“I believe they are,” he said. “And I believe I’m as tall as you.”
“Oh, you’re getting a big lout,” said Maddox.
But the evil star continued to shine balefully on David next day. The device of the double pen was promptly detected by Mr. Howliss, his lines were torn over, all to be done again, and Bags’s friendly help was vain labour also. Bags had been opposed to the patent-pen system, on the ground that it was liable to detection, and though theoretically it saved time, it didn’t save so much, as nobody could wield the double pen with the same swiftness as the single one. Consequently he made no renewed offer of help with regard to the reimposed imposition, and David had to stop in at twelve next day after an excruciating interview with the dentist instead of playing racquets. And this parsimonious dentist quite refused to whip out the aching tooth, and have done with it (a pang to which David had strung himself up); he said it could be saved, and the salvation thereof included a whizzing drill, and the stuffing of it with something painful to the feelings and obnoxious to the taste, and implied a further visit the day after to-morrow.
Then followed a brief interval of delightful happenings, while the baleful star hid itself. The tooth was comforted and reinforced, so that it could be bitten on again even with nuts, an unexpected mid-term largesse of ten shillings from his father, and half a crown from Margery, which was almost insanely noble of her, turned up, and with Bags for a partner David won the school junior-fives competition. This was a triumph of the juiciest kind, for all Europe must have known that Bags was a fives-player of no class at all, and that portion of civilised Europe which saw the final were aware that David practically played it single, butting about from side to side of the court, while Bags effaced himself in the manner of a shadow against the wall, so as not to be in the way. That meant another sovereign, which had to be expended in the purchase of a small silver commemorative cup and to that sum he added five shillings out of the tips from home, and bought for it a black polished stand of pear-wood with a plated shield on which was engraved his name and that of his innocuous partner.
“First of my cups,” he announced when it came home, “and it jolly well will not be the last. Won’t it be ripping when I have a whole shelf-full of them? No, I’m blowed if I have my tea in an ordinary cup. Pour it in here, Bags, and I’ll drink your good health for getting out of the way so well! Lord, how hot it gets!”
Simultaneously with these propitious events, came the early rounds of the house handicap golf competition. David had adopted a wise policy over this. For ten days before the links had been practically unplayable owing to floods, but he had remembered a word of Frank’s. “If you want to improve, go out with half a dozen balls and practise mashie shots on to a green. When you’ve got them all there, putt them all out.”
So for the last week David had “slacked out” with a mashie and a putter, found a green that was not under water, and had put this hint into practice. It was dull, but then there was nothing else to do, and the reward looked within reach. He had been entered with a handicap of fifteen, but, thanks to his practice, he was already a stroke or two better than that. He had met Maddox in the second round, and receiving eleven strokes had beaten him. Then he encountered Gregson, whom he played on level terms, and, emerging by the skin of his teeth from that, had wiped up the floor with Cruikshank, who gave him six. This brought him to the semi-final.
Then from behind the clouds out popped the baleful star again, and shed its dreadful beams on him with peculiar effulgence. First of all Maddox went up to Cambridge for his scholarship examination, and David, who had never known what school was like without the sense of his being there, who was the first person he saw when he woke in the morning, and the last before he went to sleep at night, felt lost and rudderless. Next him in dormitory was the empty bed, and all day long he knew there was no chance of Frank’s dropping in, or calling him to his study. Then Bags got influenza and disappeared also, leaving David bereft of his two great friends, to find out for the first time how solid and comfortable a pal Bags was. Then came the semi-final of the golf-handicap, in which he was completely off his game, and got beaten on level terms by the mild and spotty Joynes, to whom David felt competent to give four strokes in the round. But such proved, on this fatal afternoon, not to be the case.
It was a gusty, boisterous day, and David, liable at all times to be rather wild and given to exuberant slicing, sliced in a manner probably without parallel. With his loose arms he could drive a very long ball, but to-day that was a disadvantage rather than otherwise, since he sent it to remote cover-point. This was exasperating, and Joynes, who usually had the honour, exasperated him further, for, having himself gone not far, but straight up the middle of the course, he overwhelmed David with a sort of envious condolence.
“By Jove, what a long ball!” he would say, as David’s drive started on its insane career. “I wish I could drive like that. Oh, the wind’s catching it; bad luck. Look where it’s going, miles away! It’ll be rotten bad luck if it’s on the road.”