Densmore dismounted, handed reins and mallet to the visitor and said, “Try a shot or two.”
Slipping his coat and waistcoat, Banneker mounted and urged the pony after the ball which the other sent spinning out across the field. He made a fairly creditable cut away to the left, following down and playing back moderately. While his mallet work was, naturally, uncertain, he played with a full, easy swing and in good form. But it was his horsemanship which specially commended itself to the critical eye of the connoisseur.
“Ridden range, haven’t you?” inquired the poloist when the other came in.
“Quite a bit of it, in my time.”
“Now, I’ll tell you,” said Densmore, employing his favorite formula. “There’ll be practice later. It’s an off day and we probably won’t have two full teams. Let me rig you out, and you try it.”
Banneker shook his head. “I’m here on business. I’m a reporter with a story to get.”
“All right; it’s up to a reporter to stick until he gets his news,” agreed the other. “You dismiss your taxi, and stay out here and dine, and I’ll run you back to town myself. And at nine o’clock I’ll answer your question and answer it straight.”
Banneker, gazing longingly at the bright turf of the field, accepted.
Polo is to The Retreat what golf is to the average country club. The news that Archie Densmore had a new player down for a try-out brought to the side-lines a number of the old-time followers of the game, including Poultney Masters, the autocrat of Wall Street and even more of The Retreat, whose stables he, in large measure, supported. In the third period, the stranger went in at Number Three on the pink team. He played rather poorly, but there was that in his style which encouraged the enthusiasts.
“He’s material,” grunted old Masters, blinking his pendulous eyelids, as Banneker, accepting the challenge of Jim Maitland, captain of the opposing team and roughest of players, for a ride-off, carried his own horse through by sheer adroitness and daring, and left the other rolling on the turf. “Anybody know who he is?”