Part 10

We had some such idea ourself before we took it up. We could see ourself treading daintily across a verdant lawn and popping a nice white ball, covered in wool so it wouldn't hurt anyone, over a nice white net to a nice white young lady on the other side. If we should have the misfortune to put it in a place where she couldn't pop it back to us, we would apologize in a profuse and genteel manner, and then would go blushingly to the other side of the court and pop it over again.

Somehow or other the picture did not at first appeal to us. Was thy servant a bank-clerk that he should do this thing? And yet we needed exercise, gentle exercise. Not that we were getting fat--we are not of a stout habit--but we could feel our arteries hardening from day to day, and rheumatism working slowly but surely into many of our most useful joints.

We decided to do something to arrest the progress of senile decay--something easy and pleasant. Besides, we knew a fellow who belonged to a tennis club, and he insisted on us joining it. We succumbed at last, but it was a long time before we admitted as much to our newspaper associates. One is so apt to be misunderstood.

The first day we went up to the tennis club Harry accompanied us. Harry was a nice chap who wore glasses and spoke grammatically, and we felt we were in safe hands. He was also very fond of music, and we had some dim notion that perhaps he played the mandolin and sang in the shade between "sets." We made up our mind that we wouldn't sing ourself, no matter how much the company insisted. The way we came to know what a "set" meant, was that we had been preparing ourself by reading several volumes on the history and practice of the game, with short biographies of about a hundred champions. We had decided to become one.

The first shock came in the club-house when we were taken into the locker-mom. It was just like the locker-room of any athletic club. Wire lockers were ranged along the walls, and the benches were of somewhat battered wood. Somehow we had expected silk curtains and cushions and natty little bows of pink ribbon.

On the benches a number of gentlemen in various stages of dishabille, and with varying claims to manly beauty, were getting into or out of tennis clothes. When they didn't like their own clothes, they took some out of someone else's locker--just like the pirates who occupy their leisure with rougher games. If Harry had not been there we would have felt sure we had got into the wrong place.

Every now and then a man would stagger into the room in very damp ducks or flannels, would tumble out of them, and would totter over to a shower where he would yell with inarticulate rage as the cold water struck him. Sometimes they were very pale, and sometimes very red in the face. But always they were perspiring and exhausted, and we could not help wondering what the dickens they had been doing to get themselves into that condition. Too much tea, perhaps!

We got into our own outfit--all nice and new and unspotted of the world. We had brought it along in a suit-case. We had white ducks and white shoes and a white shirt, low in the neck. We felt like a young girl high-school graduate just about to receive her diploma. Also we had a blazer. Possibly the reader does not know what a "blazer" is. We would hate to think so, but we will explain. A "blazer" is a striped sack-coat, which was originally designed as part of a costume to ride zebras in, or to prevent dangerous convicts from escaping--we are not sure which. Anyway, it makes the man who wears it look like a party-brick of ice-cream--you know the way they deposit the stuff in gorgeous layers.

Our blazer was composed of stripes of purple and black, each about two inches wide. We selected it because it was so quiet compared to the others. When we put it on that first day, however, we had an unpleasant consciousness that two or three gentlemen in our immediate neighborhood said something about "hell." Possibly a little theological controversy. Just the same, we never wore it again. We lost our taste for it.

Being both togged out in our tennis outfit, we stepped through the door leading to the courts. Personally we gave one wild look around and turned to Harry with a gasp of dismay.

"But where's the lawn?" we asked.

Harry seemed annoyed, but we couldn't help it. We had expected to see a wide smooth lawn, with shady elms and tea-trays and gentle curates and all the rest of it. We thought that was why the game was called "lawn tennis." What we actually saw was a great big backyard with a pounded clay floor. A series of dingy nets ran down the centre of it, and it was crossed and recrossed by a gridiron of half-obliterated lines.

It was easy to see what had obliterated the lines, for some eighteen or twenty active young men in badly rumpled attire were tearing up and down in clouds of dust, working like demons, jumping and rushing and dodging about, and all the while banging away with fury at balls which we afterwards discovered did not possess a particle of wool to cover them. It had all been knocked off. Gentle popping?--good lord!

Surrounding the courts was a lovely vista of other backyards with clothes hung out to dry. Extraordinary the amount of washing the people in that block seemed to do! Every day was wash-day in that neighborhood. During the weeks that followed we became thoroughly acquainted with the clothes of its inhabitants. We discovered who wore red flannel petticoats, and who leaned toward gay and passionate pyjamas. We also knew who wore--but perhaps we had better stop right here. There are things which no gentleman should discuss--certainly not in the cold light of public print. But it was astonishing how life-like they used to look--especially in a breeze.

