"Ole bline hawss, come outen the wilderness,Outen the wilderness, outen the wilderness;Ole bline hawss——"
"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 thetime. Yes, suh. At—the—time. 'N'en ag'in, he mightchange."
"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!"
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 professionalcarte blanchein 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.
Once in a while he was allowed to win, for Poindexter and Sprott followed the system practised by other confidence men; but they never forgot to take his winnings away from him the next day, charging him interest at the rate of fifty per cent for twenty-four hours. The Ooley-cow was so very easy that they took liberties with him, so good-natured about his losses that they presumed upon that good nature and ridiculed him openly; but the old saw sometimes loses a tooth, the worm turns, the straight road bends at last, so does the camel's back, and the prize cow kicks the milker into the middle of next week. And, as I remarked before, the cow usually has a reason.
One morning I dropped into the downtown club which Perkins calls his home. I found him sitting in the reception room, juggling a newspaper and watching the door. He seemed somewhat disturbed.
"Good morning," said I.
"It is not a good morning," said he. "It's a bad morning. Look at this."
He handed me the paper, with his thumb at the head of the Lost-and-Found column, and I read as follows:
"Lost—A black leather wallet, containing private papers and a sum of money. A suitable reward will be paid for the return of same, and no questions asked. Apply to W. J. P., Argonaut Club, City."
"Tough luck," said I. "Did you lose much?"
"Quite a sum," replied the Ooley-cow. "Enough to make it an object. In large bills mostly."
"Too bad. The wallet had your cards in it?"
"And some papers of a private nature."
"Have you any idea where you might have dropped it? Or do you think it was stolen?"
"I don't know what to think. I had it last night at the Country Club just before I left. I know I had it then, because I took it out in the lounging room to pay a small bet to Mr. Poindexter—a matter of two dollars. Then I put the wallet back in my inside pocket and came straight here—alone in a closed car. I missed it just before going to bed. I telephoned to the Country Club. No sign of it there. I went to the garage myself. It was not in the car. Of course it may have been there earlier in the evening, but I think my driver is honest, and——"
At this point we were interrupted by a clean-cut looking youngster of perhaps seventeen years.
"Your initials are W. J. P., sir?" he asked politely.
"They are."
"This is your 'ad' in the paper?"
"It is."
The boy reached in his pocket and brought out a black leather wallet. "I have returned your property," said he, and waited while the Ooley-cow thumbed a roll of yellow-backed bills.
"All here," said Perkins with a sigh of relief. Then he looked up at the boy, and his large bovine eyes turned hard as moss agates. "Where did you get this?" he demanded abruptly. "How did you come by it?"
The boy smiled and shook his head, but his eyes never left Perkins' face. "No questions were to be asked, sir," said he.
"Right!" grunted the Ooley-cow. "Quite right. A bargain's a bargain. I—I beg your pardon, young man.... Still, I'd like to know.... Just curiosity, eh?... No?... Very well then. That being the case"—he stripped a fifty-dollar note from the roll and passed it over—"would you consider this a suitable reward?"
"Yes, sir, and thank you, sir."
"Good day," said Perkins, and put the wallet into his pocket. He stared at the boy until he disappeared through the street door.
"Something mighty queer about this," mused the Ooley-cow thoughtfully. "Mighty queer. That boy—he looked honest. He had good eyes and he wasn't afraid of me. I couldn't scare him worth a cent. Couldn't bluff him.... Yet if he found it somewhere, there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't have told me. He didn't steal it—I'll bet on that. Maybe he got it from some one who did. Oh, well, the main thing is that he brought it back.... Going out to the Country Club this afternoon?"
I said that I expected to play golf that day.
"Come out with me then," said the Ooley-cow. "Poindexter and Sprott will be there too. Yesterday afternoon I played Poindexter for the lunches to-day. Holed a long putt on the seventeenth green, and stuck him. Come along, and we'll make Poindexter give a party—for once."
"It can't be done," said I. "Uncle Billy doesn't give parties."
"We'll make him give one," chuckled the Ooley-cow. "We'll insist on it."
"Insist if you want to," said I, "but you'll never get away with it."
"Meet me here at noon," said the Ooley-cow. "If Poindexter doesn't give the party I will."
I wasn't exactly keen for the Ooley-cow's society, but I accepted his invitation to ride out to the club in his car. He regaled me with a dreary monologue, descriptive of the Heidelberg of America, and solemnly assured me that the pretty girls one sees in Chicago are all from Dubuque.
It was twelve-thirty when we arrived at the Country Club, and Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott were there ahead of us.
"Poindexter," said Perkins, "you are giving a party to-day, and I have invited our friend here to join us."
Uncle Billy looked at Old Man Sprott, and both laughed uproariously. Right there was where I should have detected the unmistakable odour of a rodent. It was surprise number one.
"Dee-lighted!" cackled Uncle Billy. "Glad to have another guest, ain't we, Sprott?"
Sprott grinned and rubbed his hands. "You bet! Tell you what let's do, Billy. Let's invite everybody in the place—make it a regular party while you're at it!"
"Great idea!" exclaimed Uncle Billy. "The more the merrier!" This was surprise number two. The first man invited was Henry Bauer, who has known Uncle Billy for many years. He sat down quite overcome.
"You shouldn't do a thing like that, Billy," said he querulously. "I have a weak heart, and any sudden shock——"
"Nonsense! You'll join us?"
"Novelty always appealed to me," said Bauer. "I'm forever trying things that nobody has ever tried before. Yes, I'll break bread with you, but—why the celebration? What's it all about?"
