Part 7

"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!"