Part 14

Coyne went on a still hunt for the Romeos, and found them at last, tucked away in the clothes closet of the spare room upstairs. This closet was a sort of catchall, as the closets of spare rooms are apt to be; and as Coyne stooped to pick up the slippers he knocked down something which had been standing in a dark corner. It fell with a heavy thump, and there on the floor at his feet was a rusty old mid-iron--the first golf club Coyne had ever owned.

He had not seen that mid-iron in years, but he remembered it well. He picked it up, sighted along the shaft, found it still reasonably straight and unwarped, balanced the club in his hands, waggled it once as if to make a shot; then he replaced it hastily, seized the slippers, and hurried downstairs.

The book of his selection was one highly recommended by press and pulpit, hence an ideal tale for a Sunday afternoon; so he dragged an easy-chair to the front window, lighted his pipe, put his worn Romeos on a taboret, and settled down to solid comfort. In spite of the fact that the book was said to be gripping, and entertaining from cover to cover, Coyne encountered some difficulty in getting into the thing. He skimmed through the first chapter, yawned and looked at his watch.

"They're just getting away for the afternoon round," said he; and then, with the air of one who has caught himself in a fault, he attacked Chapter Two. It proved even worse than the first. He told himself that the characters were out of drawing, the situations impossible, and the humour strained or stale.

At the end of Chapter Three he pitched the book across the room and closed his eyes. Five minutes later he rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and went slowly upstairs. He assured himself he was not in search of anything; but his aimless wanderings brought him at last to the spare room, where he seated himself on the edge of the bed. He remained there for twenty minutes, motionless, staring into space. Then he rose, crossed the room and disappeared in the clothes closet. When he came out the rusty mid-iron came with him. Was this a sign of weakness, of deterioration in the moral fibre, an indication of regret! Perish the thought! The explanation Mr. Coyne offered himself was perfectly satisfactory. He merely wished to examine the ten-year-old shaft and ascertain whether it was cracked or not. He carried the venerable souvenir to the window and scrutinised it closely; the shaft was sound.

"A good club yet," he muttered.

As he stood there, holding the old mid-iron in his hands, ten years slipped away from him. He remembered that club very well--almost as well as a man remembers his first sweetheart. He remembered other things too--remembered that, as a youth, he had never had the time or the inclination to play at games of any sort. He had been too busy getting his start, as the saying goes. Then, at thirty, married and well on his way to business success, he had felt the need of open air and exercise. He had mentioned this to a friend and the friend had suggested golf.

"But that's an old man's game!" Yes; he had said that very thing. His ears burned at the recollection of his folly.

"Think so? Tackle it and see."

He had been persuaded to spend one afternoon at the Country Club. Is there a golfer in all the world who needs to be told what happened to Mr. Robert Coyne? He had hit one long, straight tee shot; he had holed one difficult putt; and the whole course of his serious, methodical existence had been changed. The man who does not learn to play any game until he is thirty years of age is quite capable of going daft over tiddledywinks or dominoes. If he takes up the best and most interesting of all outdoor sports his family may count itself fortunate if he does not become violent.

Never the sort of person who could be content to do anything badly, Bob Coyne had applied himself to the Royal and Ancient Pastime with all the simple earnestness and dogged determination of a silent, self-centred man. He had taken lessons from the professional. He had brought his driver home and practised with it in the back yard. He had read books on the subject. He had studied the methods and styles of the best players. He had formed theories of his own as to stance and swing. He had even talked golf to his wife--which is the last stage of incurable golfitis.

As he stood at the window, turning the rusty mid-iron in his hands, he recalled the first compliment ever paid him by a good player--the more pleasing because he had not been intended to hear it. It came after he had fought himself out of the duffer class and had reached the point where he was too good for the bad ones, but not considered good enough for the topnotchers.

One day Corkrane had invited him into a foursome--Coyne had been the only man in sight--and Corkrane had taken him as a partner against such redoubtable opponents as Millar and Duffy. Coyne had halved four holes and won two, defeating Millar and Duffy on the home green. Nothing had been said at the time; but later on, while polishing himself with a towel in the shower room, Coyne had heard Corkrane's voice:

"Hey, Millar!"