That was what everybody wanted to know and what nobody found out, but the luncheon was a brilliant success in spite of the dazed and mystified condition of the guests, and the only limit was the limit of individual capacity. Eighteen of us sat down at the big round table, and sandwich-and-milk orders were sternly countermanded by Uncle Billy, who proved an amazing host, recommending this and that and actually ordering Rhine-wine cup for all hands. I could not have been more surprised if the bronze statue in the corner of the grill had hopped down from its pedestal to fill our glasses. Uncle Billy collected a great pile of tags beside his plate, but the presence of so much bad news waiting at his elbow did not seem to affect his appetite in the least. When the party was over he called the head waiter. "Mark these tags paid," said Uncle Billy, capping the collection with a yellow-backed bill, "and hand the change to Mr. Perkins."
"Yes sir," said the head waiter, and disappeared.
I looked at the Ooley-cow, and was just in time to see the light of intelligence dawn in his big soft eyes. He was staring at Uncle Billy, and his lower lip was flopping convulsively. Everybody began asking questions at once.
"One moment, gentlemen," mooed the Ooley-cow, pounding on the table. "One moment!"
"Now don't get excited, Perkins," said Old Man Sprott. "You got your wallet back, didn't you? Cost you fifty, but you got it back. Next time you won't be so careless."
"Yes," chimed in Uncle Billy, "you oughtn't to go dropping your money round loose that way. It'll teach you a lesson."
"It will indeed." The Ooley-cow lowered his head and glared first at one old pirate and then at the other. His soft eyes hardened and the moss-agate look came into them. He seemed about to bellow, paw up the dirt and charge.
"The laugh is on you," cackled Poindexter, "and I'll leave it to the boys here. Last night our genial host dropped his wallet on the floor out in the lounging room. I kicked it across under the table to Sprott and Sprott put his foot on it. We intended to give it back to him to-day, but this morning there was an 'ad' in the paper—reward and no questions asked—so we sent a nice bright boy over to the Argonaut Club with the wallet. Perkins gave the boy a fifty-dollar note—very liberal, I call it—and the boy gave it to me. Perfectly legitimate transaction. Our friend here has had a lesson, we've had a delightful luncheon party, and the joke is on him."
"And a pretty good joke, too!" laughed Old Man Sprott.
"Yes," said the Ooley-cow at last, "a pretty good joke. Ha, ha! A mighty good joke." And place it to his credit that he managed a very fair imitation of a fat man laughing, even to the shaking of the stomach and the wrinkles round the eyes. He looked down at the tray in front of him and fingered the few bills and some loose silver.
"A mighty good joke," he repeated thoughtfully, "but what I can't understand is this—why didn't you two jokers keep the change? It would have been just that much funnier."
The Ooley-cow's party was generally discussed during the next ten days, the consensus of club opinion being that some one ought to teach Poindexter and Sprott the difference between humour and petty larceny. Most of the playing members were disgusted with the two old skinflints, and one effect of this sentiment manifested itself in the number of invitations that Perkins received to play golf with real people. He declined them all, much to our surprise, and continued to wallop his way round the course with Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott, apparently on as cordial terms as ever.
"What are you going to do with such a besotted old fool as that?" asked Henry Bauer. "Here I've invited him into three foursomes this week—all white men, too—and he's turned me down cold. It's not that we want to play with him, for as a golfer he's a terrible thing. It's not that we're crazy about him personally, for socially he's my notion of zero minus; but he took his stinging like a dead-game sport and he's entitled to better treatment than he's getting. But if he hasn't any better sense than to pass his plate for more, what are you going to do about it?"
"'Ephraim is joined to idols,'" quoted Little Doc Ellis. "'Let him alone.'"
"No, it's the other way round," argued Bauer. "His idols are joined to him—fastened on like leeches. The question naturally arises, how did such a man ever accumulate a fortune? Who forced it on him, and when, and where, and why?"
That very afternoon the Ooley-cow turned up with his guest, a large, loud person, also from the Heidelberg of America, who addressed Perkins as "Wesley," and lost no time in informing us that Southern California would have starved to death but for Iowa capital. His name was Cottle—Calvin D. Cottle—and he gave each one of us his card as he was introduced. There was no need. Nobody could have forgotten him. Some people make an impression at first sight—Calvin D. Cottle made a deep dent. His age was perhaps forty-five, but he spoke as one crowned with Methuselah's years and Solomon's wisdom, and after each windy statement he turned to the Ooley-cow for confirmation.
"Ain't that so, Wesley? Old Wes knows, you bet your life! He's from my home town!"
It was as good as a circus to watch Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott sizing up this fresh victim. It reminded me of two wary old dogs circling for position, manœuvring for a safe hold. They wanted to know something about his golf game—what was his handicap, for instance?
"Handicap?" repeated Cottle. "Is that a California idea? Something new, ain't it?"
Uncle Billy explained the handicapping theory.
"Oh!" said Cottle. "You mean what do I go round in—how many strokes. Well, sometimes I cut under a hundred; sometimes I don't. It just depends. Some days I can hit 'em, some days I can't. That's all there is to it."
"My case exactly," purred Old Man Sprott. "Suppose we dispense with the handicap?"
"That's the stuff!" agreed Cottle heartily. "I don't want to have to give anybody anything; I don't want anybody to give me anything. I like an even fight, and what I say is, may the best man win! Am I right, gentlemen?"
"Absolutely!" chirped Uncle Billy. "May the best man win!"
"You bet I'm right!" boomed Cottle. "Ask old Wes here about me. Raised right in the same town with him, from a kid knee-high to a grasshopper! I never took any the best of it in my life, did I, Wes? No, you bet not! Remember that time I got skinned out of ten thousand bucks on the land deal? A lot of fellows would have squealed, wouldn't they? A lot of fellows would have hollered for the police; but I just laughed and gave 'em credit for being smarter than I was. I'm the same way in sport as I am in business. I believe in giving everybody credit. I win if I can, but if I can't—well, there's never any hard feelings. That's me all over. You may be able tolickme at this golf thing—likely you will; but you'll neverscareme, that's a cinch. Probably you gentlemen play a better game than I do—been at it longer; but then I'm a lot younger than you are. Got more strength. Hit a longer ball when I do manage to land on one right. So it all evens up in the long run."
