IV
Now, very little happens at Meadowmead, in the clubhouse or on the links, without David Cameron's knowledge. The waiters talk, the steward gossips, the locker-room boys repeat conversations which they overhear, and the caddies are worse than magpies. David, listening patiently and rubbing his ear, comes by a great deal of interesting information. I felt certain that he would have a true line on the wool market. I found him sitting in front of his shop. He was wearing a collar and tie, which is always a sign that he is at liberty for the afternoon. "You're dressed up to-day, David," said I.
"Ay," said he, "I'm thinkin' I'll be a gallery."
"Is there a match?"
"Ay, a money match. The ter-rms were agreed on at eleven this mornin'. The Cur-rnel is gruntin' an' groanin' with the lumba-ago again. Muster Small has taken a cruel advan-take of the auld man. A cruel advantage."
"What are they playing for?" I asked.
David rolled his eyes full upon me and regarded me steadily without blinking.
"A thousan' dollars a side," said he quietly.
"What?"
"Ay. Posted in the safe. Muster Small wanted to make it for two. It was a compr-romise."
"But, man, it's highway robbery! One thousand dollars!"
David continued to look at me fixedly.
"Do ye ken, Muster Bell," said he at last, "that's precisely what I'm thinkin' it is mysel'—juist highway robbery."
"What handicap is he giving Small?"
"None. Muster Small wouldna listen to it. He said the Cur-rnel was a'ready handicapped wi' auld age, lumba-ago, an' cauld feet. His remarks were quite personal, ye'll understand, an' he counted down the notes on the table an' blethered an' howled an' reminded the Cur-rnel that he had lost three hunder to him the last week. The auld gentleman was fair be-damned an' bullied into makin' the match, an' he was in such a towerin' rage he could scarce write a check.... Ay, I'm thinkin' it will be a divertin' match to watch."
Archie arrived just as Small and Colonel Jimmy started for the first tee. We formed the gallery, with David Cameron trailing along unobtrusively in the rear, sucking reflectively on a briar pipe. The Colonel gave us one look, which said very plainly that he hoped we would choke, but thought better of it and dropped back to shake hands and explain his position in the matter.
"Pretty stiff money match, isn't it, Colonel?" asked Archie.
"And surely you're not playing him even!" said I. "No handicap?"
Colonel Jimmy had the grace to blush; I wouldn't have believed he knew how. I suppose if you should catch a wolf in a sheepfold the wolf would blush too—not because he felt that he was doing anything wrong by his own standards, but because of the inferences that might be drawn from the wool in his teeth. The Colonel didn't in the least mind preying on lambs, but he hated to have a gallery catch him at it. He hastened to explain that it was all the lamb's fault.
He said that he found himself in an unfortunate situation because he had allowed his temper to get away from him and had "answered a fool according to his folly." He blamed Small for forcing him into a position where he might falsely be accused of taking an unfair advantage. He whined pitifully about his lumbago—the worst attack he remembered—and earnestly hoped that "the facts would not be misrepresented in any way." He also said that he regretted the entire incident and had offered to call off the match, but had been grossly insulted and accused of having cold feet.
"It isn't that I want the man's money," said he, "but I feel that he should have a lesson in politeness!"
On the whole, it was a very poor face for a wolf to wear. He groaned some more about his lumbago, which he said was killing him by inches, and went forward to join Small on the tee.
"The old pirate!" said Archie. "He wasn't counting on any witnesses, and our being here is going to complicate matters. Did you get what he said about hoping the facts would not be misrepresented? He's wondering what we'll tell the other members, and for the looks of the thing he won't dare rook Small too badly. Our being here will force him to make the match as close as he can."
"Yes," said I, "there ought to be some pretty fair comedy."
Small came over to us while the Colonel was teeing his ball. He looked bigger and rawer than ever in white flannel, and he didn't seem in the least worried about his bet. He was just as offensive as ever, and I could appreciate the Colonel's point about giving him a lesson in politeness.
As early as the first hole it became evident—painfully so—that Colonel Jimmy was out to make the match a close one at any cost. It would never do to give Small the impression that his pockets had been picked. In order to make him think that he had had a run for his money, the Colonel had to play as bad golf as Small—and he did it, shades of Tom Morris and other departed golfers, he did it!
Bad golf is a depressing spectacle to watch, but deliberately bad golf, cold-blooded, premeditated and studied out in advance, is a crime, and that is the only word which fits Colonel Jimmy's shameless exhibition. His only excuse was that it needed criminally bad golf to make the match seem close. The old fellow's driving was atrocious, he slopped and flubbed his iron shots in a disgusting manner, and his putting would have disgraced a blind man. Lumbago was his alibi, and he worked it overtime for our benefit. After every shot he would drop his club, clap his hands on his back, and groan like an entire hospital ward.