Over that first game with Harry we would like to draw a veil, a good thick veil--say, several plies of sack-cloth. We did not shine, or, if we did, it was rather as a conflagration than a star. We turned red with the very first ball we hit--we knocked it on to a neighboring housetop--and we slowly became a richer and richer maroon during the progress of the match. Somehow or other we seemed to be too strong for the game. When we hit a ball, which wasn't often, we put it into the bleachers for a home run, or tore a hole in the net with it.

The rest of the time we fanned the atmosphere in a ferocious manner which was not without its humorous features. We didn't notice the humor ourself, but a number of our new fellow-members did. They stopped playing and crowded around to see us. They were very encouraging, but we were a little confused by their coaching. They kept counting us out on strikes, or when we got a hit would beseech us to stretch it into a three-bagger or slide into the home plate. They got us so worked up that we actually called "Ball!" like a baseball umpire when Harry served out of the proper court. Presumably we were waiting for four before taking our base. It was a very trying game--very!

Of course, this was only the beginning. We wouldn't write about tennis at all, if we couldn't give the reader a better account of ourself than this. Our first game filled us with rage, but also with determination. After that we were up at the courts every day the weather permitted, and a few that it didn't. And we worked--Heavens, how we worked! If we had worked like that in the office, we would own the plant by now. When we came in day after day out of the dust and smother, we used to be too tired even to holler in the cold shower. There was no hot water--it was considered effeminate.

Did we make ourself a great player? Well, we are a modest cuss, and although it is with the greatest reluctance that we deny the charge of greatness, we still deny it. Of course, dear reader (presuming that you have been sufficiently interested in our tennis career to read thus far), if you didn't know anything about tennis and were to see us smashing out some of those brilliant drives of ours which always land just a few inches out of the court, or getting that meteoric service over the net--sometimes we rully do, rally!--you might think we were great. But 't is not for us--you understand the delicacy of our position.

As a matter of fact, we did begin to suspect that we were a winner. Not that we got into the habit of bragging about our playing at all, but occasionally we would tell our ladifrens that we thought Norman Brookes and McLaughlin were greatly overrated, and that we wished our club would send us over to Wimbledon to take part in one of the tournaments. They would always assure us that they felt we must be a very fine player, for we were so well built for tennis, so tall and active and such a long reach. Nice girls!

Just when our self-confidence was at its height, we spent a week-end at a place on the Lake where they had a good court. They also had a couple of pretty girls in the family. There was another chap, too, a weedy little Englishman with a blond moustache and a tenor voice that was almost a soprano. The conversation turned on tennis--we believe that we brought it around to that point ourself--and we gave a dramatic account of an awful beating we had handed out to a fellow at the club only a day or so before. We even contributed living pictures of several of our most deadly strokes.

"You play tennis, too, don't you, Mr. Blyth?" asked one of the girls, more by way of bringing him into the conversation than anything else.

He blushed and said he did--a little. Then nothing would do them but that he should play a match with us. He seemed very unwilling, and the more unwilling he was, the more anxious we became to play. Finally we gave our word of honor that we would not drive very hard. He said it was awfully decent of us, and he borrowed one of the girls' rackets, while we drew our gold-medal beauty from its nifty leather case.

Did we drive hard? No, we didn't drive hard. We didn't get a chance. His first ball paralyzed us. Then that little blond brute would get into the middle of the court, and he would place the ball just an inch inside the left-hand line. If we got it back--by a miracle we occasionally did--he would place it just an inch inside the right-hand line, varying the programme with smashes which a man twenty feet tall couldn't handle. He had a service which broke in all directions except where our racket was; and he could pick the ball off the ground or jump ten feet in the air and kill it with equal ease. He drove till our knees wobbled and our head swam; and then he popped over little lobs with a cut on them, which made us look like a cinnamon bear trying to catch butterflies.

We could hardly eat any dinner that evening. For the rest of the week-end the girls sat at that little bounder's feet and begged him to show them how to "serve," how to hold their rackets for the back-hand stroke, etc., etc.

Later we learned he was champion of half a dozen English counties.

*That Glorious First Drive*

Safety lies only in complete absence--we hope the printer won't make this "a couple of absinthes," though they might help if one could get them. But, remember, if you really wish to escape the infection, stay away from golf-courses. Touch not a single club, not a blooming ball. Above all, resist that desire to swing one of the darn sticks--"just to see how it feels." That way madness lies. As soon as you touch the leather end of the thing, the malignant animal magnetism gets to work and you are lost. After that there is nothing for your family to do but appoint a guardian for you.

Do as we say, don't do as we did. For we, who write this in sack-cloth and ashes--we speak metaphorically, of course, though we do notice a little cigar-ash on our vest--we neglected this simple precaution and are suffering accordingly. We let ourself be lured to the links. We picked up a driver and waggled it about a few times, and now we are suffering from an acute and very distressing form of the disease. This is how the calamity occurred.