Mr. Cottle was still modestly cheering his many admirable qualities when the Perkins party went in to luncheon, and the only pause he made was on the first tee. With his usual caution Uncle Billy had arranged it so that Dubuque was opposed to Southern California, and he had also carefully neglected to name any sort of a bet until after he had seen the stranger drive.
Cottle teed his ball and stood over it, gripping his driver until his knuckles showed white under the tan. "Get ready to ride!" said he. "You're about to leave this place!"
The club head whistled through the air, and I can truthfully say that I never saw a man of his size swing any harder at a golf ball—or come nearer cutting one completely in two.
"Topped it, by gum!" ejaculated Mr. Cottle, watching the maimed ball until it disappeared in a bunker. "Topped it! Well, better luck next time! By the way, what are we playing for? Balls, or money, or what?"
"Whatever you like," said Uncle Billy promptly. "You name it."
"Good! That's the way I like to hear a man talk. Old Wes here is my partner, so I can't bet with him, but I'll have a side match with each of you gentlemen—say, ten great, big, smiling Iowa dollars. Always like to bet what I've got the most of. Satisfactory?"
Uncle Billy glanced at Old Man Sprott, and for an instant the old rascals hesitated. The situation was made to order for them, but they would have preferred a smaller wager to start with, being petty larcenists at heart.
"Better cut that down to five," said Perkins to Cottle in a low tone. "They play a strong game."
"Humph!" grunted his guest. "Did you ever know me to pike in my life? I ain't going to begin now. Ten dollars or nothing!"
"I've got you," said Old Man Sprott.
"This once," said Uncle Billy. "It's against my principles to play for money; but yes, this once."
And then those two old sharks insisted on a foursome bet as well.
"Ball, ball, ball," said the Ooley-cow briefly, and proceeded to follow his partner into the bunker. Poindexter and Sprott popped conservatively down the middle of the course and the battle was on.
Battle, did I say! It was a massacre of the innocents, a slaughter of babes and sucklings. Our foursome trailed along behind, and took note of Mr. Cottle, of Dubuque, in his fruitless efforts to tear the cover off the ball. He swung hard enough to knock down a lamp-post, but he seldom made proper connections, and when he did the ball landed so far off the course that it took him a dozen shots to get back again. He was hopelessly bad, so bad that there was no chance to make the side matches close ones. On the tenth tee Cottle demanded another bet—to give him a chance to get even, he said. Poindexter and Sprott each bet him another ten dollar note on the last nine, and this time Uncle Billy did not say anything about his principles.
After it was all over Cottle poured a few mint toddies into his system and floated an alibi to the surface.
"It was those confounded sand greens that did it," said he. "I'm used to grass, and I can't putt on anything else. Bet I could take you to Dubuque and flail the everlasting daylights out of you!"
"Shouldn't be surprised," said Uncle Billy. "You did a lot better on the last nine—sort of got into your stride. Any time you think you want revenge——"
"You can have it," finished Old Man Sprott, as he folded a crisp twenty-dollar note. "We believe in giving a man a chance—eh, Billy?"
"That's the spirit!" cried Cottle enthusiastically. "Give a man a chance; it's what I say, and if he does anything, give him credit. You beat me to-day, but I never saw this course before. Tell you what we'll do: Let's make a day of it to-morrow. Morning and afternoon both. Satisfactory! Good! You've got forty dollars of my dough and I want it back. Nobody ever made me quit betting yet, if I figure to have a chance. What's money? Shucks! My country is full of it! Now then, Wesley, if you'll come out on the practise green and give me some pointers on this sand thing, I'll be obliged to you. Ball won't run on sand like it will on grass—have to get used to it. Have to hit 'em a little harder. Soon as I get the hang of the thing we'll give these Native Sons a battle yet! Native Sons? Native Grandfathers! Come on!" Uncle Billy looked at Old Man Sprott and Old Man Sprott looked at Uncle Billy, but they did not begin to laugh until the Ooley-cow and his guest were out of earshot. Then they clucked and cackled and choked like a couple of hysterical old hens.
"His putting!" gurgled Uncle Billy. "Did he have a putt to win a hole all the way round?"
"Not unless he missed count of his shots. Say, Billy!"
"Well?"
"We made a mistake locating so far West. We should have stopped in Iowa. By now we'd have owned the entire state!"
I dropped Mr. Calvin D. Cottle entirely out of my thoughts; but when I entered the locker room shortly after noon the next day something reminded me of him. Possibly it was the sound of his voice.
"Boy! Can't we have 'nother toddy here? What's the matter with some service? How 'bout you, Wes? Oh, I forgot—you never take anything till after five o 'clock. Think of all the fun you're missing. When I get to be an old fossil like you maybe I'll do the same. Good rule.... You gentlemen having anything? No? Kind of careful, ain't you? Safety first, hey?... Just one toddy, boy, and if that mint ain't fresh, I'll .... Yep, you're cagey birds, you are, but I give you credit just the same. And some cash. Don't forget that. Rather have cash than credit any time, hey? I bet you would! But I don't mind a little thing like that. I'm a good sport. You ask Wes here if I ain't. If I ain't a good sport I ain't anything.... Still, I'll be darned if I see how you fellows do it! You're both old enough to have sons in the Soldiers' Home over yonder, but you take me out and lick me again—lick me and make me like it! A couple of dried-up mummies with one foot in the grave, and I'm right in the prime of life! Only a kid yet! It's humiliating, that's what it is, humiliating! Forty dollars apiece you're into me—and a flock of golf balls on the side! Boy! Where's that mint toddy? Let's have a little service here!"
