Fore! Part 25

"Oh, it's this cursed lumbago again! I must have caught cold after my shower the other night and--ouch!--just when I'd been looking forward to a nice little game this afternoon, too! It's a real pleasure to play with a young man like you who--ouch! O-o-o!"

After a while he began to wonder whether light exercise would do him any good. I thought it might and he let me persuade him. If I would give him my arm as far as his locker--ouch!

All the time he was dressing he grunted and groaned and rubbed his back and cursed the lumbago bitterly. He said it was the one thing the devil didn't try on Job because it would have fetched him if he had. He worried some because he would have to drive with an iron, not being able to take a full swing with a wooden club. Then when he had me all ribbed up properly, he dropped a hint where I couldn't help but stumble over it.

"You have always named the bet," said Colonel Jimmy. "Don't take advantage of my condition to raise it beyond reason."

Up to that time the idea of making a bet with a cripple hadn't occurred to me. It wouldn't have seemed fair. I got to thinking about the fives and the tens that the old rascal had taken away from me when the advantage was all on his side and--

"I suppose I shouldn't expect mercy," said Colonel Jimmy, fitting his remarks to my thought like a mind reader. "I have been quite fortunate in winning from you, William, when you were not playing your best. This seems an excellent opportunity for you to take revenge. This cursed lumbago----"

The match was finally made at five dollars a hole, and if I hadn't been ashamed of taking advantage of a cripple I would have said ten.

Colonel Jimmy whined a little and said that in his condition it was almost a shame for me to raise the bet to five dollars a hole and that he couldn't possibly allow me any more than five strokes where before he had been giving me eight and ten. He said he probably wouldn't get any distance off the tees on account of not being able to take a full swing, and I agreed on the basis of five strokes, one each on the five longest holes.

I went out to the professional's shop to buy some new b.a.l.l.s. David Cameron is a good club maker, but a disappointing conversationalist. He says just so much, and then he stops and rubs his left ear. I told David that I had caught Colonel Jimmy out of line at last and would bring him home at least six or seven down.

"Ay," said David. "He'll be havin' one of his attacks of the lumba-ago again, I'm thinkin'. Ye've raised the bet?"

I admitted that the bet had been pressed a little. "Ye're not gettin' as many str-rokes as usual?"

I explained about the Colonel's not being able to take a full swing with his wooden clubs.

"Ay," said David, beginning to polish his left ear.

"I wish you'd tell me what you think," said I.

"I'm thinkin'," said David, "that ye'll not have noticed that the climate hereabouts is varra benefeecial to certain for-rms o' disease.

I've known it to cure the worst case o' lumba-ago between the clubhouse an' the fir-rst tee. The day o' meeracles is not past by ony means,"

concluded David, rubbing his ear hard.

I suspected then that I had a bad bet. I was sure of it when I saw Colonel Jimmy pulling his driver out of the bag on the first tee.

"I thought you said you'd have to drive with an iron." I reminded him of it anyway.

"I might as well try the wood," said Colonel Jimmy. "I'll have to shorten up my swing some and I suppose I'll top the ball."

He groaned and he grunted when he took his practice swing, and said that he was really afraid he'd have to call the bet off, but when he hit the ball he followed through like a sixteen-year-old, and it went sailing down the middle of the course, a good 200 yards--which is as far as Colonel Jimmy ever drives.

"Well, I'll declare!" he crowed. "Look at that ball go! I had no idea I could do it! And with this lumbago too!"

There's no use in prolonging the agony with a detailed account of the match. The old shark was out for the f.a.g end of the fleece crop so far as I was concerned, and he surely gave me a close clip. He made a 79 that day and I had to hand him my check for forty dollars. It might not have been so much, only on every tee the Colonel whined about his lumbago and got me in such a state of mind that I couldn't keep my eye on the ball to save my life.

When we got back to the clubhouse, David Cameron was sitting in the door of his shop, rubbing his left ear thoughtfully. He knew it wouldn't have been safe for him to ask about the match. Colonel Jimmy, confound him, blatted right along, apologising to me for playing "better than he knew how" and all that sort of rot. He said he hoped we could have another match soon, and perhaps I was a little crusty with him. At any rate he was satisfied that my forty-dollar check was the last contribution he would ever get from me, and he took up with Archie MacBride, who had just joined the club and was learning the game.