An old and esteemed friend of ours, for whom we feel the respect which one able man feels for another, said to us not long ago: "Doing anything Saturday afternoon, old man?" He spoke with an affected carelessness, but we have since had reason to suspect that his casual manner covered a seething ocean of vindictive purpose. It was his intention to infect us with the virus of _dementia golfiana_.

"Oh, nothing special," we said, after pausing for a few moments to give the impression that we were mentally conning over a long list of important social engagements. "Oh, nothing special"--fatal words!

"Good! Come on down and walk around the course with me at Barborough"--that isn't the name exactly, but it will serve--"they're getting it into nice shape now. It'll do you good to get out into the country a bit. Will you come?"

He spoke with an appearance of cordial good-fellowship. We believed in the entire friendliness of his intentions--alas, ours has always been a trusting nature! We said we'd go.

"All right--catch the two-fifteen radial. I'll be waiting for you at the club-house. You can't miss it."

We caught it, along with two hundred and sixty-seven children, women, and men, who were likewise wooing the country breezes at points along the road. Several of the children made the trip in our lap. The little dears seemed to know instinctively how much we hated it. When we got there our trousers had a large number of creases, in addition to those which our valet puts in them. But fortunately we were wearing our other suit.

When we had walked back half a mile or so from where the curmudgeon of a conductor put us off, we discovered the club-house. It is a very handsome building, impressively combining the characteristics of a munition-magnate's bungalow and a summer hotel. Obviously it had been built long before Prohibition became a serious menace.

We looked all about for our friend. He was nowhere in sight. Several gentlemen in soiled negligee roamed aimlessly about the grounds, dragging what looked at a distance like short lengths of drain-pipe. We discovered afterwards that they were golf-bags and these gentlemen were doing their own caddying--the caddies, we presume, being all engaged as bell-hops in the club-house.

Finally, a very hot and dusty and particularly disreputable gentleman, dragging a reluctant bag by the nape of the neck, came towards us. We recognized our friend. He looked tired and unhappy, and his eye had the dull stare of a somnambulist. We have since learned it was merely a mild form of golf-face.

"Come on over to the tee," he said.

We brightened up at once--our throat really was rather dry. But that wasn't the sort of tea he meant. Instead, he took us over to a little square terrace. Gouging a handful of damp sand out of a box, he made a tiny mound and set the ball on top of it. Somehow or other it looked very small and pale and pitiful--especially as it was already pretty badly scarred up. Then he wiped his hands on his trousers--in view of their condition perhaps it would be more accurate to call them pants--and drew out of his bag a long stick with a wooden head about the size of a small cocoanut. It was certainly an awesome weapon.

Stepping up to that miserable ball, he carefully assumed one of the most awkward positions we have ever seen a human being adopt. His feet were about a yard apart and his toes were pointed with elaborate care. Then he laid the cheek of that murderous club alongside the ball, waggled it a few times, gazed long and earnestly at a point in the landscape a mile or so away, and finally brought his eye back again and fixed it on the ball with a hypnotical glare. We thought we could see the ball tremble. Our own heart was palpitating frightfully. We had no idea of the strain of watching a man play golf.

Slowly that ponderous club arose. Higher and higher it went. But never for a fraction of an instant did our friend cease to glower at that unfortunate globule. Then, just as the strain was about to become unendurable, he swung. The mighty knob on the end of that stick shrieked through the air. It made a complete circle and a half and nearly threw our friend off his feet. We have since learned to recognize this as the "follow-through."

So interested were we in our friend's extraordinary movements--we had never seen him act like this before--that it was almost a full minute before it occurred to us to look for the ball. It was still there. Missed? Could it be that he had really--but no!

"I always make a trial swing," he said with a smile decidedly wan and unconvincing. "Helps a fellow to get the force into it, you know." We didn't know, and we had strong suspicions, in spite of our entire ignorance of golf.

Once more he went through the performance, waggles and all. Once more the big club swung up, and once more it came down. This time it hit the ball--hit it with a vengeance. Tearing a nasty gash in the top of that miserable pellet, the club sent it bounding in agony along the ground for about forty yards.

Our friend grew violently red in the face, and he said--but, on second thoughts, it doesn't really matter what he said. There are times when even the best of men.....

We followed meekly as he strode after the offending spherule with a homicidal gleam in his eye. Hurling his bag of clubs to the ground, after he had picked out a thing with an iron head which no man should be allowed to carry around in a law-abiding country, he sneaked up on the ball and hit it a clout which drove it clear out of sight over an intervening hill.

