the Old Guard?"

The wretched renegade squirmed in his chair.

"That," said he, "will adjust itself later."

"You mean that you'll break away?"

"I didn't say so, did I?"

"No, but you've been talking about keener competition."

Henry was not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken. He rose to go.

"Woodson and Totten and Miller are fine fellows," said he. "Personally I hold them in the highest esteem, but you must admit that they are poor golfers. Not one of them ever shot an eighty-five. I--I have my own game to consider.... You're quite sure you won't have a vacancy this afternoon?"

"Oh, quite," said the Bish, and Henry toddled back to his practise. It was well that he left us, for the Bish was on the point of an explosion.

"Well!" said he. "The conceited, ungrateful old scoundrel! Got his own game to consider--did you hear that? Just one fair-to-middling score in his whole worthless life, and now he's too swelled up to associate with the fellows who have played with him all these years, stood for his little meannesses, covered up his faults and overlooked his shortcomings! Keener competition, eh? Pah! Would you play with him?"

"Not on a bet!" said I.

On the following Wednesday the Old Guard counted noses and found itself short the star member. Lacking the courage or the decency to inform his friends of his change of programme, Peacock took the line of least resistance and elected to escape them by a late arrival. Sam Totten made several flying trips into the locker room in search of his partner, but he gave up at last, and at one-thirty the Old Guard drove off, a threesome.

At one-thirty-two Henry sneaked into the clubhouse and announced that he was without a match. The news did not create any great furore. All the Class-A foursomes were made up, and, to make matters worse, the Bish had been doing a little quiet but effective missionary work. Henry's advances brought him smack up against a stone wall of polite but definite refusal. The cup winner was left out in the cold.

He finally picked up Uncle George Sawyer, it being a matter of Uncle George or nobody. Uncle George is a twenty-four-handicap man, but only when he is at the very top of his game, and he is deaf as a post, left handed and a confirmed slicer. In addition to these misfortunes Uncle George is blessed with the disposition of a dyspeptic wildcat, and I imagine that Mr. Peacock did not have a pleasant afternoon. The Old Guard pounced on him when he came into the lounging room at five o'clock.

"Hey! Why didn't you say that you'd be late?" demanded Sam Totten. "We'd have waited for you."

"Well, I'll tell you," said Henry--and he looked like a sheep-killing dog surprised with the wool in his teeth--"I'll tell you. The fact of the matter is I--I didn't know just how late I was going to be, and I didn't think it would be fair to you----"

"Apology's accepted," said Jumbo, "but don't let it happen again. And you went and picked on poor old Sawyer too. You--a cup winner--picking on a cripple like that! Henry, where do you expect to go when you die? Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"

"We've got it all fixed up to play at San Gabriel next Saturday," put in Peter Miller. "You'll go, of course?"

"I'll ring up and let you know," said Henry, and slipped away to the shower room.

I do not know what lies he told over the telephone or how he managed to squirm out of the San Gabriel trip, but I do know that he turned up at the country club at eleven o'clock on Saturday morning and spent two hours panhandling everybody in sight for a match. The keen competition fought very shy of Mr. Peacock, thanks to the Bish and his whispering campaign. Everybody was scrupulously polite to him--some even expressed regret--but nobody seemed to need a fourth man.

"They're just as glad to see him as if he had smallpox," grinned the Bish. "Well, I've got a heart that beats for my fellow man. I'd hate to see Peacock left without any kind of a match. Old Sawyer is asleep on the front porch. I'll go and tell him that Peacock is here looking for him."

It has been years since any one sought Uncle George's company, and the old chap was delighted, but if Henry was pleased he managed to conceal his happiness. I learned later that their twosome wound up in a jawing match on the sixteenth green, in which Uncle George had all the better of it because he couldn't hear any of the things that Henry called him. They came to grief over a question of the rules; and Waddles, when appealed to, decided that they were both wrong--and a couple of fussy old hens, to boot.

"Just what I told him!" mumbled Uncle George, who hadn't heard a word that Waddles said. "The ball nearest the hole----"

"No such thing!" interrupted Henry, and they went away still squabbling. Waddles shook his head.

"He's a fine twelve-handicap man!" said he with scorn. "Doesn't even know the rules of the game!"

"Twelve!" said I. "You don't mean----"

"Yes, I cut him to twelve. Ever since he won that cup he's been hounding me--by letter, by telephone and by word of mouth. He's like Tom Sawyer's cat and the pain killer. He kept asking for it, and now he's got it. He thinks a low handicap will make him play better--stubborn old fool!"

