“John,” he said, as he led me to his garage, which was on the back of his lot, “I am sure this automobile of mine is bewitched. I cannot think of anything else that would make it behave as an automobile in good health should, and I give you my word of honour that it is acting in perfect rhythm, never slipping a cog nor missing fire. Of course, with the machine behaving in that unaccountable manner, I would not dare to start for Port Lafayette, but I want to run you around to the Country Club. You ought to be in our Country Club, and I want you to see it, and I want you to tell me what you think about this automobile of mine. I can't understand it!”
I have often noticed three things: I have noticed that a boy is never really happy until he owns a dog; I have noticed that a flat-dweller is never content until he owns a phonograph; but above all I have noticed that the commuter—the man that lives in the sweet-scented, tree-embowered suburbs—is restless and uneasy until he joins the Country Club. So I accepted Millington's invitation.
We ran out of his yard and half a block up the street, Millington listening carefully all the while, and we could not hear a sound of distress in any part of the automobile. Millington stopped the car and got out.
“I am going to walk to the Club,” he said. “I won't trust myself in that car. As for you, as it was entirely for your sake I proposed this little run to the Club, I am going to put the machine in your charge, and you are to run it around the block until it resumes its normal bad condition. From what I know of you and the remarks you have made while I have tried to repair the engine, I believe you will soon have it making all sorts of noises, and,” he added, “perhaps it will be making a noise it never made before.”
Then he showed me how to start, and what to touch if a tree or telephone post got in my way, and then he went on to the Country Club.
I was much touched by this evidence of Millington's faith in my ability to bring out the bad points of his automobile, and as soon as he disappeared I set to work, and I had hardly gone twice around the block before I had it knocking more loudly than ever I had heard it knock. But I was resolved to show Millington that his trust was not misplaced, and I ran the nose of the machine into a tree, threw on the high speed suddenly until I heard a grinding noise that told me the gears were stripped. Then I left the car there and walked on to the Country Club.
A Country Club is an institution conducted for the purpose of securing as many new members as possible, in order that their initiation fees may pay for the upkeep of the golf green. Aside from this, the object of the club is to enable the men that mow the grass to make an honest living by selling the golf balls they find while mowing the grass.
The Membership Committee, on which Millington served, is a small body of men whose duty it is to learn, as soon as possible, who that new man is that moved into Billing's house, and to get twenty dollars in initiation fees from him, before he has spent all his money for mosquito screens.
When Millington said to me, in the way members of Country Clubs have, “You ought to be in our Country Club,” I was tickled. I did not know then that Millington was on the membership committee, and his willingness to admit me to fellowship seemed to show that I had been promptly recognized as a desirable citizen of Westcote; a man worth knowing; one of the inner circle of desirables. What more fully convinced me was the eagerness of Mr. Rolfs.
“We must have you in,” said Rolfs. “I have been speaking to several of the members about you, and they are all enthusiastic about taking you in. Of course, our green is a little ragged just now, but when we get your mon—when—of course, the green is a little ragged just now, but we expect to have it trimmed soon, very soon.”