"I'll ring up and let you know," said Henry, and slipped away to the shower room.
I do not know what lies he told over the telephone or how he managed to squirm out of the San Gabriel trip, but I do know that he turned up at the country club at eleven o'clock on Saturday morning and spent two hours panhandling everybody in sight for a match. The keen competition fought very shy of Mr. Peacock, thanks to the Bish and his whispering campaign. Everybody was scrupulously polite to him—some even expressed regret—but nobody seemed to need a fourth man.
"They're just as glad to see him as if he had smallpox," grinned the Bish. "Well, I've got a heart that beats for my fellow man. I'd hate to see Peacock left without any kind of a match. Old Sawyer is asleep on the front porch. I'll go and tell him that Peacock is here looking for him."
It has been years since any one sought Uncle George's company, and the old chap was delighted, but if Henry was pleased he managed to conceal his happiness. I learned later that their twosome wound up in a jawing match on the sixteenth green, in which Uncle George had all the better of it because he couldn't hear any of the things that Henry called him. They came to grief over a question of the rules; and Waddles, when appealed to, decided that they were both wrong—and a couple of fussy old hens, to boot.
"Just what I told him!" mumbled Uncle George, who hadn't heard a word that Waddles said. "The ball nearest the hole——"
"No such thing!" interrupted Henry, and they went away still squabbling. Waddles shook his head.
"He's a fine twelve-handicap man!" said he with scorn. "Doesn't even know the rules of the game!"
"Twelve!" said I. "You don't mean——"
"Yes, I cut him to twelve. Ever since he won that cup he's been hounding me—by letter, by telephone and by word of mouth. He's like Tom Sawyer's cat and the pain killer. He kept asking for it, and now he's got it. He thinks a low handicap will make him play better—stubborn old fool!"
"And that's not all," said the Bish. "He's left the Old Guard, flat."