He saw us and waved a hand at the wreckage.
“Sorry,” he called. “I keep a roofer now for these small emergencies and I’ll send him over.” Then he looked at Mr. McNab, who had sat down on a bunker and had buried his face in his hands.
“Come now, McNab,” he said. “Cheer up; I’ve thought of a way. If I’m going to drive behind me, all I have to do is to play the game backwards.”
Mr. McNab said nothing. He got up, gave him a furious glance, and then with his hands behind him and his head bent went back toward the clubhouse. Mr. Anderson watched him go, teed another ball and made a terrific lunge at it. It rose, curved and went into the lake.
“Last ball!” he called to us cheerfully. “Got one to lend me?”
I sincerely hope I am not doing Tish an injustice, but she certainly said we had not. Yet Mrs. Ostermaier’s ball——But she may have lost it. I do not know.
It was Aggie who introduced us to Nettie Lynn, the girl in the case. Aggie is possibly quicker than the rest of us to understand the feminine side of a love affair, for Aggie was at one time engaged to a Mr. Wiggins, a gentleman who had pursued his calling as master roofer on and finally off a roof. [More than once that summer Tish had observed how useful he would have been to us at that time, as we were constantly having broken slates, and as the water spout was completely stopped with balls.] And Aggie maintained that Nettie Lynn really cared for Mr. Anderson.
“If Mr. Wiggins were living,” she said gently, “and if I played golf, if he appeared unexpectedly while I was knocking the ball or whatever it is they do to it, if I really cared—and you know, Tish, I did—I am sure I should play very badly.”
“You don’t need all those ifs to reach that conclusion,” Tish said coldly.
A day or two later Aggie stopped Miss Lynn and offered her some orangeade, and she turned out to be very pleasant and friendly. But when Tish had got the conversation switched to Mr. Anderson she was cool and somewhat scornful.