III
Personally, I haven't a thing in the world against Russell Davidson. He never did me an injury and I hope he will never do me a favour. Russell is the sort of chap who is perfectly all right if you happen to like the sort of chap he is. I don't, and that's the end of the matter so far as I am concerned.
He hasn't been with us very long, and still it seems long enough. He came West to grow up with the country, arriving shortly before Bill's graduation, and he brought with him credentials which could not be overlooked, together with an Eastern golf rating which caused Waddles to sit up and take notice.
Ostensibly Russell is in the brokerage business, but he doesn't seem to work much at it. Those who know tell me that it isn't necessary for him to work much at anything, his father having attended to that little matter. Some of the dear ladies were mean enough to hint that Mary had this in mind, but they'll never get me to believe it.
At any rate the gossips soon had a nice juicy topic for conversation, and when Bill came home, wagging his sheepskin behind him, he found the front-porch privilege usurped by a handsome stranger who seemed quite at home in the Brooke household, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, inclined to resent Bill's presence on the premises.
It just happened that I was walking up and down the block smoking an after-dinner cigar on the evening when Bill discovered that he was slated for second-fiddle parts again. Russell's runabout was standing in front of the Brooke place, there was a dim light in the living room, and an occasional tenor wail from the phonograph. I heard quick, thumping footsteps, a big, lumbering figure came hurrying along the sidewalk—and there was Bill Hawley, grinning at me in the moonlight.
"Attaboy!" he cried, shaking hands vigorously. "How're you? How're all the folks? Gee, it's great to be home again! How's Mary?"
"She's fine," said I. "Haven't you seen her yet?"
"Just got in on the Limited at five o'clock. Thought I'd surprise her. Got a thousand things to tell you. Well, see you later!"
He went swinging up the front steps and rang the bell.
I was finishing my cigar when Bill came out again and started slowly down the walk. His wonderful surprise party had not lasted more than twenty minutes. I had to hail him twice before he heard me. We took a short walk together, and reached the end of the block before Bill opened his mouth. On the corner Bill swung round and faced me: "Who is that fellow?" It wasn't a question; it was a demand for information.
"What fellow?"
"Davis, or Davidson, something like that. Who is he?"
There wasn't a great deal I could tell him. Bill listened till I got to the end of my string, with a perfectly wooden expression on his homely countenance. Then for the first, last and only time he expressed his opinion of Russell Davidson.
"Humph!" said he. And after a long pause: "Humph!"
You may think that a grunt doesn't express an opinion, but as a matter of fact it's one of the most expressive monosyllables in any language. It can be made to mean almost anything. A ten-minute speech with a lot of firecracker adjectives wouldn't have made Bill's meaning any clearer.
The two grunts which came out of Bill's system were fairly dripping with disapproval.
"It's a wonderful night." I felt the need of saying something. "Must be quite a relief after all that humidity in the East."
"Uh huh."
"I understand you played pretty good golf on the college team, Bill."
"Uh huh."
"We've made a lot of improvements out at the club. You won't know the last nine now."
"Uh huh."
I couldn't resist the temptation of slipping a torpedo under his bows. I thought it might wake him up a trifle.
"Mary is playing a better game now. Davidson has been teaching her some shots."
Bill wanted to open up and say something, but he didn't know how to go about it. He looked at me almost piteously and I felt ashamed of myself.
"I'll be going now," he mumbled. "Haven't had much sleep the last few nights. Never sleep on a train anyway. See you later."
That was all I got out of him, but it was enough. It wasn't any of my affair, of course, but from the bottom of my heart I pitied the big, clumsy fellow. I felt certain that Mary was giving him the worst of it, and taking the worst of it herself, but what could I do? Absolutely nothing. In life's most important game the spectators are not encouraged to sit on the side lines and shout advice to the players.
As for Bill, I think he fought it out with himself that night and decided to return to his boyhood policy of watchful waiting. It wasn't the first time that he had lost the front-porch privilege, and in the past he had won it back again by keeping under cover and giving the incumbent a chance to become tiresome. Bill declined to play the second-fiddle parts; he took himself out of Mary's orchestra entirely. He did not call on her any more; but I am willing to bet any sum of money, up to ten dollars, that Bill knew how many times a week Russell's runabout stood in front of the Brooke place. Five would have been a fair average.
Russell had things all his own way, and before long we began to hear the same vague whisperings of a wedding, coupled with expressions of sympathy for Bill. Bill heard those whisperings too—trust the dear ladies for that—but he listened to everything with a good-natured grin, and even succeeded in fooling a portion of the female population; but he didn't fool Waddles and he didn't fool me. Bill met Mary at dinner parties and dances now and then, and whenever this happened the women watched every move that he made, and were terribly disappointed because he failed to register deep grief; but Bill never was the sort to wear his heart outside his vest. Russell was very much in evidence at all these meetings, for he took Mary everywhere, and Bill was scrupulously polite to him—the particular brand of politeness which makes a real man want to fight. And thus the summer waned, and the winter season came on—for in our country we have only two seasons—and it was in November that old Waddles finally unbuttoned his lip and informed me that young Mr. Davidson would never do.
