I
The front porch of our clubhouse is a sort of reserved-seat section from which we witness the finish of all important matches. The big wicker rocking-chairs command the eighteenth putting green, as well as the approach to it, and when nothing better offers we watch the dub foursomes come straggling home, herding the little white pills in front of them.
We were doing this only yesterday—Waddles, the Bish and yours truly—and Waddles was picking the winners and losers at a distance of three hundred yards. The old rascal is positively uncanny at that sort of thing; in fact, he rather prides himself on his powers of observation. The Bish was arguing with him, as usual. Of course he isn't really a bishop, but he has a long, solemn ecclesiastical upper lip and a heavy manner of trundling out the most commonplace remarks, so we call him the Bish, and there is nothing he can do about it. In justice to all parties concerned I feel it my duty to state that in every other way he is quite unlike any bishop I have ever met.
"Hello!" said Waddles, sitting up straight. "Here's the Old Guard—what's left of it, at least."
Away down to the right of the sycamore trees a single figure topped the brow of the hill and stalked along the sky line. There was no mistaking the long, thin legs or the stiff swing with which they moved.
"Walks like a pair of spavined sugar tongs," was Waddles' comment. "You can tell Pete Miller as far as you can see him."
A second figure shot suddenly into view—the figure of a small, nervous man who brandished a golf club and danced from sheer excess of emotion, but even at three hundred yards it was evident that there was no joy in that dance. Waddles chuckled.
"Bet you anything you like," said he, "that Sam Totten sliced his tee shot into the apricot orchard. He's played about four by now—and they're cutthroating it on the drink hole, same as they always do.... About time for Jumbo to be putting in an appearance."
While he was speaking a tremendous form loomed large on the sky line, dwarfing Miller and Totten. Once on level ground this giant struck a rolling gait and rapidly overhauled his companions—overhauled them in spite of two hundred and sixty pounds and an immense paunch which swayed from side to side as he walked.
"Little Jumbo," said Waddles, sinking back in his chair. "Little Jumbo, with his bag of clubs tucked under his left arm—one driver and all of three irons. He carries that awful load because his doctor tells him he ought to reduce. And he eats four pieces of apple pie à la mode with his lunch. But a fine old fellow at that.... Well, I notice it's still a threesome."
"Notice again," said the Bish, pointing to the left of the sycamores.
Waddles looked, and rose from his chair with a grunt of amazement. A fourth figure came dragging itself up the slope of the hill—the particular portion of the slope of the hill where the deepest trouble is visited upon a sliced second shot. Judging by his appearance and manner this fourth golfer had been neck-deep in grief, to say nothing of cactus and manzanita. His head was hanging low on his breast, his shoulders were sagging, his feet were shuffling along the ground, and he trailed a golf club behind him. When a man trails a club to the eighteenth putting green it is a sure sign that all is over but the shouting; and the wise observer will do his shouting in a whisper. Waddles sat down suddenly.
"Well, as I live and breathe and run the Yavapai Golf and Country Club!" he ejaculated, "there's my old friend, Mr. Peacock, with all his tail feathers pulled out! The deserter has joined the colours again, and the Old Guard is recruited to full war strength once more! They've actually taken him back, after the way he's acted, too! Now what do you think of that, eh?"
"If you ask me," said the Bish in his booming chest notes, "I'd say it was just a case of similia similibus curantur."
"Nothing of the sort!" said Waddles, bristling instantly; "and besides, I don't know what you mean. Bish, when you cut loose that belly barytone of yours you always remind me of an empty barrel rolling down the cellar stairs—a lot of noise, but you never spill anything worth mopping up. Come again with that foreign stuff."
"Similia similibus curantur," repeated the Bish. "That's Latin."
Waddles shook his head.
"In this case," said he, "your word will have to be sufficient. While you were hog-wrastling Cæsar's Commentaries I was down in the Indian Territory mastering the art of driving eight mules with a jerk line. I learned to swear some in Choctaw and Cherokee, but that was as far as I got. Break that Latin up into little ones. Slip it to me in plain unvarnished United States."
"Well, then," said the Bish, rolling a solemn eye in my direction, "that's the same as saying that the hair of the dog cures the bite."
"The hair of the dog," repeated Waddles, wrinkling his brow. "The hair—of—the—dog.... H'm-m."
"Oh, it's deep stuff," said the Bish. "Take a good long breath and dive for it."
"The only time I ever heard that hair-of-the-dog thing mentioned," said Waddles, "was the morning after the night before. Peacock doesn't drink."
The Bish made use of a very unorthodox expletive.
"Something ailed your friend Peacock," said he, "and something cured him. Think it over."
Slowly the light of intelligence dawned in Waddles' eyes. He began to laugh inwardly, quivering like a mould of jelly, but the joke was too big to remain inside him. It burst forth, first in chuckles, then in subdued guffaws, and finally in whoops and yells, and as he whooped he slapped his fat knees and wallowed in his chair.
"Why," he panted, "I saw it all the time—of course I did! It was just your fool way of putting it! The hair of the dog—oh, say, that's rich! Make a note of that Latin thing, Bish. I want to spring it on the Reverend Father Murphy!"
"Certainly—but where are you off to in such a hurry?"
"Me?" said Waddles. "I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to raise a man's handicap from twelve to eighteen!"
He went away, still laughing, and I looked over toward the eighteenth green. Pete Miller was preparing to putt, Sam Totten and Jumbo were standing side by side, and in the background was Henry Peacock, his hands in his pockets, his cap tilted down over his eyes and his lower lip entirely out of control. His caddie was already on the way to the shed with the bag of clubs.
"From twelve handicap to eighteen," said I. "That's more or less of an insult. Think he'll stand for it?"
"He'll stand for anything right now," said the Bish. "Look at him! He's picked up his ball—on the drink hole too. Give him the once over—'mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream!'"