"Well?"

"That fellow Coyne--he's not so bad."

"I believe you, Corky. He won the match for you."

"Thought I'd have to carry him on my back; but he was right there all the way round. Yep; Coyne's a comer, sure as you live!"

And the subject of this kindly comment had blushed pink out of sheer gratification.

A pretty good bunch, those fellows out at the club! If it had done nothing else for him, Coyne reflected, golf had widened his circle of friends. Suddenly there came to him the realisation that he would have a great deal of spare time on his hands in the future. Wednesdays and Saturdays would be long days now; and Sundays----Coyne sighed deeply and swung the rusty mid-iron back and forth as if in the act of studying a difficult approach.

"But what's the use?" he asked himself. "I haven't got a shot left--not a single shot!"

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mid-iron between his knees and his head in his hands. At the end of twenty minutes he rose and began to prowl about the house, looking into corners, behind doors, and underneath beds and bureaus.

"Seems to me I saw it only the other day," said he. "Of course Bobby might have been playing with it and lost it."

It was in the children's playroom that he came upon the thing, which he told himself he found by accident. It was much the worse for wear; nearly all the paint had been worn off it and its surface was covered with tiny dents. Bob Junior had been teaching his dog to fetch and carry and the dents were the prints of sharp puppy teeth.

"Well, what do you think of that!" ejaculated Mr. Coyne, pretending to be surprised. "As I live--a golf ball! Yes; a golf ball!"

He stood looking at it for some time; but at last he picked it up. With the rusty mid-iron in one hand and the ball in the other, he went downstairs, passed through the house, unlocked the back door and went into the yard. Behind the garage was a smooth stretch of lawn, fifty feet in diameter, carefully mowed and rolled. In the centre of this emerald carpet was a hole, and in the hole was a flag. This was Mr. Coyne's private putting green.

"Haven't made a decent chip shot in a month.... No use trying now. All confounded foolishness!"

So saying, the man who had renounced Colonel Bogey and all his works dropped the ball twenty feet from the edge of the putting green. The lie did not suit him; so he altered it slightly. Then he planted his disreputable Romeos firmly on the turf, waggled the rusty mid-iron a few times, pressed the blade lightly behind the ball, and attempted that most difficult of all performances--the chip shot. The ball hopped across the lawn to the smooth surface of the putting green and rolled straight for the cup, struck the flag and stopped two inches from the hole.

"Heavens above!" gasped Mr. Coyne, rubbing his eyes. "Look at that, will you? I hit the pin, by golly--_hit the pin_!"

* * * * *

At dusk Mrs. Coyne returned. The first thing she noticed was that a large rug was missing from the dining room. Having had experience, she knew exactly where to look for it. On the back porch she paused, her hands on her hips. The missing rug was hanging over the clothesline, and her lord and master, in shirtsleeves and the unspeakable Romeos, was driving a single golf ball against it.

Whish-h-h! Click! Thud!

"And I guess that's getting my weight into the swing!" babbled Mr. Coyne. "I've found out what I've been doing that was wrong. Watch me hit this one, Mary."

Mrs. Coyne was everything that a good wife should be, but she sniffed audibly.

"I've told you a dozen times that I didn't want you knocking holes in that rug!" said she.

"Why, there isn't a hole in it, my dear."

"Well, there will be if you keep on. It seems to me, Bob, that you might get enough golf out at the club. Then you won't scandalise the neighbours by practising in the back yard on Sunday afternoons. What do you suppose they'll think of you?"

"They'll think I'm crazy," was the cheerful response; "but, just between you and me, my dear, I'm not near so crazy right now as I have been!"

III

Jasper was cleaning up the locker room--his regular Monday-morning job. As he worked he crooned the words of an old negro melody:

"_Ole bline hawss, come outen the wilderness, Outen the wilderness, outen the wilderness; Ole bline hawss_----"

The side door opened and Jasper dropped his mop.