I peeped through the door leading to the lounging room. The Dubuque-California foursome was grouped at a table in a corner. The Ooley-cow looked calm and placid as usual, but his guest was sweating profusely, and as he talked he mopped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott were listening politely, but the speculative light in their eyes told me that they were wondering how far they dared go with this outlander from the Middle West.
"Why," boomed Cottle, "I can hit a ball twice as far as either one of you! 'Course I don't always know where it's going, but the main thing is I got thestrength. I can throw a golf ball farther than you old fossils can hit one with a wooden club, yet you lick me easy as breaking sticks. Can't understand it at all.... Twice as strong as you are.... Why, say, I bet I can take one hand and outdrive you!One hand!"
"Easy, Calvin," said the Ooley-cow reprovingly. "Don't make wild statements."
"Well, I'll bet I can do it," repeated Cottle stubbornly. "If a man's willing to bet his money to back up a wild statement, that shows he's got the right kind of a heart anyway.
"I ought to be able to stick my left hand in my pocket and go out there and trim two men of your age. I ought to, and I'll be damned if I don't think I can!"
"Tut, tut!" warned the Ooley-cow. "That's foolishness."
"Think so?" Cottle dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a thick roll of bills. "Well, this stuff here says I can do it—at least I cantry—and I ain't afraid to back my judgment."
"Put your money away," said Perkins. "Don't be a fool!"
Cottle laughed uproariously and slapped the Ooley-cow on the back.
"Good old Wes!" he cried. "Ain't changed a bit. Conservative! Always conservative! Got rich at it, but me I got rich taking chances. What's a little wad of bills to me, hey? Nothing but chicken-feed! I'll bet any part of this roll—I'll betallof it—and I'll play these sun-dried old sports with one hand. Now's the time to show whether they've got any sporting blood or not. What do you say, gentlemen?"
Uncle Billy looked at the money and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"Couldn't think of it," he croaked at length.
"Pshaw!" sneered Cottle. "I showed you too much—I scared you!"
"He ain't scared," put in Old Man Sprott. "It would be too much like stealing it."
"I'm the one to worry about that," announced Cottle. "It's my money, ain't it? I made it, didn't I? And I can do what I damn please with it—spend it, bet it, burn it up, throw it away. When you've worried about everything else in the world it'll be time for you to begin worrying about young Mr. Cottle's money! This slim little roll—bah! Chicken-feed! Come get it if you want it!" He tossed the money on the table with a gesture which was an insult in itself. "There it is—cover it! Put up or shut up!"
"Oh, forget it!" said the Ooley-cow wearily. "Come in and have a bite to eat and forget it!"
"Don't want anything to eat!" was the stubborn response. "Seldom eat in the middle of the day. But I'll have 'nother mint toddy.... Wait a second, Wes. Don't be in such a rush. Lemme understand this thing. These—these gentlemen here, these two friends of yours, these dead-game old Native Sons have got eighty dollars of my money—not that it makes any difference to me, understand, but they've got it—eighty dollars that they won from me playing golf. Now I may have a drink or two in me and I may not, understand, but anyhow I know what I'm about. I make these—gentlemen a sporting proposition. I give 'em a chance to pick up a couple of hundred apiece, and they want to run out on me because it'll be like stealing it. What kind of a deal is that, hey? Is it sportsmanship? Is it what they call giving a man a chance? Is it——"
"But they know you wouldn't have a chance," interrupted the Ooley-cow soothingly. "They don't want a sure thing."
"They've had one so far, haven't they?" howled Cottle. "What are they scared of now? 'Fraid I'll squeal if I lose? Tell 'em about me, Wes. Tell 'em I never squealed in my life! I win if I can, but if I can't—'s all right. No kick coming. There never was a piker in the Cottle family, was there, Wes? No, you bet not! We're sports, every one of us. Takes more than one slim little roll to send us up a tree! If there's anything that makes me sick, it's a cold-footed, penny-pinching, nickel-nursing, sure-thing player!"
"Your money does not frighten me," said Uncle Billy, who was slightly nettled by this time. "It is against my principles to play for a cash bet——"
"But you and your pussy-footed old side-partner got into me for eighty dollars just the same!" scoffed Cottle. "You and your principles be damned!"
Uncle Billy swallowed this without blinking, but he did not look at Cottle. He was looking at the roll of bills on the table.
"If you are really in earnest——" began Poindexter, and glanced at Old Man Sprott.
"Go ahead, Billy," croaked that aged reprobate. "Teach him a lesson. He needs it."
"Never mind the lesson," snapped Cottle. "I got out of school a long time ago. The bet is that I can leave my left arm in the clubhouse safe—stick it in my pocket—and trim you birds with one hand."
"We wouldn't insist on that," said Old Man Sprott. "Play with both hands if you want to."
"Think I'm a welsher?" demanded Cottle. "The original proposition goes. 'Course I wouldn't really cut the arm off and leave it in the safe, but what I mean is, if I use two arms in making a shot, right there is where I lose. Satisfactory?"
"Perkins," said Uncle Billy, solemnly wagging his head, "you are a witness that this thing has been forced on me. I have been bullied and browbeaten and insulted into making this bet——"
"And so have I," chimed in Old Man Sprott. "I'm almost ashamed——"
The Ooley-cow shrugged his shoulders.
"I am a witness," said he quietly. "Calvin, these gentlemen have stated the case correctly. You have forced them to accept your proposition——"
"And he can't blame anybody if he loses," finished Uncle Billy as he reached for the roll of bills.
"You bet!" ejaculated Old Man Sprott. "He was looking for trouble, and now he's found it. Count it, Billy, and we'll each take half."
"That goes, does it?" asked Cottle.
"Sir?" cried Uncle Billy.
