His victim listened indulgently. The firm grip on his arm precluded escape.
"You must learn to put, my dear fellow."
"That's the most sickening part of it. I made every other put. Let me tell you—you remember the slope of the fourteenth green? Well, I——"
Realizing what he was in for, Harry took advantage of a momentary pause on the part of his torturer for the purpose of lighting a cigarette. His observing eyes had noticed that Mrs. Maxwell was standing apart from the other women who were within range of Miss Blake's jubilant reiteration. He wrenched himself free from Douglas's clutch.
"It was a case of downright hard luck, and now, in return for my heart-felt sympathy and for listening to your tale of woe, introduce me to Mrs. Herbert Maxwell."
Puffing at his half-lighted cigarette, Douglas Hale reached out to recover his lost grip. "Wait a minute. You haven't heard half. I will show you just how it happened."
Spencer intercepted the reaching fingers and grabbed the offender's wrist, and said, with jocund firmness, "I don't care a tinker's dam how it happened, Douglas, and I tell you you can't put. Introduce me to Mrs. Maxwell."
This quip caused the egotist to draw himself up stiffly. He was proof against hints and ordinary recalcitration, but such an unmistakable rebuff was not to be ignored; that is, he could not with proper self-respect continue the harangue on which he was bent.