"Good night!" says I to myself. "The enemy is in our midst."
But Old Hickory never turns a hair. He stands there in his shirt sleeves gazin' calm at this grizzly old minin' plute, and then I sees a kind of cut-up twinkle flash in them deep-set eyes of his as he summons his foursome to gather around. I didn't know what was coming either, until they cuts loose with it. And for havin' had no practice they rips it out strong.
"S-s-s-st! Boom-boom! Outside!" comes the chorus.
It gets Peter K.'s goat too. His jaw comes open and his eyes pop. Next he swallows bard and flushes red behind the ears. "Ellins," says he, "I've come fifteen hundred miles to ask what you mean by telling me——"
"Oh, that you, Groff?" breaks in the boss. "Well, don't interrupt our game. Fore! You, I mean. Fore, there! Now go ahead, Rawson. Playing eleven, aren't you?"
And Rawson's just poked his ball out, makin' a neat carom into the music room, when the hall clock strikes five.
"By Jove, gentlemen!" exclaims Doc Hirshway. "Sorry, but I must quit. Should have been in my office an hour ago. I really must go."
"Quitter!" says Mr. Ellins. "But all right. Trot along. Here, Groff, you're a golfer, aren't you?"
"Why—er—yes," says Peter K., actin' sort of dazed; "but I——"
"That's enough," says Old Hickory. "You take Hirshway's place. Dunham's your partner. We're playing Nassau, ten a corner. But I'll tell you,—just to make it interesting, I'll play you on the side to see whether or not we accept that proposition of yours. Is it a go?"