“Well, I’ve done it,” he said. “And I’m ruined for life. She never wants to see me again. It’s my belief,” he added gloomily, “that she could have bit the head off an iron club last night and never have known she had done it.”
He groaned and mopped his face with his handkerchief.
“I’m not sure it’s the right thing after all,” he said. “The madder she is the better she’ll play. All she’s got to do is to imagine I’m the ball, and she’ll knock it a thousand yards.”
There was some truth in this probably, for she certainly overshot the first hole, and the way she said “Mashie!” to Bobby Anderson really sounded like an expletive. Tish won that hole, they halved the second, and owing to Aggie sneezing without apparent cause during Tish’s drive on the third, Nettie took it. On the fourth, however, Tish was fortunate and drove directly into the cup.
We now entered the undulating portion of the course, and I understand that Bobby and Aggie both took advantage of this fact to place Nettie Lynn’s ball in occasional sand traps, and once to lose it altogether. Also that the device of sneezing during a putt was highly effective, so that at the ninth hole dear Tish was three up.
Considering the obloquy which has fallen to me for my own failure to coöperate, I can only state as follows: I engaged Mr. McNab steadily in conversation, and when he moved to a different position I faithfully followed him; but I was quite helpless when he suddenly departed, taking an oblique course across the field, nor could I approach Tish to warn her.
And on the surface all continued to go well. It was now evident to all that the champion was defeated, and that the champion knew it herself. In fact the situation was hopeless, and no one, I think, was greatly surprised when after driving for the fourteenth hole she suddenly threw down her club, got out her handkerchief and left the course, followed by Bobby.
Our misfortune was that Aggie was ahead in the hollow and did not see what had happened. Her own statement is that she saw the ball come and fall into a dirt road, and that all she did was to follow it and step on it, thus burying it out of sight; but also that no sooner had she done this than Mr. McNab came charging out of the woods like a mad bull and rushed at her, catching her by the arm.
It was at that moment that our valiant Tish, flushed with victory, came down the slope.
Mr. McNab was dancing about and talking in broad Scotch, but Tish finally caught the drift of what he was saying—that he had suspected us all day, that we would go before the club board, and that Tish would get no cup.