The only noticeable improvement in Small's playing was that he managed somehow or other to keep his ball on the course, though the lopsided, thumb-handed, clubfooted way he went at his shots was enough to make angels weep. Then, too, he didn't have so much to say and didn't yell after he hit the ball.
Thirteen holes they played, and I venture the statement that nothing like that match has ever been seen since the time when golf balls were stuffed with feathers. By playing just as badly as he knew how, getting into all the bunkers, and putting everywhere but straight at the cup, Colonel Jimmy arrived on the fourteenth tee all square with Small. They had each won two holes; the others had been halved in scandalous figures.
I could tell by the way the Colonel messed the fourteenth hole that he wanted to halve that too. He certainly didn't try to win it. Small's fifth shot was in the long grass just off the edge and to the right of the putting green. Colonel Jimmy laid his sixth within three feet of the cup.
"Boy, give me that shovel!" said Small, and the caddie handed him a niblick. It wasn't really a bad lie, but the ball had to be chopped out of three inches of grass.
"In a case of this kind," said Small, "I guess you trust to luck, what?" He played a short chop shot and the ball went hopping toward the pin, hit the back of the cup with a plunk, and dropped for a six. Of course it was a pure accident.
"Fluke!" said Colonel Jimmy, rather annoyed.
"Sure!" said Small. "But it wins the hole just the same!"
I knew then that the comedy was over for the day. Four holes remained to be played, and the Colonel was one down. It was never his policy to leave anything to chance. He would run the string out at top speed. David Cameron came up from the rear.
"They'll play golf from here in," he whispered.
"They!" said I. "One of 'em will!"
"Do ye really think so?" said David.
Our Number Fifteen is 278 yards long, over perfectly level ground. There are bunkers to the right and left of the putting green and a deep sand trap behind it. It is a short hole, but the sort of one which needs straight shooting and an accurate pitch. Of all the holes on the course, I think it is the Colonel's favourite.
"My honour, eh?" said Small. "That being the case, I guess I'll just rap it out of the lot!"
He didn't bother to measure the distance or take a practice swing. He didn't even address the ball. He walked up to it and swung his driver exactly as a man would swing a baseball bat—tremendous power but no form whatever—and the wonder is that he hit it clean. A white speck went sailing up the course, rising higher and higher in the air. When the ball stopped rolling it was 260 yards from the tee and on a direct line with the pin.
"Beat that!" said Small.
Colonel Jimmy didn't say anything, but he grunted whole volumes. It takes more than a long drive to rattle that old reprobate. He whipped his ball 200 yards down the course and stepped off the tee so well satisfied with himself that he forgot to groan and put his hands on his back. Small laughed.
"Lumbago not so bad now, eh?" said he.
"I—I may be limbering up a bit," said the Colonel. "The long drive isn't everything, you know; it's the second shot that counts!"
"All right," said Small. "Let's see one!"
Colonel Jimmy studied his lie for some time and went through all the motions, but when the shot came it was a beauty—a mashie pitch which landed his ball five feet from the cup.
"Beat that one!" said he.
"I'll just do that thing!" said Small. And he did. Of course he had a short approach, as approaches go, but even so I was not prepared to see him play a push shot and rim the cup, leaving his ball stone dead for a three. Colonel Jimmy was not prepared to see it either, and I have reason to believe that the push shot jarred the old rascal from his rubber heels upward. He went about the sinking of that five-foot putt with as much deliberation as if his thousand dollars depended on it. He sucked in his breath and got down on all fours—a man with lumbago couldn't have done it on a bet—and he studied the roll of the turf for a full minute—studied it to some purpose, for when he tapped the ball it ran straight and true into the cup, halving the hole.
"You're getting better every minute!" said Small. "I'm some little lumbago specialist, believe me!"
Colonel Jimmy didn't answer, but he looked thoughtful and just the least mite worried. One down and three to go for a thousand dollars—it's a situation that will worry the best of 'em.
Number Sixteen was where the light dawned on me. It is a long, tricky hole—bogey 6, par 5—and if the Colonel hadn't made another phenomenal approach, laying his ball dead from fifty yards off the green, Small would have won that too. They halved in fives, but it was Small's second shot that opened my eyes. He used a cleek where most players would try a brassie, and he sent the ball screaming toward the flag—220 yards—and at no time was it more than ten feet from the ground. I was behind him when he played, and I can swear that there wasn't an inch of hook or slice on that ball. The cleek is no club for a novice. I remembered the niblick shot on the fourteenth. That was surely a fluke, but how about the push shot on fifteen? English professionals have written whole books about the push shot, but mighty few men have ever learned to play it. Putting that and the cleek shot together, the light broke in on me—and my first impulse was to kick Archie MacBride.
