“Hel-lo, Harven!” he exclaimed in pleased surprise. “So we’re back again! My, my, and all browned up like a berry! Well, I am glad to see you, my boy!” He shook hands with a grip that made the visitor wince and pushed the latter toward a chair. “You’ve found me in rather an undignified moment, it seems. Suppose you take your own coat off and lend me countenance. It’s been frightfully hot here to-day.”
“Hot everywhere, sir. New York was like an oven.”
“You came that way? Isn’t there a shorter route from Springfield?”
“Yes, but you have to change, sir. And I wired Jack Brewton to meet me at the Grand Central. Been playing golf, sir?”
“Yes, quite a lot this summer. But it’s over with.” Mr. Moffit sighed. “Harven, I’m more than ever convinced that the Destiny that shapes our ends made a botch of it in my case. I ought to have been born with a silver spoon. I’m naturally the laziest man on earth except as to one thing. That’s golf. I’ll toil from sunup to pitch dark playing golf, but anything else—especially the teaching of English—comes mighty hard. And this fall it seems to me that I’m lazier than ever before. I don’t want to go back into harness one earthly bit, my boy. I sigh for wealth and slothfulness, for silken shirts and shaded porches. The gods bestow their favors blunderingly.”
“You’d soon get tired of silk shirts and porches,” laughed Stuart. “I’m sure I would. Want some help with those, sir?”
“Thanks, but this is the last. I’m putting them to bed for a nine months’ sleep. Unless—” the instructor’s eyes brightened—“you play? There’s a very fair links over at Harrington, and I could sneak in a couple of hours in the morning.”
“I don’t, sir. Besides, football begins to-morrow and I suppose we’ll have two sessions a day until Wednesday.”
“That’s why you’re back. I’d forgotten.” Mr. Moffit slipped the lofter into the bag with a sigh. “That reminds me that I met your new coach this forenoon. He seems a very pleasant, affable sort, but he doesn’t play golf. Have you met him yet?”