"Who's that?" he asked. "This early in the mawnin'?" But when he recognised the caller he did not show the faintest symptoms of surprise. Jasper was more than a perfect servant; he was also a diplomat. "Good mawnin', Misteh Coyne."

The caller seemed embarrassed. He attempted to assume a cheerful expression, but succeeded in producing a silly grin.

"Jasper," said he, "I was a little bit sore yesterday----"

"Yes, suh; an' nobody could blame you," said the negro, coming gallantly to the rescue.

"And you know how it is with a man when he's sore."

"Yes, suh. Man don' always mean whut he say--that is, he mean it all right at the _time_. Yes, suh. At--the--time. 'N'en ag'in, he might _change_."

"That's it exactly!" said Coyne, and floundered to a full stop.

Jasper's face was grave, but he found it necessary to fix his eyes on the opposite wall.

"Yes, suh," said he. "Las' month I swo' off too."

"Swore off on what?"

"Craps, Misteh Coyne. Whut Bu't Williams calls Af'ican golf. Yes, suh, I swo' off; but las' night--well, I kind o' fell f'um grace. I fell, suh; but I wasn't damaged so much as some o' them boys in the game." Jasper chuckled to himself. "Yes, suh; I sutny sewed 'em up propeh! Look like I come back in my ole-time fawm!"

"That's it!" Coyne agreed eagerly. "I've got my chip shot back, Jasper. Last night, at home, I was hitting 'em as clean as a whistle. I--I ran out here this morning to have a little talk with you. You remember about those clubs?" Jasper nodded. "That was a foolish thing to do----" began Coyne.

"No, suh!" interrupted Jasper positively. "No, suh! When a man git good an' sore he do a lot o' things whut awdinarily he wouldn't think o' doin'! Las' month I th'owed away the best paih o' crap dice you eveh saw. You givin' away yo' clubs is exackly the same thing."

"That was what I wanted to see you about," said Coyne with a shamefaced grin. "I was wondering if there wouldn't be some way to get those clubs back--buying 'em from the boys. You could explain----"

Jasper cackled and slapped his knees.

"Same thing all oveh ag'in!" said he. "I th'owed them dice away, Misteh Coyne; but I th'owed 'em kind o' _easy_, an' I knowed where to look. So, when you tol' me 'bout them clubs I--well, suh, I ain' been c'nected with this club twenty yeahs faw nothin'. If I was you, suh, I think I'd look in my lockeh."

Coyne drew the bolt and opened the door. His clothes were hanging on the hooks; his shoes were resting on the steel floor; his golf bag was leaning in the corner, and it was full of clubs--the clubs he had given away the day before! Coyne tried to speak, but the words would not come.

"You see, Misteh Coyne," explained Jasper, "I knowed them fool boys would bust them clubs or somethin', an' I kind of s'pected you'd be wantin' 'em back ag'in; so I didn't take no chances. Afteh you left yestiddy I kind o' took mattehs in my own hands. I tol' them caddies you was only foolin'. The younges' ones, they was open to conviction; but them oldeh boys--they had to be showed. Now that light mid-iron--I had to give Butch a dollah an' twenty cents faw it. That brassy was a dollah an' a half----"

Ten minutes later the incomparable Jasper was alone in the locker room, examining a very fine sample of the work turned out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Washington, D. C. Across the bottom of this specimen were two words in large black type: Twenty Dollars.

"Haw!" chuckled Jasper. "I wisht some mo' of these membehs would quit playin' golf!"

THE OOLEY-COW

I

After the explosion, and before Uncle Billy Poindexter and Old Man Sprott had been able to decide just what had hit them, Little Doc Ellis had the nerve to tell me that he had seen the fuse burning for months and months. Little Doc is my friend and I like him, but he resembles many other members of his profession in that he is usually wisest after the post mortem, when it is a wee bit late for the high contracting party.

And at all times Little Doc is full of vintage bromides and figures of speech.

