This time they had to notice the boy. He was mad clear through, and his voice showed it. They all turned, took one good look at him, and then toddled away, keeping well in the middle of the course. Peck was still explaining the theory of the perfect drive. Wally yelled again; this time they did not even look at him. "Well!" said he. "Of all the damned swine! I—I believe we should drive anyway!"
"You'll lose a lot of bets if you do." Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. Goodness knows I didn't want to see his game go to pieces behind the Big Four—I didn't want to play behind them myself. I tried to explain. The kid came over and patted me on the back.
"You're perfectly right," said he. "I forgot all about those fool bets, but I'd gladly lose all of 'em if I thought I could hit that long-nosed stiff in the back of the neck!" He meant the Colonel. "And so that's the Greens Committee, eh? Holy jumping Jemima! What a club!"
I couldn't think of much of anything to say, so we sat still and watched Watlington dig his way out of the bunker, Peck offering advice after each failure. When Watlington disagreed with Peck's point of view he took issue with him, and all hands joined in the argument. Wally was simply sizzling with pent-up emotion, and after Watlington's fifth shot he began to lift the safety-valve a bit. The language which he used was wonderful, and a great tribute to higher education. Old Hardpan himself couldn't have beaten it, even in his mule-skinning days.
At last the foursome was out of range and I got off a pretty fair tee shot. Wally was still telling me what he thought of the Greens Committee when he swung at the ball, and never have I seen a wider hook. It was still hooking when it disappeared in the woods, out of bounds. His next ball took a slice and rolled into long grass.
"Serves me right for losing my temper," said he with a grin. "I can play this game all right, old top, but when I'm riled it sort of unsettles me. Something tells me that I'm going to be riled for the next half hour or so. Don't mind what I say. It's all meant for those hogs ahead of us."
I helped him find his ball, and even then we had to wait on Peebles and Hamilton, who were churning along down the middle of the course in easy range. I lighted a cigarette and thought about something else—my income tax, I think it was. I had found this a good system when sewed up behind the Big Four. I don't know what poor Wally was thinking about—man's inhumanity to man, I suppose—for when it came time to shoot he failed to get down to his ball and hammered it still deeper into the grass.
"If it wasn't for the bets," said he, "I'd pick up and we'd go over to Number Eight. I'm afraid that on a strict interpretation of the terms of agreement Martin could spear me for two hundred fish if we skipped a hole."
"He could," said I, "and what's more to the point, he would. They were to let us through—on request."
Wally sighed.