"Oh, I just wanted to put you on record," said Cottle, with a grin. "Wesley, you're my witness too. I mislaid a five-hundred-dollar note the other day, and it may have got into my change pocket. Might as well see if a big bet will put these safety-first players off their game! Anyhow, I'm betting whatever's there. I ain't sure how much it is."
"I am," said Uncle Billy in a changed voice. He had come to the five-hundred-dollar bill, sandwiched in between two twenties. He looked at Old Man Sprott, and for the first time I saw doubt in his eyes.
"Oh, it's there, is it!" asked Cottle carelessly. "Well, let it all ride. I never backed up on a gambling proposition in my life—never pinched a bet after the ball started to roll. Shoot the entire works—'s all right with me!"
Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott exchanged significant glances, but after a short argument and some more abuse from Cottle they toddled over to the desk and filled out two blank checks—for five hundred and eighty dollars apiece.
"Make 'em payable to cash," suggested Cottle. "You'll probably tear 'em up after the game. Now the next thing is a stakeholder——"
"Is that—necessary?" asked Old Man Sprott.
"Sure!" said Cottle. "I might run out on you. Let's have everything according to Hoyle—stakeholder and all the other trimmings. Anybody'll be satisfactory to me; that young fellow getting an earful at the door; he'll do."
So I became the stakeholder—the custodian of eleven hundred and sixty dollars in coin and two checks representing a like amount. I thought I detected a slight nervousness in the signatures, and no wonder. It was the biggest bet those old petty larcenists had ever made in their lives. They went in to luncheon—at the invitation of the Ooley-cow, of course—but I noticed that they did not eat much. Cottle wandered out to the practise green, putter in hand, forgetting all about the mint toddy which, by the way, had never been ordered.
"You drive first, sir," said Uncle Billy to Cottle, pursuing his usual system. "We'll follow you."
"Think you'll feel easier if I should hit one over into the eucalyptus trees yonder?" asked the man from Dubuque. "Little nervous, eh? Does a big bet scare you? I was counting on that.... Oh, very well, I'll take the honour."
"Just a second," said Old Man Sprott, who had been prowling about in the background and fidgeting with his driver. "Does the stakeholder understand the terms of the bet? Mr. Cottle is playing a match with each of us individually——"
"Separately and side by each," added Cottle.
"Using only one arm," said Old Man Sprott.
"If he uses both arms in making a shot," put in Uncle Billy, "he forfeits both matches. Is that correct, Mr. Cottle?"
"Correct as hell! Watch me closely, young man. I have no moustache to deceive you—nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Watch me closely!"
He teed his ball, dropped his left arm at his side, grasped the driver firmly in his right hand and swung the club a couple of times in tentative fashion. The head of the driver described a perfect arc, barely grazing the top of the tee. His two-armed swing had been a thing of violence—a baseball wallop, constricted, bound up, without follow-through or timing, a combination of brute strength and awkwardness. Uncle Billy's chin sagged as he watched the easy, natural sweep of that wooden club—the wrist-snap applied at the proper time, and the long graceful follow-through which gives distance as well as direction. Old Man Sprott also seemed to be struggling with an entirely new and not altogether pleasant idea.
"Watch me closely, stakeholder," repeated Cottle, addressing the ball. "Nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Would you gentlemen like to have me roll up my sleeve before I start?"
"Drive!" grunted Uncle Billy.
"I'll do that little thing," said Cottle, and this time he put the power into the swing. The ball, caught squarely in the middle of the club-face, went whistling toward the distant green, a perfect screamer of a drive without a suspicion of hook or slice. It cleared the cross-bunker by ten feet, carried at least a hundred and eighty yards before it touched grass, and then bounded ahead like a scared rabbit, coming to rest at least two hundred and twenty-five yards away. "You like that?" asked Cottle, moving off the tee. "I didn't step into it very hard or I might have had more distance. Satisfactory, stakeholder?" And he winked at me openly and deliberately.
"Wha—what sort of a game is this?" gulped Old Man Sprott, finding his voice with an effort.
"Why," said Cottle, smiling cheerfully, "I wouldn't like to say off-hand and so early in the game, but you might call it golf. Yes, call it golf, and let it go at that."
At this point I wish to go on record as denying the rumour that our two old reprobates showed the white feather. That first tee shot, and the manner in which it was made, was enough to inform them that they were up against a sickening surprise party; but, though startled and shaken, they did not weaken. They pulled themselves together and drove the best they knew how, and I realised that for once I was to see their true golfing form uncovered.
Cottle tucked his wooden club under his arm and started down the course, and from that time on he had very little to say. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott followed him, their heads together at a confidential angle, and I brought up the rear with the Ooley-cow, who had elected himself a gallery of one.
The first hole is a long par four. Poindexter and Sprott usually make it in five, seldom getting home with their seconds unless they have a wind behind them. Both used brassies and both were short of the green. Then they watched Cottle as he went forward to his ball.
"That drive might have been a freak shot," quavered Uncle Billy.
"Lucky fluke, that's all," said Old Man Sprott, but I knew and they knew that they only hoped they were telling the truth.
Cottle paused over his ball for an instant, examined the lie and drew a wooden spoon from his bag. Then he set himself, and the next instant the ball was on its way, a long, high shot, dead on the pin.
"And maybe that was a fluke!" muttered the Ooley-cow under his breath. "Look! He's got the green with it!"
From the same distance I would have played a full mid-iron and trusted in Providence, but Cottle had used his wood, and I may say that never have I seen a ball better placed. It carried to the little rise of turf in front of the putting green, hopped once, and trickled onto the sand. I was not the only one who appreciated that spoon shot.
"Say," yapped Old Man Sprott, turning to Perkins, "what are we up against here? Miracles?"
"Yes, what have you framed up on us?" demanded Uncle Billy vindictively.