"You have heard the old saw," said he. "A worm will turn if you keep picking on him, and so will a straight road if you ride it long enough. A camel is a wonderful burden bearer, but even a double-humped ship of the desert will sink on your hands if you pile the load on him a bale of hay at a time."

"A worm, a straight road, a camel and a sinking ship," said I. "Whither are we drifting?"

Little Doc did not pay any attention to me. It is a way he has.

"Think," said he, "how much longer a camel will stand up under punishment if he gets his load straw by straw, as it were. The Ooley-cow was a good thing, but Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott did not use any judgment. They piled it on him too thick."

"Meaning," I asked, "to compare the Ooley-cow with a camel?"

"Merely a figure of speech," said Little Doc; "but yes, such was my intention."

"Well," said I, "your figures of speech need careful auditing. A camel can go eight days without a drink----"

Little Doc made impatient motions at me with both hands. He has no sense of humour, and his mind is a one-way track, totally devoid of spurs and derailing switches. Once started, he must go straight through to his destination.

"What I am trying to make plain to your limited mentality," said he, "is that Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott needed a lesson in conservation, and they got it. The Ooley-cow was the easiest, softest picking that ever strayed from the home pasture. With care and decent treatment he would have lasted a long time and yielded an enormous quantity of nourishment, but Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott were too greedy. They tried to corner the milk market, and now they will have to sign tags for their drinks and their golf balls the same as the rest of us. They have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs."

"A minute ago," said I, "the Ooley-cow was a camel. Now he is a goose--a dead goose, to be exact. Are you all done figuring with your speech!"

"Practically so, yes."

"Then," said I, "I will plaster up the cracks in your argument with the cement of information. I can use figures of speech myself. You are barking up the wrong tree. You are away off your base. It wasn't the loss of a few dollars that made Mr. Perkins run wild in our midst. It was the manner in which he lost them. Let us now dismiss the worm, the camel, the goose and all the rest of the menagerie, retaining only the Ooley-cow. What do you know about cows, if anything?"

"A little," answered my medical friend.

"A mighty little. You know that a cow has hoofs, horns and a tail. The same description would apply to many creatures, including Satan himself. Your knowledge of cows is largely academic. Now me, I was raised on a farm, and there were cows in my curriculum. I took a seven-year course in the gentle art of acquiring the lacteal fluid. Cow is my specialty, my long suit, my best hold. Believe it or not, when we christened old Perkins the Ooley-cow we builded better than we knew."

"I follow you at a great distance," said little Doc. "Proceed with the rat killing. Why did we build better than we knew when we did not know anything!"

"Because," I explained, "Perkins not only looks like a cow and walks like a cow and plays golf like a cow, but he has the predominant characteristic of a cow. He has the one distinguishing trait which all country cows have in common. If you had studied that noble domestic animal as closely as I have, you would not need to be told what moved Mr. Perkins to strew the entire golf course with the mangled remains of the two old pirates before mentioned. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott were milking him, yes, and it is quite likely that the Ooley-cow knew that he was being milked, but that knowledge was not the prime cause of the late unpleasantness."

"I still follow you," said Little Doc plaintively, "but I am losing ground every minute."

"Listen carefully," said I. "Pin back your ears and give me your undivided attention. There are many ways of milking a cow without exciting the animal to violence. I speak now of the old-fashioned cow--the country cow--from Iowa, let us say."

"The Ooley-cow is from Iowa," murmured Little Doc.

"Exactly. A city cow may be milked by machinery, and in a dozen different ways, but the country cow does not know anything about new fangled methods. There is one thing--and one thing only--which will make the gentlest old mooley in Iowa kick over the bucket, upset the milker, jump a four-barred fence and join the wild bunch on the range. Do you know what that one thing is?"

"I haven't even a suspicion," confessed Little Doc.

Then I told him. I told him in words of one syllable, and after a time he was able to grasp the significance of my remarks. If I could make Little Doc see the point I can make you see it too. We go from here.

