As I stood with Ukridge in the fowl run on the morning following my
maritime conversation with the professor, regarding a hen that had
posed before us, obviously with a view to inspection, there appeared a
man carrying an envelope.
Ukridge, who by this time saw, as Calverley almost said, "under every
hat a dun," and imagined that no envelope could contain anything but a
small account, softly and silently vanished away, leaving me to
interview the enemy.
"Mr. Garnet, sir?" said the foe.
I recognized him. He was Professor Derrick's gardener. What did this
portend? Had the merits of my pleadings come home to the professor
when he thought them over, and was there a father's blessing inclosed
in the envelope which was being held out to me?
I opened the envelope. No, father's blessings were absent. The letter
was in the third person. Professor Derrick begged to inform Mr. Garnet
that, by defeating Mr. Saul Potter, he had qualified for the final
round of the Lyme Regis Golf Tournament, in which, he understood, Mr.
Garnet was to be his opponent. If it would be convenient for Mr.
Garnet to play off the match on the present afternoon, Professor
Derrick would be obliged if he would be at the clubhouse at half-past
two. If this hour and day were unsuitable, would he kindly arrange
others. The bearer would wait.
The bearer did wait, and then trudged off with a note, beautifully
written in the third person, in which Mr. Garnet, after numerous
compliments and thanks, begged to inform Professor Derrick that he
would be at the clubhouse at the hour mentioned.
"And," I added--to myself, not in the note--"I will give him such a
licking that he'll brain himself with a cleek."
For I was not pleased with the professor. I was conscious of a
malicious joy at the prospect of snatching the prize from him. I knew
he had set his heart on winning the tournament this year. To be
runner-up two years in succession stimulates the desire for the first
place. It would be doubly bitter to him to be beaten by a newcomer,
after the absence of his rival, the colonel, had awakened hope in him.
And I knew I could do it. Even allowing for bad luck--and I am never a
very unlucky golfer--I could rely almost with certainty on crushing
the man.
"And I'll do it," I said to Bob, who had trotted up.
I often make Bob the recipient of my confidences. He listens
appreciatively and never interrupts. And he never has grievances of
his own. If there is one person I dislike, it is the man who tries to
air his grievances when I wish to air mine.
"Bob," I said, running his tail through my fingers, "listen to me. If
I am in form this afternoon, and I feel in my bones that I shall be, I
shall nurse the professor. I shall play with him. Do you understand
the principles of match play at golf, Robert? You score by holes, not
strokes. There are eighteen holes. I shall toy with the professor,
Bob. I shall let him get ahead, and then catch him up. I shall go
ahead myself, and let him catch me up. I shall race him neck and neck
till the very end. Then, when his hair has turned white with the
strain, and he's lost a couple of stone in weight, and his eyes are
starting out of his head, I shall go ahead and beat him by a hole.
_I'll_ teach him, Robert. He shall taste of my despair, and learn by
proof in some wild hour how much the wretched dare. And when it's all
over, and he's torn all his hair out and smashed all his clubs, I
shall go and commit suicide off the Cob. Because, you see, if I can't
marry Phyllis, I shan't have any use for life."
Bob wagged his tail cheerfully.
"I mean it," I said, rolling him on his back and punching him on the
chest till his breathing became stertorous. "You don't see the sense
of it, I know. But then you've got none of the finer feelings. You're
a jolly good dog, Robert, but you're a rank materialist. Bones and
cheese and potatoes with gravy over them make you happy. You don't
know what it is to be in love. You'd better get right side up now, or
you'll have apoplexy."
It has been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate
nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played
euchre with the heathen Chinee, I state but the facts. I do not,
therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of
mind. I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but
I have my off moments.
I felt ruthless toward the professor. I cannot plead ignorance of the
golfer's point of view as an excuse for my plottings. I knew that to
one whose soul is in the game, as the professor's was, the agony of
being just beaten in an important match exceeds in bitterness all
other agonies. I knew that if I scraped through by the smallest
possible margin, his appetite would be destroyed, his sleep o' nights
broken. He would wake from fitful slumber moaning that if he had only
used his iron at the tenth hole all would have been well; that if he
had aimed more carefully on the seventh green, life would not be drear
and blank; that a more judicious manipulation of his brassy
throughout might have given him something to live for. All these
things I knew.
And they did not touch me. I was adamant.
* * * * *
The professor was waiting for me at the clubhouse, and greeted me with
a cold and stately inclination of the head.
"Beautiful day for golf," I observed in my gay, chatty manner.
He bowed in silence.
"Very well," I thought. "Wait--just wait."
"Miss Derrick is well, I hope?" I added aloud.
That drew him. He started. His aspect became doubly forbidding.
"Miss Derrick is perfectly well, sir, I thank you."
"And you? No bad effect, I hope, from your dip yesterday?"
"Mr. Garnet, I came here for golf, not conversation," he said.
We made it so. I drove off from the first tee. It was a splendid
drive. I should not say so if there were anyone else to say so for me.
Modesty would forbid. But, as there is no one, I must repeat the
statement. It was one of the best drives of my experience. The ball
flashed through the air, took the bunker with a dozen feet to spare,
and rolled onto the green. I had felt all along that I should be in
form. Unless my opponent was equally above himself, he was a lost man.
The excellence of my drive had not been without its effect on the
professor. I could see that he was not confident. He addressed his
ball more strangely and at greater length than anyone I had ever seen.
He waggled his club over it as if he were going to perform a conjuring
trick. Then he struck and topped it.
The ball rolled two yards.
He looked at it in silence. Then he looked at me--also in silence.