Colonel Jimmy threatens to resign from the club. He says it was sharp practice. Archie MacBride says it wasn't half as sharp as the lumbago trick which the Colonel worked on him as well as several of the other young members. Colonel Jimmy Norman is one of the charter members of our golf club. He is about as old as Methuselah and he looks it. That is what fools people. It doesn't fool the handicap committee, though. They've got the Colonel down to 8 now and he hasn't entered a club competition since for fear they'll cut him to 6. Respect for age is a fine thing, I admit, but anybody who can step out and tear off 79's and 80's on the Meadowmead course—72 par and a tough 72 at that—isn't entitled to much the best of it because he can remember the Civil War and cast his first vote for Tilden.
Mind you, I don't say that Colonel Jimmy shoots 79's every day, but he shoots 'em when he needs 79's to win, and that's the mark of a real golfer. And bet? The old pirate will bet anything from a repainted golf ball to a government bond. He has never been known to take his clubs out of the locker without a gamble of some sort. The new members pay all the expenses of Colonel Jimmy's golfing, as well as the upkeep of his limousine—the old members are shy of him—and the way he can nurse a victim along for months without letting him win a single bet is nothing short of miraculous. I ought to know, for I am one of Colonel Jimmy's graduates, and, while I never beat him in my life, he always left me with the impression that I would surely rook him the next time—if I had any luck. Somehow I never had the luck.
Colonel Jimmy has the gentle art of coin separation down to an exact science. Perhaps this is because he made his money in Wall Street and applies Wall Street methods to his golf. After every match he waits around until he collects. He always apologises for taking the money and says that he hopes you'll be on your game the next time.
The Colonel is a shrewd judge of how far he can go in shearing a lamb, and when he sees signs that the victim is getting bare in spots and is about ready to stop betting with him, he cleans up all the spare fleece with the lumbago trick. I'll never forget how he worked it on me. I had been betting him five and ten dollars a match and winning nothing but sympathy and advice and I was about ready to quit the Colonel as a poor investment.
The next time I went out to the club I found Colonel Jimmy sitting on the porch in the sun and I heard him groan even before I saw him. Naturally I asked what was the matter.
"Oh, it's this cursed lumbago again! I must have caught cold after my shower the other night and—ouch!—just when I'd been looking forward to a nice little game this afternoon, too! It's a real pleasure to play with a young man like you who—ouch! O-o-o!"
After a while he began to wonder whether light exercise would do him any good. I thought it might and he let me persuade him. If I would give him my arm as far as his locker—ouch!
All the time he was dressing he grunted and groaned and rubbed his back and cursed the lumbago bitterly. He said it was the one thing the devil didn't try on Job because it would have fetched him if he had. He worried some because he would have to drive with an iron, not being able to take a full swing with a wooden club. Then when he had me all ribbed up properly, he dropped a hint where I couldn't help but stumble over it.
"You have always named the bet," said Colonel Jimmy. "Don't take advantage of my condition to raise it beyond reason."
Up to that time the idea of making a bet with a cripple hadn't occurred to me. It wouldn't have seemed fair. I got to thinking about the fives and the tens that the old rascal had taken away from me when the advantage was all on his side and—