A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

"She's had her lesson," said I. "Besides I didn't find she had a bad temper."

"And say, I want to tell you something else before I forget it: I fully appreciate your views on international marriage. Allie told me everything you had to say about it. You must have rubbed it in! But I think it did her good. She'll never marry another foreigner if I can help it, if she never marries. Well, well, I am glad to see you, and to shake your hand. I—I wish I could really tell you how I feel toward you, my boy, but I—I don't seem to have the power to express myself. If I—"

I tried to convince him that the pleasure had been all mine, and then inquired for Mrs. Titus and the Countess.

"They're both here, but the good Lord only knows where. Mrs. Titus goes driving every morning. Roads are fine if you can stick to them. Aline said something last night about riding over to Fassifern this forenoon with Amberdale and young Skelly. Let's see, it's half-past ten. Yes, they've gone by this time. Why didn't you write or telegraph Aline? She'll be as mad as a wet hen when she finds you've come without letting her know." "I thought I should like to take her by surprise," I mumbled uncomfortably.

"And my son Jasper—why, he will explode when he hears you're here. He's gone over to Covington to see a girl off on the train for Louisville. You've never seen such a boy. He is always going to Covington with some girl to see that she gets the right train home, But why are we wasting time here when we might be doing a few holes before lunch? I'll take you on. Of course, you understand I'm a wretched player, but I've got one virtue: I never talk about my game and I never tell funny stories while my opponent is addressing the ball. I'm an old duffer at the game, but I've got more sense than most duffers."

We sauntered down to the club house where he insisted on buying me a dozen golf balls and engaging a caddy for me by the week. Up to the moment we stepped up to the first tee he talked incessantly of Aline and Rosemary, but the instant the game was on he settled into the grim reserve that characterises the man who takes any enterprise seriously, be it work or play.

I shall not discuss our game, further than to say that he played in atrociously bad form but with a purpose that let me, to some degree, into the secret of his success in life. If I do say it myself, I am a fairly good player. My driving is consistently long. It may not be difficult for even you who do not go in for golf to appreciate the superior patience of a man whose tee shots are rarely short of two hundred and twenty yards when he is obliged to amble along doing nothing while his opponent is striving to cover the same distance in three or four shots, not counting the misses. But I was patient, agreeably patient, not to say tolerant. I don't believe I was ever in a better humour than on this gay November morn. I even apologised for Mr. Titus's execrable foozles; I amiably suggested that he was a little off his game and that he'd soon strike his gait and give me a sound beating after the turn. His smile was polite but ironic, and it was not long before I realised that he knew his own game too well to be affected by cajolery. He just pegged away, always playing the odd or worse, uncomplaining, unresentful, as even-tempered as the May wind, and never by any chance winning a hole from me. He was the rarest "duffer" it has ever been my good fortune to meet. As a rule, the poorer the player the loader his execrations. Jasper Titus was one of the worst players I've ever seen, but he was the personification of gentility, even under the most provoking circumstances. For instance, at the famous "Crater," it was my good fortune to pitch a ball fairly on the green from the tee. His mashie shot landed his ball about twenty feet up the steep hill which guards the green. It rolled halfway back. Without a word of disgust, or so much as a scowl, he climbed up and blazed away at it again, not once but fourteen times by actual count. On the seventeenth stroke he triumphantly laid his ball on the green. Most men would have lifted and conceded the hole to me. He played it out.

"A man never gets anywhere, Mr. Smart," said he, unruffled by his miserable exhibition, "unless he keeps plugging away at a thing. That's my principle in life. Keep at it. There is satisfaction in putting the damned ball in the hole, even if it does require twenty strokes. You did it in three, but you'll soon forget the feat. I'm not likely to forget the troubles I had going down in twenty, and there lies the secret of success. If success comes easy, we pass it off with a laugh, if it comes hard we grit our teeth and remember the ways and means. You may not believe it, but I took thirty-three strokes for that hole one day last week. Day before yesterday I did it in four. Perhaps it wouldn't occur to you to think that it's a darned sight easier to do it in four than it is in thirty-three. Get the idea?"

"I think I do, Mr. Titus," said I. "The things that 'come easy' are never appreciated."

"Right, my boy. It's what we have to work for like nailers that we lie awake thinking about."