IV
MR. WELLAWAY’S host used a Scotch-plaid golf-bag, without initials painted on it, and when the two men issued from the club-house the bag was leaning against the wall immediately under the outside bulletin-board. One list on the board was headed “Applications for Membership,” but there were no names entered later than a month and a half old, and all these had the word “Elected” written after them. When Mr. Wellaway caught sight of the other list his face brightened.
“My handicap is eighteen,” he said, looking through the list of members with the handicaps set opposite the names.
“Two better than mine,” said his host. “I play at twenty.”
“Twenty?” said Mr. Wellaway, running his finger up and down the handicap list.
“But I haven’t been given a handicap here yet,” said his host. “They don’t give you a handicap here until you are a member.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Wellaway, and turned away. He had no further interest in the handicap-list.
The course was clear for the entire first hole. Mr. Wellaway got away with a clean drive, but sliced his second into the rough, while his host sliced his first into a sand-pit, got out with a high niblick shot, and lay on the putting-green in three. Mr. Wellaway wasted a stroke chopping out of the rough, and put his ball on the green with a clean iron shot in four, close enough to putt out in one, making the hole a five. His host took two to hole out, doing another five, but winning the hole on his handicap, which gave him one stroke on the first hole. It was good golf, par golf, and Mr. Wellaway was elated. To do a hole in par on a strange course, after getting into the rough, was better golf than he knew how to play, and the loss of the hole after such playing made him only the more eager to play his best. He forgot Mary’s jealousy and his annoyance at not knowing the name of his host, and played golf as he had never played it before. The professional’s clubs seemed to work magic in his hands. At the ninth hole he was still one down, but his host did the first hole on the second round in eight, to Mr. Wellaway’s seven, and it was seesaw around the course the second time, with all even when eighteen holes had been played.
“I guess we can play it off before the storm hits us,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, and for the first time Mr. Wellaway noticed the black clouds piling up in the west. They started the nineteenth hole with a rush of wind whirling the dust from the road across the course, and before they had walked to where their balls lay after their drives, the forward edge of the storm-clouds, low, ragged, and an ugly yellow, was full over them, and a glare of lightning, followed by a tremendous crash, blinded them both. Mr. Wellaway’s host threw his bag of clubs on the grass as though it were red hot, and started at a full run for the club-house. Mr. Wellaway followed him.
Except for the steward and his wife, the club-house was already deserted, the last automobile tearing down the club roadway as Mr. Wellaway reached the veranda. The lightning exceeded anything Mr. Wellaway had ever seen, and crash followed crash in deafening explosions, as though the electrical storm had centered near the club-house. A fair-sized hickory-tree, half dead from the depredations of the hickory-bark beetle, fell crashing across the sleeping-room annex of the club-house. For half an hour after the rain began to fall in sheets the lightning continued, while Mr. Wellaway and his host stared at the storm through the windows of the club-house; but about six o’clock the worst of the storm had passed on, and the rain had become a steady, heavy downpour.
“There’s one thing sure,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host: “there’s no going home for you to-night.”
“But I must go home,” said Mr. Wellaway.
“If you must, of course you must,” said his host; “but there would be no sense in going in this rain. We will have dinner right here. I suppose you can get us up a couple of chops or something?”
“Yes, sir,” said the steward, who had returned from a survey of his sleeping-quarters. “Chops or steak.”
“Then I’ll just ’phone my wife that I’ll not be home,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, and he entered the telephone-booth. In a few minutes he came out again. “Can’t get central,” he said with annoyance. “The thing is either cut off or burned out. Probably a tree has fallen across the wires. I hate to drag you out through all this rain, but my wife will be distracted if I don’t get home. She’ll imagine I’m killed. You will have to come home with me and take pot-luck.”
Drawn by Henry Raleigh
“VERY GENTLY MR. WELLAWAY RAISED THE LETTERS FROM THE POCKET JUST AS HE HEARD THE RUBBER-SOLED SHOES TOUCH THE ZINC TREADS OF THE STAIRS”
“Why, that’s very kind of you,” said Mr. Wellaway, “but I could not think of it. My own wife will be worrying. I’ll just scoot through the rain to the station and get the first train home.”
“Of course, if you think best,” said the host. “We have to pass the station on the way to my house. But Sarah would be glad to put you up for the night.”
The station was not as far as Mr. Wellaway had feared, for it was not necessary to walk to the main station; there was another nearer, and they reached it a few minutes before a train for the city was due. Mr. Wellaway’s host walked to the ticket-window.
