"What did Mr. Peac.o.c.k have?"

"Plain lemonade, suh."

"No kick in it at all?"

"Not even a wiggle, suh."

"That'll do," said Waddles; and Tom went back to his work. There was a long silence. By his laboured breathing I judged that Waddles was lacing his shoes. Once more he thought aloud.

"Tom wouldn't lie to me, so it wasn't gin. Now, I wonder.... I wonder if that old coot has got what they call 'delusions of grandeur'?"

III

On the Monday following the contest for the Hemmingway Cup I met the Bish at the country club. We arrived there between nine and ten in the morning, and the first man we saw was Mr. Henry Peac.o.c.k. He was out on the eighteenth fairway practising approach shots, and the putting green was speckled with b.a.l.l.s.

"h.e.l.lo!" said the Bish. "Look who's here! Practising too. You don't suppose that old chump is going to try to make a golfer of himself, this late along?"

I said that it appeared that way.

"One-club practise is all right for a beginner," said the Bish, "because he hasn't any bad habits to overcome, but this poor nut didn't take up the game till he was forty, and when he learned it he learned it all wrong. He can practise till he's black in the face and it won't do him any good. Don't you think we'd better page Doc Osler and have him put out of his misery?"

It was then that I told the Bish about Henry's desire to break into Cla.s.s A, and he whistled.

"It got him quick, didn't it?" said he. "Well, there's no fool like an old fool."

Half an hour later this was made quite plain to us. Henry came into the clubhouse to get a drink of water. Now I did not know him very well, and the Bish had only a nodding acquaintance with him, but he greeted us as long-lost brothers. I did not understand his cordiality at first, but the reason for it was soon apparent. Henry wanted to know whether we had a match up for the afternoon.

"Sorry," lied the Bish; "we're already hooked up with a foursome."

Henry said he was sorry too; and moreover he looked it.

"I was thinking I might get in with you," said he. "What I need is the--er--opportunity to study better players--er--get some real compet.i.tion. Somebody that will make me do my best all the time. Don't you think that will help my game?"

"Doubtless," said the Bish in his deepest tone; "but at the same time you shouldn't get too far out of your cla.s.s. There is a difference between being spurred on by compet.i.tion and being discouraged by it."

"I shot an eighty-two last Sat.u.r.day," said Henry quickly.

"So I hear. So I hear. And how many bra.s.sy shots did you hole out?"

"Not one. It--it wasn't luck. It was good steady play."

"He admits it," murmured the Bish, but Henry didn't even hear him.

"Good steady play," he repeated. "What a man does once he can do again.

Eighty-two. Six strokes above the par of the course. My net was twelve strokes below it--due, of course, to a ridiculously high handicap: I--I intend to have that altered. Eighty-two is Cla.s.s-A golf."

"Or an accident," said the Bish rather coldly.

"Steady golf is never an accident," argued Henry. "I have thought it all out and come to the conclusion that what I need now is keener compet.i.tion--er--better men to play with; and"--this with a trace of stubbornness in his tone--"I mean to find them."

The Bish kicked my foot under the table.

"That's all very well," said he, "but--how about the Old Guard?"

The wretched renegade squirmed in his chair.

"That," said he, "will adjust itself later."

"You mean that you'll break away?"

"I didn't say so, did I?"

"No, but you've been talking about keener compet.i.tion."

Henry was not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken. He rose to go.

"Woodson and Totten and Miller are fine fellows," said he. "Personally I hold them in the highest esteem, but you must admit that they are poor golfers. Not one of them ever shot an eighty-five. I--I have my own game to consider.... You're quite sure you won't have a vacancy this afternoon?"

"Oh, quite," said the Bish, and Henry toddled back to his practise. It was well that he left us, for the Bish was on the point of an explosion.

"Well!" said he. "The conceited, ungrateful old scoundrel! Got his own game to consider--did you hear that? Just one fair-to-middling score in his whole worthless life, and now he's too swelled up to a.s.sociate with the fellows who have played with him all these years, stood for his little meannesses, covered up his faults and overlooked his shortcomings! Keener compet.i.tion, eh? Pah! Would you play with him?"

"Not on a bet!" said I.

On the following Wednesday the Old Guard counted noses and found itself short the star member. Lacking the courage or the decency to inform his friends of his change of programme, Peac.o.c.k took the line of least resistance and elected to escape them by a late arrival. Sam Totten made several flying trips into the locker room in search of his partner, but he gave up at last, and at one-thirty the Old Guard drove off, a threesome.

At one-thirty-two Henry sneaked into the clubhouse and announced that he was without a match. The news did not create any great furore. All the Cla.s.s-A foursomes were made up, and, to make matters worse, the Bish had been doing a little quiet but effective missionary work. Henry's advances brought him smack up against a stone wall of polite but definite refusal. The cup winner was left out in the cold.

He finally picked up Uncle George Sawyer, it being a matter of Uncle George or n.o.body. Uncle George is a twenty-four-handicap man, but only when he is at the very top of his game, and he is deaf as a post, left handed and a confirmed slicer. In addition to these misfortunes Uncle George is blessed with the disposition of a dyspeptic wildcat, and I imagine that Mr. Peac.o.c.k did not have a pleasant afternoon. The Old Guard pounced on him when he came into the lounging room at five o'clock.

"Hey! Why didn't you say that you'd be late?" demanded Sam Totten. "We'd have waited for you."

"Well, I'll tell you," said Henry--and he looked like a sheep-killing dog surprised with the wool in his teeth--"I'll tell you. The fact of the matter is I--I didn't know just how late I was going to be, and I didn't think it would be fair to you----"

"Apology's accepted," said Jumbo, "but don't let it happen again. And you went and picked on poor old Sawyer too. You--a cup winner--picking on a cripple like that! Henry, where do you expect to go when you die?

Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"

"We've got it all fixed up to play at San Gabriel next Sat.u.r.day," put in Peter Miller. "You'll go, of course?"

"I'll ring up and let you know," said Henry, and slipped away to the shower room.

I do not know what lies he told over the telephone or how he managed to squirm out of the San Gabriel trip, but I do know that he turned up at the country club at eleven o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning and spent two hours panhandling everybody in sight for a match. The keen compet.i.tion fought very shy of Mr. Peac.o.c.k, thanks to the Bish and his whispering campaign. Everybody was scrupulously polite to him--some even expressed regret--but n.o.body seemed to need a fourth man.

"They're just as glad to see him as if he had smallpox," grinned the Bish. "Well, I've got a heart that beats for my fellow man. I'd hate to see Peac.o.c.k left without any kind of a match. Old Sawyer is asleep on the front porch. I'll go and tell him that Peac.o.c.k is here looking for him."

It has been years since any one sought Uncle George's company, and the old chap was delighted, but if Henry was pleased he managed to conceal his happiness. I learned later that their twosome wound up in a jawing match on the sixteenth green, in which Uncle George had all the better of it because he couldn't hear any of the things that Henry called him.

They came to grief over a question of the rules; and Waddles, when appealed to, decided that they were both wrong--and a couple of fussy old hens, to boot.