* * * * *

Wesley J. Perkins hailed from Dubuque, but he did not hail from there until he had gathered up all the loose change in Northeastern Iowa. When he arrived in sunny Southern California he was fifty-five years of age, and at least fifty of those years had been spent in putting aside something for a rainy day. Judging by the diameter of his bankroll, he must have feared the sort of a deluge which caused the early settlers to lay the ground plans for the Tower of Babel.

Now it seldom rains in Southern California--that is to say, it seldom rains hard enough to produce a flood--and as soon as Mr. Perkins became acquainted with climatic conditions he began to jettison his ark. He joined an exclusive downtown club, took up quarters there and spent his afternoons playing dominoes with some other members of the I've-got-mine Association. Aside from his habit of swelling up whenever he mentioned his home town, and insisting on referring to it as "the Heidelberg of America," there was nothing about Mr. Perkins to provoke comment, unfavourable or otherwise. He was just one more Iowan in a country where Iowans are no novelty.

In person he was the mildest-mannered man that ever foreclosed a short-term mortgage and put a family out in the street. His eyes were large and bovine, his mouth drooped perpetually and so did his jowls, and he moved with the slow, uncertain gait of a venerable milch cow. He had a habit of lowering his head and staring vacantly into space, and all these things earned for him the unhandsome nickname by which he is now known.

"But why the Ooley-cow?" some one asked one day. "It doesn't mean anything at all!"

"Well," was the reply, "neither does Perkins."

But this was an error, as we shall see later.

It was an increasing waistline that caused the Ooley-cow to look about him for some form of gentle exercise. His physician suggested golf, and that very week the board of directors of the Country Club was asked to consider his application for membership. There were no ringing cheers, but he passed the censors.

I will say for Perkins that when he decided to commit golf he went about it in a very thorough manner. He had himself surveyed for three knickerbocker suits, he laid in a stock of soft shirts, imported stockings and spiked shoes, and he gave our professional _carte blanche_ in the matter of field equipment. It is not a safe thing to give a Scotchman permission to dip his hand in your change pocket, and MacPherson certainly availed himself of the opportunity to finger some of the Dubuque money. He took one look at the novice and unloaded on him something less than a hundredweight of dead stock. He also gave him a lesson or two, and sent him forth armed to the teeth with wood, iron and aluminum.

Almost immediately Perkins found himself in the hands of Poindexter and Sprott, two extremely hard-boiled old gentlemen who have never been known to take any interest in a financial proposition assaying less than seven per cent, and that fully guaranteed. Both are retired capitalists, but when they climbed out of the trenches and retreated into the realm of sport they took all their business instincts with them.

Uncle Billy can play to a twelve handicap when it suits him to do so, and his partner in crime is only a couple of strokes behind him; but they seldom uncover their true form, preferring to pose as doddering and infirm invalids, childish old men, who only think they can play the game of golf, easy marks for the rising generation. New members are their victims; beginners are just the same as manna from heaven to them. They instruct the novice humbly and apologetically, but always with a small side bet, and no matter how fast the novice improves he makes the astounding discovery that his two feeble old tutors are able to keep pace with him. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott are experts at nursing a betting proposition along, and they seldom win any sort of a match by a margin of more than two up and one to go. Taking into account the natural limitations of age they play golf very well, but they play a cinch even better--and harder. It is common scandal that Uncle Billy has not bought a golf ball in ten years. Old Man Sprott bought one in 1915, but it was under the mellowing influence of the third toddy and, therefore, should not count against him.

The Ooley-cow was a cinch. When he turned up, innocent and guileless and eager to learn the game, Uncle Billy and his running mate were quick to realise that Fate had sent them a downy bird for plucking, and in no time at all the air was full of feathers.

They played the Ooley-cow for golf balls, they played him for caddy hire, they played him for drinks and cigars, they played him for luncheons and they played him for a sucker--played him for everything, in fact, but the locker rent and the club dues. How they came to overlook these items is more than I know. The Ooley-cow would have stood for it; he stood for everything. He signed all the tags with a loose and vapid grin, and if he suffered from writer's cramp he never mentioned the fact. His monthly bill must have been a thing to shudder at, but possibly he regarded this extra outlay as part of his tuition.