Archie hails from out West somewhere and he has the Eastern agency for a lot of stuff manufactured in Chicago. In the beginning he didn't know any of the younger members at Meadowmead and that made it easy for the Colonel to take him under his wing. The old rascal has rather a pleasant manner--in the clubhouse at least--and he talked Chicago to Archie--what a wonderful city it is and all that stuff. He talked the same way to me about Cincinnati.

I watched the shearing proceed to the lumbago stage, but I didn't interfere. In the first place, it wasn't any of my business. In the second, I hadn't been introduced to MacBride. And, besides, I had a sort of curiosity to know how he would act when he was stung. He looked more like a goat than a lamb to me.

One day I was sitting on the porch and MacBride came out of the locker room and sat down beside me. Colonel Jimmy was over on the extra green, practicing sidehill putts. Somehow we drifted into conversation.

"Did you ever play with that old fellow over there?" said he.

"A few times."

"Ever beat him?"

"No-o. Nor anybody else. His methods are--well, peculiar."

"Darned peculiar! I don't know but that the grand jury ought to investigate 'em. If you shoot 110 at him, he's just good enough to win.

If you make a 90, he's still good enough to win. He's always good enough to win. The other day I came out here and found him all doubled up with----"

"Lumbago, wasn't it?"

MacBride held out his hand immediately.

"Both members of the same lodge!" said he. "I feel better now. He nicked me for an even hundred. What did he get you for?"

Nothing cements a friends.h.i.+p like a common grievance. We had both been rooked by the lumbago trick and we fell to discussing the Colonel and his petty larceny system of picking on the new members.

"Far be it that I should squeal," said Archie. "I hope I'm a good loser as far as the money goes, but I hate to be bunkoed. I handed over one hundred big iron dollars to that h.o.a.ry old pirate--and I smiled when I did it. It hurt me worse to smile than it did to part with the frog-skins, but I wanted the Colonel to think that I didn't suspect him.

I want him to regard me as a soft proposition and an easy mark because some day I am going to leave a chunk of bait lying around where that old coyote can see it. If he gobbles it--good night. Yes, sir, I'm going to slip one over on him that he'll remember even when they begin giving him the oxygen."

"He'll never be trimmed on a golf course," said I.

"He'll never be trimmed anywhere else. It's the only game he plays. If he sticks around this club, I'll introduce him to the Chicago method of taking the bristles off a hog. I'm not sure, but I think it's done with a hoe."

"It can't be done with a set of golf clubs," said I.

"Don't be too sure of that. By the way, my name's MacBride. What's yours?... If you don't mind, I'll call you Bill for short. We will now visit the nineteenth tee and pour a libation on the altar of friends.h.i.+p.

We will drink success to the Chicago method of shearing a hog. Simple, effective, and oh, so painful!"

II

Colonel Jimmy picked up a new pupil after Archie quit him and Archie paired off with me. We played two or three times a week and often ran into the Colonel on the porch or in the locker room. The old reprobate was always cordial in his cat-and-canary way--infernally cordial. I couldn't resist the temptation to inquire after his lumbago occasionally, but it was next to impossible to hurt his feelings. The old fellow's hide was bullet proof and even the broadest sort of hint was lost on him. Archie was more tactful. He used to joke the Colonel about a return match, but he was never able to fix a date. The Colonel was busy anyway. His latest victim was a chinless youth from Poughkeepsie with money to burn and no fear of matches.

One afternoon Archie brought a friend out to the club with him--an immense big chap with hands and feet like hams. Everything about him was beyond the limit. He was too beefy to begin with, though I suppose that wasn't his fault. He wore a red tie and a yellow vest. He talked too much and too loud. Archie introduced him to me as Mr. Small of Chicago.

"Small but not little!" said Small. "Haw!"

"Mr. Small is an old friend of mine," said Archie. "He is taking a short vacation and I am putting him up at the club for a week or ten days. He doesn't look it, but his doctor says he needs exercise."

"Yeh," said Small, "and while I'm resting I think I'll learn this fool game of golf. Think of a big fellow like me, whaling a poor little pill all over the country! I suppose all there is to it is to hit the blamed thing."

Colonel Jimmy was sitting over by the reading table and I saw him p.r.i.c.k up his ears at this remark. He always manages to sc.r.a.pe an acquaintance with all the beginners.

Small went booming along.