"Something easy, gentlemen," chuckled the Ooley-cow. "A soft thing from my home town. Probably he's only lucky."
The two members of the Sure-Thing Society went after their customary fives and got them, but Cottle laid his approach putt stone dead at the cup and holed out in four. He missed a three by the matter of half an inch. I could stand the suspense no longer. I took Perkins aside while the contestants were walking to the second tee.
"You might tell a friend," I suggested. "In strict confidence, what are they up against?"
"Something easy," repeated the Ooley-cow, regarding me with his soft, innocent eyes. "They wanted it and now they've got it."
"But yesterday, when he played with both arms——" I began.
"That was yesterday," said Perkins. "You'll notice that they didn't have the decency to offer him a handicap, even when they felt morally certain that he had made a fool bet. Not that he would have accepted it—but they didn't offer it. They're wolves, clear to the bone, but once in a while a wolf bites off more than he can chew." And he walked away from me. Right there I began reconstructing my opinion of the Ooley-cow.
In my official capacity as stakeholder I saw every shot that was played that afternoon. I still preserve the original score card of that amazing round of golf. There are times when I think I will have it framed and present it to the club, with red-ink crosses against the thirteenth and fourteenth holes. I might even set a red-ink star against the difficult sixth hole, where Cottle sent another tremendous spoon shot down the wind, and took a four where most of our Class-A men are content with a five. I might make a notation against the tricky ninth, where he played a marvellous shot out of a sand trap to halve a hole which I would have given up as lost. I might make a footnote calling attention to his deadly work with his short irons. I say I think of all these things, but perhaps I shall never frame that card. The two men most interested will never forget the figures. It is enough to say that Old Man Sprott, playing such golf as I had never seen him play before, succumbed at the thirteenth hole, six down and five to go. Uncle Billy gave up the ghost on the fourteenth green, five and four, and I handed the money and the checks to Mr. Calvin D. Cottle, of Dubuque. He pocketed the loot with a grin.
"Shall we play the bye-holes for something?" he asked. "A drink—or a ball, maybe?" And then the storm broke. I do not pretend to quote the exact language of the losers. I merely state that I was surprised, yes, shocked at Uncle Billy Poindexter. I had no idea that a member of the Episcopal church—but let that pass. He was not himself. He was the biter bitten, the milker milked. It makes a difference. Old Man Sprott also erupted in an astounding manner. It was the Ooley-cow who took the centre of the stage.
"Just a minute, gentlemen," said he. "Do not say anything which you might afterward regret. Remember the stakeholder is still with us. My friend here is not, as you intimate, a crook. Neither is he a sure-thing player. We have some sure-thing players with us, but he is not one of them. He is merely the one-armed golf champion of Dubuque—and the Middle West."
Imagine an interlude here for fireworks, followed by pertinent questions.
"Yes, yes, I know," said Perkins soothingly. "He can't play a lick with two arms. He never could. Matter of fact, he never learned. He fell off a haystack in Iowa—how many years ago was it, Cal?"
"Twelve," said Mr. Cottle. "Twelve next July."
"And he broke his left arm rather badly," explained the Ooley-cow. "Didn't have the use of it for—how many years, Cal?"
"Oh, about six, I should say."
"Six years. A determined man can accomplish much in that length of time. Cottle learned to play golf with his right arm—fairly well, as you must admit. Finally he got the left arm fixed up—they took a piece of bone out of his shin and grafted it in—newfangled idea. Decided there was no sense in spoiling a one-armed star to make a dub two-armed golfer. Country full of 'em already. That's the whole story. You picked him for an easy mark, a good thing. You thought he had a bad bet and you had a good one. Don't take the trouble to deny it. Gentlemen, allow me to present the champion one-armed golfer of Iowa and the Middle West!"
"Yes," said Cottle modestly, "when a man does anything, give him credit for it. Personally I'd rather have the cash!"
"How do you feel about it now?" asked the Ooley-cow.
Judging by their comments, they felt warm—very warm. Hot, in fact. The Ooley-cow made just one more statement, but to me that statement contained the gist of the whole matter.
"This," said he, "squares us on the wallet proposition. I didn't say anything about it at the time, but that struck me as a scaly trick. So I invited Cal to come out and pay me a visit.... Shall we go back to the clubhouse?"
I made Little Doc Ellis see the point; perhaps I can make you see it now.
Returning to the original simile, the Ooley-cow was willing to be milked for golf balls and luncheons and caddie hire. That was legitimate milking, and he did not resent it. He would have continued to give down in great abundance, but when they took fifty dollars from him, in the form of a bogus reward, he kicked over the bucket, injured the milkers and jumped the fence.
Why? I'm almost ashamed to tell you, but did you ever hear of a country cow—an Iowa cow—that would stand for being milked from the wrong side?
I think this will be all, except that I anticipate a hard winter for the golfing beginners at our club.
Now that Winthrop Watson Wilkins has taken his clubs away and cleaned out his locker some of the fellows are ready enough to admit that he wasn't half bad. On this point I agree with them. He was not. He was two-thirds bad, and the remainder was pure, abysmal, impenetrable ignorance.
Windy Wilkins may have meant well—perhaps he did—but when a fellow doesn't know, and doesn't know that he doesn't know and won't let anybody tell him that he doesn't know, he becomes impossible and out of place in any respectable and exclusive golf club. I suppose his apologists feel kindly toward him for eliminating Adolphus Kitts and squaring about a thousand old scores with that person, but I claim it was a case of dog eat dog and neither dog a thoroughbred. I for one am not mourning the departure of Windy Winkins, and if I never see him again, I will manage to bear it somehow.