“I presume the train is late,” he asked.
“You presume exactly right,” said the young man in the ticket-office. “She’s not only late, but she’s going to be later before she ever gets to New York. The lightning struck the Bloom Street bridge, and the bridge went up like fireworks. It will be about twenty-four hours before anybody from this town gets to New York.”
“Twenty-four hours!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway, aghast. “But I can telegraph.”
“If you can, you can do more than I can do,” said the young man. “I’ve tried, and I can’t do it, and I’m a professional.”
“Well!” said Mr. Wellaway.
“All right,” said his host. “Now there’s nothing for you to do but accept my invitation, and I make it doubly warm. Sarah will be delighted. You are the first guest we’ve had for the night since we moved out here. She’ll be delighted, I tell you. And so will I.”
Drawn by Henry Raleigh
“‘A TALL, THIN FELLOW, WITH SANDY SIDEBURNS. PROBABLY A FLOOR-WALKER IN SOME SHOP, WITH A PERPETUAL SMILE’”
“But I ought to go home,” insisted Mr. Wellaway.
“But you can’t go home,” laughed his host. “Come right along. Sarah will be delighted. She’s—she’s fond of company. Perhaps our ’phone will be working. You can telephone your wife from our house. Really, Sarah will be glad—she’ll be delighted, I tell you.”
So Mr. Wellaway accompanied his host. The house to which he was led was an average suburban dwelling, a frame house of ample size, with wide verandas, a goodly lawn, and the usual clumps of shrubbery. At the screen door the host paused.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll let you wait here while I step inside and tell Sarah we are coming. Sarah is the most hospitable of women, and that’s the reason I want to tell her. She’ll welcome you with open arms, but—you know how these hospitable women are, don’t you? They like a minute or two to get into a more than casual mood. It will be all right. Only a minute.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Wellaway, feeling rather uncomfortable, and his host opened the door with a latch-key and entered. If Mr. Wellaway could have heard what passed inside that door, he would have turned and run.
“Darling!” exclaimed his host’s wife when she saw him. “How wet you are! Go right up-stairs and get into a hot bath this minute! You’ll die of cold!”
“In a minute, Sarah,” said her husband; “but, first, I’ve got a man out there. He’s going to stay for dinner and sleep here.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sarah, letting her mind jump to her larder. “But we didn’t expect any one. Really I don’t know. Perhaps I can make what I have do. Is—is it any one important?”
“Don’t know,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, hastily. “I’ll tell you all about it when I’m dressing. I don’t know the fellow’s name, but he knows me as well as I know you. I ought to know his name as well as I know yours, but I don’t. I met him somewhere, and I remember he was a good fellow. We’ll get his name out of him somehow before he’s in the house very long, but, for Heaven’s sake! don’t let him know I don’t know. He may be some one important. He looks as if he might be somebody. I’ll bring him in. Don’t give me away.”
“But you don’t know who he is. He may be a thief—”
“Hope not. I can’t let him stand out there any longer, anyway. Be pleasant to him.”
He threw open the door.
“Come right in!” he exclaimed heartily. “I’ve bearded the lioness, and told her the story of our lives. I don’t believe you have met before.”
“I have not had that pleasure,” said Mr. Wellaway, making his best bow, “but I am delighted, although I’m sorry to come unannounced.”
“Announced or unannounced, you might know you are always welcome,” said Sarah, charmingly. “And the first thing is to get on some dry clothes. You’ll both of you take cold. Run along, and I’ll see what we have for dinner.”
The garments given him by his host did not fit Mr. Wellaway specially well. They were considerably too large, but he was glad to get into anything dry. What dissatisfied him with them more than aught else was that they were the sort of garments of which the newspapers remark, “There were no marks of identification.” The spare room into which he was put offered no more aid. Three or four recent magazines lay on the small table, but bore no names except their own titles. For the rest, the spare room was evidently a brand-new spare room, fresh from the maker. For purposes of identification it might as well have been a hotel bedroom. Mr. Wellaway dressed hastily and hurried down-stairs.
The parlor, to the right of the stairs, stood open, and Mr. Wellaway entered. A large fireplace occupied one end of the room, and the furnishings and pictures bespoke a home of fair means, but no great wealth. Magazines lay on a console table, but what attracted Mr. Wellaway was a book-case. The case was well filled with books in good bindings, and Mr. Wellaway stepped happily across the carpet and laid his hand on the book-case door. It was locked.