I don't know who Colonel Jimmy wanted to kick, but he looked as if he would relish kicking somebody. He had been performing sums in mental addition, too, and he got the answer about the same time that I did.
"It's queer about that lumbago," said Small again.
"Yes," snapped the old man, "but it's a lot queerer the way you've picked up this game in the last two holes!"
"Well," and Small laughed, "you remember that I warned you I never could play for piker money, Colonel—that is, not very well."
Colonel Jimmy gave him a look that was all wolf—and cornered wolf at that. He answered Small with a nasty sneer.
"So you can't play well unless big money is bet, eh? That is exactly what I'm beginning to think, sir!"
"At any rate," said Small, "I've cured your lumbago for you, Colonel. You can charge that thousand to doctor bills!"
Colonel Jimmy gulped a few times, his neck swelled and his face turned purple. There wasn't a single thing he could find to say in answer to that remark. He started for the seventeenth tee, snarling to himself. I couldn't stand it any longer. I drew Archie aside.
"I think you might have told me," I said.
"Told you what?"
"Why, about Small—if that's his name. What have you done? Rung in a professional on the old man?"
"Professional, your grandmother!" said Archie. "Small is an amateur in good standing. Darned good standing. If the Colonel knew as much about the Middle West as he pretends to know, he'd have heard of Small. Wonder how the old boy likes the Chicago method of shearing a pig?"
The old boy didn't like it at all, but the seventeenth hole put the crown on his rage and mortification. Small drove another long straight ball, and after the Colonel had got through sneering about that he topped his own drive, slopped his second into a bunker, and reached the green in five when he should have been there in two. I thought the agony was over, but I didn't give Small credit for cat-and-mouse tendencies.
"In order to get all the good out of this lumbago treatment," said he, "it ought to go the full eighteen holes." Then, with a deliberation that was actually insulting, he played his second shot straight into a deep sand trap. I heard a queer clucking, choking noise behind me, but it was only David Cameron doing his best to keep from laughing out loud.
"Muster Small is puttin' the shoe on the other foot!" said David. "Ay, it's his turn to waste a few now."
"Cheer up, Colonel!" said Small. "You fooled away a lot of shots early in the match—on account of your lumbago, of course. I'm just as generous as you are when it comes to halving holes with an easy mark." To prove it Small missed a niblick shot a foot, but pitched out on his fourth, and, by putting all over the green, finally halved the hole.
When Small stood up on the eighteenth tee for his last drive he looked over at the Colonel and nodded his head. "Colonel?" said he.
Colonel Jimmy grunted—rather a profane grunt, I thought.
"Dormie!" said Small.
"Confound it, sir! You talk too much!"
"So I've heard," said Small. "I'll make you a business proposition, Colonel. Double or quits on the last hole? I understand that's what you do when you're sure you can win. Two thousand or nothing?... No? Oh, all right! No harm done, I suppose?"
Colonel Jimmy had a burglar's chance to halve the match by winning the last hole, and he fought for it like a cornered wolf. They were both on the green in threes, Small ten feet from the cup and the Colonel at least fifteen. If he could sink his putt and Small should miss his, the match would be square again.
The old man examined every blade of grass between his ball and the hole. Three times he set himself to make the putt, and then got down to take another look at the roll of the green—proof that his nerve was breaking at last. When he finally hit the ball it was a weak, fluttering stroke, and though the ball rolled true enough, it stopped four feet short of the cup.
"Never up, never in!" said Small. "Well, here goes for the thousand-dollar doctor bill! Lumbago is a very painful ailment, Colonel. It's worth something to be cured of it." Colonel Jimmy didn't say a word. He looked at Small and then he turned and looked at MacBride. All his smooth and oily politeness had deserted him; his little tricks and hypocrisies had dropped away and left the wolf exposed—snarling and showing his teeth. I thought that he was going to throw his putter at Archie, but he turned and threw it into the lake instead—into the middle, where the water is deep. Then he marched into the clubhouse, stiff as a ramrod, and so he missed seeing Small sink his ten-foot putt.
"An' ye were really surprised?" said David Cameron to me.
"I was," said I. "When did you find it out, David?"
"Come out to the shop," said the professional. He showed me a list of the players rated by the Western Golf Association. A man by the name of Small was very close to the top—very close indeed.
We don't know whether the Colonel is going to lay the case before the committee or not. If he does, we shall have to explain why he has not had an attack of lumbago since.