They say that every golf club has one member who slips in while the membership committee is looking the other way. In Windy's case the committee had no possible excuse. There was an excuse for Adolphus Kitts. Adolphus got in when our club absorbed the Crystal Springs Country Club, and out of courtesy we did not scrutinise the Crystal Springs membership list, but Windy's name was proposed in the regular manner. All that was known of him was that he was a stranger in the community who had presumably never been in jail and who had money. The club didn't need his initiation fee and wasn't after new members, but for some reason or other the bars were down and Windy got in. The first thing we knew he landed in our midst with a terrific splash and began slapping total strangers on the back and trying to sign all the tags and otherwise making an ass of himself. He didn't wait for introductions—just butted in and took things for granted.
"You see, boys," he explained, "I've always been more or less of an ath-a-lete and I've tried every game but this one. Now that I'm gettin' to the time of life when I can't stand rough exercise any more, I thought I'd kind of like to take up golf. I would have done it when I lived in Chicago, but my friends laughed me out of it—said it was silly to get out and whale a little white pill around the country—but I guess anything that makes a man sweat is healthy, hey? And then my wife thought it would be a good thing socially, you know, and—no, waiter, this round is on me. Oh, but I insist! My card, gentlemen. That's right; keep 'em. I get 'em engraved by the thousand. Waiter! Bring some cigars here—perfectos, cigarettes—anything the gentlemen'll have, and let it be the best in the house! I don't smoke cigarettes myself, but my friends tell me that's the next step after takin' up golf! Ho, ho! No offence to any of you boys; order cigarettes if you want 'em. Everybody smokes on the new member!"
Well, that was Windy's tactful method of introducing himself. Is it any wonder that we asked questions of the membership committee? No out-and-out complaints, you understand. We just wanted to know where Windy came from and how he got in and who was to blame for it. Most of the information was furnished by Cupid Cutts.
Cupid is pretty nearly the whole thing at our club. In every golf club there is one man who does the lion's share of the work and gets nothing but abuse and criticism for it, and Cupid is our golfing wheel horse, as you might say. He is a member of the board of directors, a member of the house committee, chairman of the greens committee, and the Big Stick on the membership committee. He is also the official handicapper, which is a mighty good thing to bear in mind when you play against him. I have known Cupid to cut a man's handicap six strokes for beating him three ways on a ball-ball-ball Nassau.
Cutts is no Chick Evans, or anything like that, but, considering his physical limitations, he is a remarkable golfer and steady as an eight-day clock. He is so fat that he can't take a full-arm swing to save his life, but his little half-shot pops the ball straight down the middle of the course every time, and he plays to his handicap with a persistency that has broken many a youngster's heart. Straight on the pin all the time—that's his game, and whenever he's within a hundred yards of the cup he's liable to lay his ball dead.
There are lots of things I might tell you about Cupid Cutts—he's a sort of social Who's Who in white flannels and an obesity belt, and an authority on scandal and gossip, past and present—but the long and short of it is that it would be hard to get on without him, even harder than it is to get on with him. Well, we asked Cupid about Windy Wilkins, and Cupid went to the bat immediately.
"Absolutely all right, fellows, oh, absolutely! A little rough, perhaps, a diamond in the rough, but a good heart. And all kinds of money. He won't play often enough to bother anybody."
That was where Cupid was wrong two ways. Windy played every day, rain or shine, and he bothered everybody. He was just as noisy on the course as he was in the locker room, and when he missed his putt on the eighteenth green the fellows who were driving off at No. 1 had to wait until he cooled down. And when he managed to hit his drive clean he yelled like a Comanche and jumped up and down on the tee. He did all the things that can't be done, and when we spoke to him kindly about golfing etiquette he snorted and said he never had much use for red tape anyway and thought it was out of place in sport.
He tramped around on the greens and bothered people who wanted to putt. He talked and laughed when others were driving. He played out of his turn. He drove into foursomes whenever he was held up for a minute, just to let the players know that he was behind 'em.
He was absolutely impossible, socially and otherwise, but the most astonishing thing was the way he picked up the game after the first month or so. Windy was a tremendously big man and looked like the hind end of an elephant in his knickers; but for all his size he developed a powerful, easy swing and a reasonable amount of accuracy. As for form, he didn't know the meaning of the word. His stance was never twice the same, his grip was a relic of the dark ages, he handled his irons as a labouring man handles a pick, he did everything that the books say you mustn't do, and, in spite of it, his game improved amazingly. And he called us moving-picture golfers!
"Every move a picture!" he would say. "You have to plant your dear little feet just so. Your tee has got to be just so high. Your grip must be right to the fraction of an inch. You must waggle the club back and forth seven times before you dare to swing it, and then chances are you don't get anywhere! Step up and paste her on the nose the way I do! Forget this Miss Nancy stuff and hit the ball!"
When Windy got down around 90 he swelled all out of shape, and the next step, of course, was to have some special clubs built by MacLeish, the professional. They were such queer-looking implements that Cupid joked him about them one Saturday noon in the locker room. It was then that we got a real line on Windy, and Cupid found out that even a rough diamond may have a cutting edge.
"You're just like all beginners," said Cupid. "You make a few rotten shots and then think the clubs must be wrong. The regular models aren't good enough for you. You have to have some built to order, with bigger faces and stiffer shafts. Get it into your head that the trouble is with you, not with the club. The ball will go straight if you hit it right."
"Clubs make a lot of difference," said Windy. "Ten strokes anyway."
"Nonsense! A good, mechanical golfer can play with any clubs!"
"I suppose you think you can do it?"
"I know I can."
"And you'd bet on it?"
"Certainly."
Windy didn't say anything for as much as two minutes. The rascal was thinking.
"Allright," said he at last. "Tell you what I'll do. I'll make you a little proposition. You say you can play with any clubs. Give me the privilege of pickin' 'em out for you, and I'll bet you fifty dollars that I trim you on an even game—no handicap."