It was in the lounging room at the country club. We had finished our round, and I had paid Waddles three balls as usual. It never costs less than three balls to play with him. We were sitting by the window, acquiring nourishment and looking out upon the course. In the near foreground Russell Davidson was teaching Mary Brooke the true inwardness of the chip shot. He wasn't having a great deal of luck. Waddles broke the silence by grunting. It was a grunt of infinite disgust. I searched my pockets and put a penny on the table.
"For your thoughts," said I.
"They're worth more than that," said Waddles.
"Not to me."
There was a period of silence and then Waddles grunted again.
"Get it off your chest," I advised him.
"That fellow," said Waddles, indicating Russell with a jerk of his thumb, "gives me a pain."
"And me," said I.
"I thought Mary Brooke had some sense," complained Waddles; "but I see now that she's like all the rest—anything with a high shine to it is gold. Now the pure metal often has a dull finish."
"Meaning Bill?" I asked.
"Meaning Bill. He isn't much to look at, but he's on the level, and he worships the very ground she walks on. Why can't she see it?"
"Why can't any woman see it?" I asked him.
"But somebody ought to tell her! Somebody ought to put her wise! Somebody——"
"Well," I interrupted, "why don't you volunteer for the job?"
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Waddles. "It's one of the things that can't be done. Tell her and you'd only make matters that much worse. And I thought Mary Brooke had brains!"
There was a long break in the conversation, during which Waddles munched great quantities of pretzels and cheese. Then:
"I wasn't much stuck on that Davidson person the first time I saw him!" His tone was the tone of a man who seeks an argument. "He's a good golfer, I admit that, but he's a cup hunter at heart, he's a rotten hard loser, and—well, he's not on the level!"
"You've been opening his mail?" I asked.
"Not at all. Listen! You know the Santa Ynez Gun Club? Well, he's joined that, among other things. He's a cracking good duck shot. I was down there the other night, and we had a little poker game."
"A little poker game?" said I.
"Table stakes," corrected Waddles. "Davidson was the big winner."
"You're not hinting——"
"Nothing so raw as that. Listen! Joe Herriman was in the game, and playing in the rottenest luck you ever saw. Good hands all the time, understand, but not quite good enough. If he picked up threes he was sure to run into a straight, and if he made a flush there was a full house out against him. Enough to take the heart out of any man. Finally he picked up a small full before the draw—three treys and a pair of sevens. Joe opened it light enough, because he wanted everybody in, but the only man who stayed was Davidson, who drew one card. After the draw Joe bet ten dollars for a feeler, and Davidson came back at him with the biggest raise of the night—a cool hundred."
"Well," said I, "what was wrong with that?"
"Wait. The hundred-dollar bet started Joe to thinking. He had been bumping into topping hands all the evening, and Davidson knew it.
"'If I were you,' says Davidson in a nice kind tone of voice, 'I wouldn't call that bet. Luck is against you to-night, and I'd advise you, as a friend, to lay that pat hand down and forget it.'
"Joe looked at him for a long time and then he looked at his cards; you see he'd been beaten so often that he'd lost his sense of values.
"'You think I hadn't better play these?' asks Joe.
"'I've given you a tip,' says Davidson. 'I hate to see a man go up against a sure thing.'
"'Well,' says Joe at last, 'I guess you've done me a favour. It wasn't much of a full anyway,' and he spread his hand on the table. Davidson didn't show his cards—he pitched 'em into the discard and raked in the pot—not more than fifteen dollars outside of his hundred."
"And what of that?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing," said Waddles; "nothing, only I was dealing the next hand, and I arranged to get a flash at the five cards that Davidson tried to bury in the middle of the deck."
"What did he have?"
Waddles snorted angrily.
"Four diamonds and a spade! A four flush, that's what he had! The two sevens alone would have beaten him! And all that sympathetic talk, that bum steer, just to cheat the big loser out of one measly pot! What do you think of a fellow who'd do a trick like that?"
I told him what I thought, and again there was silence and cheese.
"Do you think Mary is going to marry that—that crook?" demanded Waddles.
"That's what they say."
More cheese.
"I'd like to tell her," said Waddles thoughtfully, "but it's just one of the things that isn't being done this season. I'd like to give her a line on that handsome scalawag—before it's too late. I can't waltz up to her and tell her that he's bogus. There must be some other way. But how? How?"
Waddles sighed and attacked the cheese again. You'd hardly think that a man could get an inspiration out of the kind of cheese that our House Committee buys to give away, but before Waddles left the club that evening he informed me that a mixed-foursome tournament wouldn't be half bad—for a change.
"You won't get many entries," said I. "You know how the men fight shy of any golf with women in it."
"Don't want many."
"Then why a tournament?" I asked. "The entry fees won't pay for the cups."
"I'm giving the cups," said Waddles, and investigated the cheese bowl once more. "Two of 'em. One male cup and one female cup. About sixteen dollars they'll set me back, but I've an idea—just a sneaking, lingering scrap of a notion—that I'll get my money's worth."
And he went away mumbling to himself and blowing cracker crumbs out of his mouth.