"Ha! ha!" he said, with a chortle of maniacal glee, "that's better. That's more in my style." But personally we felt as though we had aided and abetted a murder.

Then we both went and looked for that blessed ball. We hunted under every bush and blade of grass, but it had crawled away wounded to die alone. Fifteen minutes later he decided to drop one on the edge of the green. He finally got it into the hole all right after several lovely putts.

We have no intention of giving a minute description of our friend's game. We have since found reason to believe that it was not exactly an awe-inspiring exhibition. But, as he explained to us several times in the course of play, we should have been there earlier to see his work during his first round. So far as we could judge from his description, it would have made Harry Vardon jealous enough to quit the game and get a job delivering meat.

"You should have seen my shot from the third tee--the Devil's Drive, we call it. It was a lallapaloosa! By the way, what is the record drive? I've forgotten for the moment."

We told him not to ask us, as we wotted not of such things. He smiled at us with what seemed an expression of great relief, as though he felt he could speak with confidential frankness.

"Well, whatever it is," said he, "mine was at least three hundred and sixty yards! How about that?"

We said that it was very fine; and no doubt it is. But we noticed that he lowered his voice as he spoke--perhaps because of the impressive nature of the statement, perhaps because he was afraid someone would overhear him, someone who knew better.

As we said above, it is not our intention to enter into the details of our friend's game, or to give a verbatim report of the language he was led to use on several regrettable occasions. Our whole purpose in writing this article is to tell what we ourself did in a moment of recklessness. We are telling it to serve as a warning to others who still are unbitten by the dread microbe of "gawf."

We had gone right around the course, and had finally got back to the club-house and the first tee. We had duly admired the scenery of the grounds, which were really far too beautiful to be delivered over to a lot of feeble-minded golfers. Our friend threw down his bag of clubs with a grunt of relief.

"Better take a shot or two," he said, "while I slip into the office to have a word with the secretary."

That was the moment of doom. That was the time when, breathing a brief prayer to such of the saints as we still have a pull with, we should have sprinted down the road to the car-line. We should have begged our friend to take the things away with him. We should have broken every stick in the bag and burned the pieces. We should have thrown ourself down in a fit. We should have done anything rather than run the risk we actually took. Alas, we knew not what we did.

Heedless of impending doom, we laid our new hat on the ground. We playfully extracted the big club with the swollen head and the brass bottom. We clawed out of the box a handful of wet sand and made with it a neat little pyramid, on the top of which we carefully placed the ball. Then we stepped back and contemplated it. It was a very pretty thing--a nice little pyramid and a nice little white ball. It looked shamefully easy.

The club felt rather queer, and it wobbled in our grasp. If we had recognized the omen, there might still have been hope for us. But we were cheerfully, idiotically irresponsible. No time was lost on the proper "stance." We stood any old way. Our only desire was to knock that ball off that silly little pile of sand; and we simply made a swipe at it--crack!

Did we hit that ball?--O Lord, did we hit it! The birds around Barborough must still tremble when they think of the way that blessed ball went whizzing among the clouds. Don't ask us how we did it. We don't know. We just swung the club as hard as we could at the ball, heard a nice, crisp crack, turned around two or three times, almost putting our legs out of joint in the process, and then recovered in time to see that locoed spheroid sailing along like a racing aeroplane, a mile high and going due north. Just missing a crow, it vol-planed to earth and lay shimmering like a diamond in the sun. How far away? We won't tell you--you wouldn't believe us if we did.

"Some drive!" said a voice at our back. It was the club professional! Our cup of pride filled up with a rush and slopped all over our soul. Hastily seizing an iron, we ran after the ball. We didn't hit it hard. We didn't want to break the windows in the club-house. But a couple of brisk taps dropped it dead on the tee again. We weren't trying to play the hole, of course, but were merely batting the ball around. If we had tried to play it, we would probably have done it in about three.

Naturally, we repeated the performance several times. We were in a fever of delighted excitement. We couldn't miss the ball if we tried. We had it tamed and domesticated. It would eat right out of our hand, sit up and beg, and lie dead. And all the time we didn't suspect for a moment that this exhilaration was merely the first symptom of that dreadful and incurable disease--gawfitis!

We have since learned that this is not at all unusual with beginners. Every golfer we have discussed the matter with tells us that he had a somewhat similar experience. In fact, one fellow assured us that the first time he ever had a club in his hand he played the first four holes in par--he was holing putts forty feet long as though there was no place else for the ball to go. But we didn't know this. We didn't suspect that the demon of golf lures his victims on. We simply took it for granted that we were a natural master of the game, and that all we had to do was to devote an occasional afternoon to it and we would soon have our room filled with silver cups big enough to bath the dog in.