"Yes, but where are you going to get these clubs for me to play with? Off a scrap pile or something?"
"Right out of MacLeish's shop! Brand-new stuff, selected from the regular stock. And I'll go against you even, just to prove that you don't know it all, even if you have been playin' golf for twenty years!"
It was a flat, out-and-out challenge. Cupid looked Windy up and down with a pitying smile—the same smile he uses when an 18-handicap man asks to be raised to 24.
"I'd be ashamed to rob you, Wilkins," said he.
Windy didn't say anything, but he went into his locker and brought out a roll of bills about the size of a young grindstone. He counted fifty dollars off it, and you couldn't have told the difference. It looked just as big as before. He handed the fifty to me.
"It would be stealing it," said Cupid, but there was a hungry look in his eye.
"If you get away with it," said Windy, "I won't complain to the police. Put up or shut up."
Well, it looked like finding the money. We knew that Windy couldn't break a 90 to save his life, and Cupid had done the course in an 84, using nothing but a putting cleek.
"How many clubs can I have?" asked Cupid with his usual caution in the matter of bets.
"Oh, six or eight," answered Windy. "Makes no difference to me."
"I'll take eight," said Cupid briskly. "And if you don't mind, I'll post a check. I'm not in the habit of carrying the entire cash balance in my jeans."
"Fair enough!" said Windy. "You boys are all witnesses to the terms of this bet. I'm to pick out eight clubs—eight new ones—and Cutts here is to play with 'em. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly!" grinned Cupid. "It'll just cost you fifty fish to find out that a mechanical golfer can lick you with strange weapons."
Windy went out and Cupid promised us all a dinner on the proceeds of the match.
"I don't want the fellow's money," said he, "but Windy's entirely too fresh for a new member. A beating will do him good and make him humble. Eight clubs. If he brings me only two or three that I can use—a driver, a mid-iron, and a putter—I'll hang his hide on the fence too easy. He's made a bad bet."
But it wasn't such a bad bet after all. Windy came back with eight clubs in the crook of his arm, and when Cupid caught a glimpse of the collection he howled himself purple in the face, and no wonder. Eight nice, new, shiny, mashie niblicks!
You see, nothing was said about thesortof clubs Windy was to pick out, and he had selected eight of the same pattern, no good on earth except for digging out of bunkers or popping the ball straight up in the air! Harry Vardon himself can'tdrivewith a mashie niblick!
"What are you beefin' about?" asked Windy. "Eight clubs, you said, and here they are. Play or pay."
"Pay! Why, man alive, it's a catch bet—a cinch bet! It's not being done this year at all! It's like stealing the money!"
"And you thought you could steal mine," was the cool reply. "You thought you had a cinch bet, didn't you? Be honest now. Eight clubs, by the terms of the agreement, and you'll play with 'em or forfeit the fifty."
Cupid looked at the mashie niblicks and then he looked at Windy. I looked at him too and began to understand how he got his money. His face was as hard as granite. "You'd collect that sort of a bet—from a friend?" It was Cupid's last shot.
"Just as quick as you would," said Windy.
"I'll write you a check," and Cupid turned on his heel and started for the office.
Windy tried to turn it into a joke—after he got the check—but nobody seemed to know where to laugh, and following that little incident he found it a bit hard to get games. Whenever Windy was hunting a match the foursomes were full and there was nothing doing. A sensitive man would have suffered tortures, but Windy, with about as much delicacy as a rhinoceros, continued to infest the course morning, noon, and night. When he couldn't find any one weak-minded enough to play with him he played with himself, and somehow managed to make just as much noise as ever with only a caddie to talk to.
This was the state of affairs when Adolphus Kitts returned from the East, barely in time to shoot a 91 in the qualifying round of the Annual Handicap. We had hoped that he would miss this tournament, but no; there he was, large as life—which is pretty large—and ugly as ever. Grim and silent and nasty, he stepped out on No. 1 tee, and Cupid Cutts groaned as he watched him drive off.
"That fellow," said Cupid, "would hang his harp on the walls of the New Jerusalem and come back from the golden shore just to get into a handicap event, where nobody wants him, nobody will speak to him, and every one wishes him an ulcerated tooth! Why didn't he stay in the East?"
There were about four hundred and seventy-six reasons why Adolphus was unpopular with us; a few will suffice. In the first place, he was a cup hunter. He had an unholy passion for silver goblets and trophies with the club emblem on them, and he preferred a small silver vase—worth not to exceed three dollars, wholesale—to the respect and admiration of his fellow golfers. Heaven knows why he wanted trophies! They are never any good unless a man has friends to show them to!
In the second place, Adolphus didn't care how he won a cup, and, as Cupid used to say, the best club in his bag was the book of rules.
If you don't know it already, I must tell you that golf is the most strictly governed game in the world, and also the most ceremonious. It is as full of "thou shalt nots" as the commandments. There are rules for everything and everybody on the course, and the breaking of a rule carries a penalty with it—the loss of a stroke or the loss of a hole, as the case may be. Very few golfers play absolutely to the letter of the law; even those who know the rules incur penalties through carelessness, and in such a case it is not considered sporting to demand the pound of flesh; but there was nothing sporting about Adolphus Kitts.
He knew every obscure rule and insisted on every penalty. Question him, and he fished out the book. That book of rules stiffened his match play tremendously, besides making his opponents want to murder him. It was rather a rotten system, but Kitts hadn't a drop of sporting blood in his whole big body, and the element of sportsmanship didn't enter into his calculations at all. He claimed strokes and holes even when not in competition, and because of this he found it difficult to obtain partners or opponents.
"He's a golf lawyer, that's what he is—a technical lawyer!" said Cupid one day. "And I wouldn't even play the nineteenth hole with him—I wouldn't, on a bet!"
Come to think of it, that is about the bitterest thing you can say of a golfer.