Ambrose dropped his cue with a crash.
"You don't really think I'm yellow, do you?" he cried.
"If you are," said I, "you're the first redhead that ever got his colour scheme mixed."
The little rascal grinned like a gargoyle.
"Listen!" said he confidentially. "You've used me pretty well—to my face, anyhow—and I'll tell yon this much: I don't care the snap of my fingers for your ratty old cup. I care even less for the members of this club—present company excepted, you understand; but I can't stand it to have anybody think I'm not game. Ever since I was a runt of a kid I've had to fight, and they can say anything about me except that I'm a quitter.... Why, I've stuck round here for nearly five months just because I wouldn't let a lot of old fossils drive me out and make me quit—five months without a friend in the place, and only MacQuarrie to talk to.
"If I'd been yellow it would have shown that first Saturday when everybody turned me down so cold. I wanted to walk out and never come back. I wanted to; but I stuck. Honest, if I'm anything at all I'm game—game enough to stand the gaff and take the worst of it; and I'll prove it to you by playing this bird, no matter how good he is. I'll fight him every jump of the way, and if he licks me he'll have to step out some to do it. What's a licking, anyway? I've had a thousand of 'em! Plenty of people can lick me; but you bet your life nobody ever scared me!"
"Good kid!" said I, and held out my hand.
After an instant's hesitation Ambrose seized it. "Now lead me to this MacNeath person," said he. "I suppose we ought to be introduced, eh? Or has he been told that I'm the Country Club leper?"
It was a sorely disappointed gallery that welcomed the substitute—disappointed and amazed; but the few Bellevue members were openly jubilant. They had reason to be, for word had been brought back to them that Lounsberry and Crane were running away with their matches. Between them and the cup they saw only a golfing novice, a junior member without a war record. They immediately began offering odds of two to one on the MacNeath-Phipps match; but there were no takers. The Dingbats held a lodge of sorrow in the shade of the caddie house and mournfully estimated their losses, while our feminine contingent showed signs of retreating to the porch and spending the afternoon at bridge.
MacNeath was first on the tee—a tall, flat-muscled, athletic man of forty; and, as the veteran was preparing to drive, Ambrose and MacQuarrie held a whispered conversation.