The morning’s mail (brought on horseback seven miles from Morley post-office by an Indian) contained a letter that P. D. had been waiting for all of that summer. It was brief and to the point almost of curtness. It consisted of one line scrawl of a certain famous chess player in the City of Chicago and was to the effect that the writer would be pleased to accept the challenge of the Canadian player for November 30th of the current year.
If P. D. had drunk deeply and long of some inebriating cup he could not have felt any more exhilarated than after reading that epistle.
On November thirtieth—scarce two months off—he, P. D. McPherson, chess champion of Western Canada, was to go to the City of Chicago, in the State of Illinois, there to sit opposite the greatest chess player in the United States of America and at that time demonstrate to a skeptical world that Canada existed upon the map.
He’d show ’em, by Gad! Yanks! (The average Canadian refers to the average American as “Yank” or “Yankee” regardless of the part of the States of which he may be a resident. P. D. knew better than to refer to a Chicagoan as a Yank, but had acquired the habit, and in his heart he was not fussy over designations.)
Yanks! Hmph! P. D. snorted and laughed, and G.D.’ed the race heartily and without stint. Not that he had any special animus against Americans. That was just P. D.’s way of expressing himself. Besides he was still smarting over having been ignored and snubbed for long by those top-lofty, self-satisfied, condescending lords of the chess board. For two years P. D. had banged at the chess door and only now had he at last been reluctantly recognised. He’d show ’em a thing or two in chess.
Yanks as chess players! It was to laugh! P. D. had followed every printed game that had been published in the chess departments of the newspapers and periodicals. His fingers had fairly itched many a time when a game was in progress to indite fiery instructions to the d-d-d-d-d-d-d-fool players, who were alternately attacking and retreating at times when a trick could be turned that would end hostilities at a single move. P. D. knew the trick. It was all his own. He had invented it; at least, he thought he had invented it, and had been angry and uneasy at a suggestion put out by a recent player that it was a typically German move.
Two months! Two months in which to practice up and study for the mighty contest, which might mean that the winner would be the chosen one in an international tournament that would include all the nations of the world. Ah ha! He’d waste not a precious moment. He’d begin at once! At once!
“Hilda! Hilda! Hilda! Where’s that girl? Hilda! Hi, you there, G— D— you Chum Lee, where’s Miss Hilda?”
“Me no know, bossie. Chum Lee no sabe where Miss Hilda go on afternoon.”
“Didn’t you see her go by?”