"Haven't I been telling you?" said Micklethwaite, growing very red.
"About this confounded mermaid of his at Folkestone."
"He says there is one?"
"Yes, he does," said Micklethwaite, going purple and staring at me very
hard. He seemed to ask mutely whether I of all people proposed to turn
on him and back up this infamous scoundrel. I thought for a moment he
would have apoplexy, but happily he remembered his duty as my host. So
he turned very suddenly on a meditative waiter for not removing our
plates.
"Had any golf lately?" I said to Micklethwaite, when the plates and the
remains of the waiter had gone away. Golf always does Micklethwaite good
except when he is actually playing. Then, I am told-- If I were Mrs.
Bunting I should break off and raise my eyebrows and both hands at this
point, to indicate how golf acts on Micklethwaite when he is playing.
I turned my mind to feigning an interest in golf--a game that in truth
I despise and hate as I despise and hate nothing else in this world.
Imagine a great fat creature like Micklethwaite, a creature who ought to
wear a turban and a long black robe to hide his grossness, whacking a
little white ball for miles and miles with a perfect surgery of
instruments, whacking it either with a babyish solemnity or a childish
rage as luck may have decided, whacking away while his country goes to
the devil, and incidentally training an innocent-eyed little boy to
swear and be a tip-hunting loafer. That's golf! However, I controlled my
all too facile sneer and talked of golf and the relative merits of golf
links as I might talk to a child about buns or distract a puppy with the
whisper of "rats," and when at last I could look at the rising young
journalist again our lunch had come to an end.
I saw that he was talking with a greater air of freedom than it is
usual to display to club waiters, to the man who held his coat. The man
looked incredulous but respectful, and was answering shortly but
politely.
When we went out this little conversation was still going on. The waiter
was holding the rising young journalist's soft felt hat and the rising
young journalist was fumbling in his coat pocket with a thick mass of
papers.
"It's tremendous. I've got most of it here," he was saying as we went
by. "I don't know if you'd care----"
"I get very little time for reading, sir," the waiter was replying.