"And that's not all," said the Bish. "He's left the Old Guard, flat."

"No!"

"He has, I tell you."

"I don't believe it," said Waddles. "He may be all kinds of a chump, but he wouldn't do that."

The Old Guard didn't believe it either. It must have been all of three weeks before Totten and Woodson and Miller realised that Peacock was a deserter, that he was deliberately avoiding them. At first they accepted his lame excuses at face value, and when doubt began to creep in they said the thing couldn't be possible. One day they waited for him and brought matters to a showdown. Henry wriggled and twisted and squirmed, and finally blurted out that he had made other arrangements. That settled it, of course; and then instead of being angry or disgusted with Henry they seemed to pity him, and from the beginning to the end I am quite certain that not one of them ever took the renegade to task for his conduct. Worse than everything else they actually missed him. It was Frank Woodson, acting as spokesman for the others, who explained the situation to me.

"Oh, about Henry? Well, it's this way: We've all got our little peculiarities--Lord knows I've a few of my own. I never would have thought this could happen, but it just goes to show how a man gets a notion crossways in his head and jams up the machinery. Henry is all right at heart. His head is a little out of line at present, but his heart is O. K. You see, he won that cup and it gave him a wrong idea. He really thinks that under certain conditions he can play back to that eighty-two. I know he can't. We all know he can't; but let him go ahead and try it. He'll get over this little spell and be a good dog again."

The Bish, who was present, suggested that the Old Guard should elect a new member and forget the deserter.

"No-o," said Frank thoughtfully; "that wouldn't be right. We've talked it over, the three of us, and we'll keep his place open for him. Confound it, man! You don't realise that we've been playing together for more than fifteen years! We understand each other, and we used to have more fun than anybody, just dubbing round the course. The game doesn't seem quite the same, with Henry out of it; and I don't think he's having a very good time, hanging on the fringe of Class A and trying to butt in where he isn't wanted. No; he'll come back pretty soon, and everything will be just the same again. We've all got our little peculiarities, Bish. You've got some. I've got some. The best thing is to be charitable and overlook as much as you can, hoping that folks will treat you the same way."

"And that," said Bish after Jumbo had gone away, "proves the statement that a friend is 'a fellow who knows all about you and still stands for you.' How long do you suppose they'll have to wait before that old imbecile regains his senses?"

They waited for at least five months, during which time H. Peacock, Esquire, enrolled himself as the prize pest of the golfing world. The Class-B men, resenting his treatment of the Old Guard, were determined not to let him break into one of their foursomes, and the Class-A men wouldn't have him at any price. The game of pussy-wants-a-corner is all right for children, but Henry, playing it alone, did not seem to find it entertaining. He picked up a stranger now and then, but it wasn't the season for visitors, and even Uncle George Sawyer shied when he saw Henry coming. The stubbornness which led him to insist that his handicap be cut would not permit him to hoist the white flag and return to the fold, and altogether he had a wretched time of it--almost as bad a time as he deserved. Left to himself he became every known variety of a golfing nut. He saved his score cards, entering them on some sort of a comparative chart which he kept in his locker--one of those see-it-at-a-glance things. He took lessons of the poor professional; he bought new clubs and discovered that they were not as good as his old ones; he experimented with every ball on the market; and his game was neither better nor worse than it was before the Hemmingway Cup poured its poison into the shrivelled receptacle which passed for Henry Peacock's soul.

IV

One week ago last Saturday, Sam Totten staged his annual show. Totten Day is ringed with red on all calendars belonging to Class-B golfers. It is the day when men win cups who never won cups before. All Class-A men are barred; it is strictly a Class-B party. Those with handicaps from twelve to twenty-four are eligible, and there are cups for all sorts of things--the best gross, the best first nine, the best second nine, the best score with one hole out, the best score with two holes out, and so on. Sam always buys the big cup himself--the one for the best gross score--and he sandbags his friends into contributing at least a dozen smaller trophies. The big cup is placed on exhibition before play begins, but the others, as well as the conditions of award, remain under cover, thus introducing the element of the unexpected. The conditions are made known as the cups are awarded and the ceremony of presentation is worth going a long way to see and a longer way to hear.

