Nothing would please him but that we should go another round, just to test out his new acquisition and give him the hang of the thing.
To his supreme satisfaction,—although I again beat him by the same small margin,—he reduced his score for the round by eight strokes.
On our journey back to the city, he began to talk again, but on a different tack this time.
"George,—you'll excuse me,—but, if I were you I would put that signet ring you are wearing in your pocket."
I looked down at it and reddened, for my ring was manifestly old, as it was manifestly strange in design and workmanship, and apt to betray an identity.
I slipped it off my little finger and placed it in my vest pocket.
My companion laughed.
"'No sooner said than done,'" he quoted. "You see, George,—any one who saw you come in to the hotel last night could tell you had not been travelling for pleasure. The marks of an uncomfortable train journey, in a colonist car, were sticking out all over you. Now, golf clubs and a signet ring like that which you were sporting are enough to tell any man that you have been in the habit of travelling luxuriously and for the love of it."
I could not help admiring my new friend's method of deduction, and I thanked him for his kindly interest.
"Not a bit," he continued, "so long as you don't mind. For, it's like this,—I take it you have left home for some personal reason,—no concern of mine,—you have come out here to start over, or rather, to make a start. Good! You are right to start at the bottom of the hill. But, from the look of you, I fancy you won't stick at anything that doesn't suit you. You are the kind of a fellow who, if you felt like it, would tell a man to go to the devil, then walk off his premises. You see, I don't tab you as a milksop kind of Englishman exactly.