On Totten Day three of us were looking for a fourth man, and we encountered Henry Peacock, in his chronic state of loneliness. The Bish is sometimes a very secretive person, but he might have spared my feelings by giving me a hint of his intentions. Henry advanced on us, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing, but convinced that there was no harm in the asking. He used the threadbare formula:

"Any vacancy this afternoon, gentlemen?"

"Why, yes!" said the Bish. "Yes, we're one man short. Want to go round with us?"

Did he! Would a starving newsboy go to a turkey dinner? Henry fell all over himself in his eagerness to accept that invitation. Any time would suit him--just let him get a sandwich and a glass of milk and he would be at our service. As for the making of the match, the pairing of the players, he would leave that to the Bish. He, Henry, was a twelve-handicap man; and he might shoot to it, and again he might not. Yes, anything would suit him--and he scuttled away toward the dining-room.

I took the Bish into a corner and spoke harshly to him. He listened without so much as a twitch of his long solemn upper lip.

"All done?" said he when I had finished. "Very well! Listen to me. I took him in with us because this is Totten Day."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything. As a Class-B man he's eligible to play for those cups. If he tears up his card or picks up his ball he'll disqualify himself. I want to make sure that he plays every hole out, sinks all his putts and has his card turned in."

"But you don't want that old stiff to win a cup, do you?"

"I do," said the Bish. "Not only that, but I'm going to help him win it. That old boy hasn't been treated right. 'Man's inhumanity to man' is a frightful thing if carried to extremes. And anyway, what are you kicking about? You don't have to play with him. I'll take him as my partner, and you can have Dale."

When our foursome appeared on the first tee there was quite a ripple of subdued excitement. The news that Henry Peacock had finally broken into Class-A company was sufficient to empty the lounging room. Totten, Miller and Woodson were present, but not in their golfing clothes. Sam was acting as field marshal, assisted by Jumbo and Pete. It was Woodson who came forward and patted Henry on the back.

"Show 'em what you can do, old boy!" said he. "Go out and get another eighty-two!"

"I'll bring him home in front," said the Bish. "Of course"--here he addressed Henry--"you won't mind my giving you a pointer or two as we go along. We've got a tough match here and we want to win it if we can."

"I'll be only too happy," chirped Henry, all in a flutter. "I need pointers. Anything you can tell me will be appreciated."

"That's the way to talk!" said the Bish, slapping him on the back and almost knocking him down. "The only golfer who'll never amount to anything is the one who can't be told when he makes a mistake!"

Well, away we went, Dale and I driving first. Then the Bish sent one of his justly celebrated tee shots screaming up the course and made room for Henry. Whether it was the keen competition or the evident interest shown by the spectators or the fact that the Bish insisted that Henry change his stance I cannot say, but the old man nearly missed the ball entirely, topping it into the bunker.

"Don't let a little thing like that worry you," said the Bish, taking Henry's arm. "I'll tell you how to play the next shot."

Arriving at the bunker Henry armed himself with his niblick.

"What are you going to do with that blunderbuss?" asked the Bish. "Can't you play your jigger at all?"

"My jigger!" exclaimed Henry. "But--it's a niblick shot, isn't it?"

"That's what most people would tell you, but in this case, with a good lie and a lot of distance to make up, I'd take the jigger and pick it up clean. If you hit it right you'll get a long ball."

Now Chick Evans or Ouimet might play a jigger in a bunker and get away with it once in a while, but to recommend that very tricky iron to a dub like Henry Peacock was nothing short of a misdemeanour. Acting under instructions he swung as hard as he could, but the narrow blade hit the sand four inches behind the ball and buried it completely.

"Oh, tough luck!" said the Bish. "Now for a little high-class excavating. Scoop her out with the niblick."

Henry scooped three times, at last popping the ball over the grassy wall. The Bish did not seem in the least discouraged.

"Now your wood," said he.

"But I play a cleek better."

"Nonsense! Take a good hard poke at it with the brassy!"

And poke it he did--a nasty slice into rough grass.

"I could have kept it straight with an iron," said Henry reproachfully.

"Well, of course," said the Bish, "if you don't want me to advise you----"

"But I do!" Henry hastened to assure him. "Oh, I do! You can't imagine how much I appreciate your correcting my mistakes!"

"Spoken like a sportsman," said the Bish, and followed at Henry's heels. By acting upon all the advice given him Henry managed to achieve that first hole in eleven strokes. He said he hoped that we would believe he could do better than that.