"I am a golfer," I said, coldly, "and I obey the rules."
"Yes, but----"
"Those rules were drawn up by----"--I bared my head reverently--"by the
Committee of the Royal and Ancient at St. Andrews. I have always
respected them, and I shall not deviate on this occasion from the
policy of a lifetime."
Arthur Jukes relapsed into a moody silence. He broke it once, crossing
the West Street Bridge, to observe that he would like to know if I
called myself a friend of his--a question which I was able to answer
with a whole-hearted negative. After that he did not speak till the car
drew up in front of the Majestic Hotel in Royal Square.
Early as the hour was, a certain bustle and animation already prevailed
in that centre of the city, and the spectacle of a man in a golf-coat
and plus-four knickerbockers hacking with a niblick at the floor of a
car was not long in collecting a crowd of some dimensions. Three
messenger-boys, four typists, and a gentleman in full evening-dress,
who obviously possessed or was friendly with someone who possessed a
large cellar, formed the nucleus of it; and they were joined about the
time when Arthur addressed the ball in order to play his nine hundred
and fifteenth by six news-boys, eleven charladies, and perhaps a dozen
assorted loafers, all speculating with the liveliest interest as to
which particular asylum had had the honour of sheltering Arthur before
he had contrived to elude the vigilance of his custodians.
Arthur had prepared for some such contingency. He suspended his
activities with the niblick, and drew from his pocket a large poster,
which he proceeded to hang over the side of the car. It read:
COME
TO
McCLURG AND MACDONALD,
18, WEST STREET,
FOR
ALL GOLFING SUPPLIES.
His knowledge of psychology had not misled him. Directly they gathered
that he was advertising something, the crowd declined to look at it;
they melted away, and Arthur returned to his work in solitude.
He was taking a well-earned rest after playing his eleven hundred and
fifth, a nice niblick shot with lots of wrist behind it, when out of
Bridle Street there trickled a weary-looking golf-ball, followed in the
order named by Ralph Bingham, resolute but going a trifle at the knees,
and Rupert Bailey on a bicycle. The latter, on whose face and limbs the
mud had dried, made an arresting spectacle.
"What are you playing?" I inquired.
"Eleven hundred," said Rupert. "We got into a casual dog."
"A casual dog?"
"Yes, just before the bridge. We were coming along nicely, when a stray
dog grabbed our nine hundred and ninety-eighth and took it nearly back
to Woodfield, and we had to start all over again. How are you getting
on?"
"We have just played our eleven hundred and fifth. A nice even game." I
looked at Ralph's ball, which was lying close to the kerb. "You are
farther from the hole, I think. Your shot, Bingham."
Rupert Bailey suggested breakfast. He was a man who was altogether too
fond of creature comforts. He had not the true golfing spirit.
"Breakfast!" I exclaimed.
"Breakfast," said Rupert, firmly. "If you don't know what it is, I can
teach you in half a minute. You play it with a pot of coffee, a knife
and fork, and about a hundred-weight of scrambled eggs. Try it. It's a
pastime that grows on you."
I was surprised when Ralph Bingham supported the suggestion. He was so
near holing out that I should have supposed that nothing would have
kept him from finishing the match. But he agreed heartily.
"Breakfast," he said, "is an excellent idea. You go along in. I'll
follow in a moment. I want to buy a paper."
We went into the hotel, and a few minutes later he joined us. Now that
we were actually at the table, I confess that the idea of breakfast was
by no means repugnant to me. The keen air and the exercise had given me
an appetite, and it was some little time before I was able to assure
the waiter definitely that he could cease bringing orders of scrambled
eggs. The others having finished also, I suggested a move. I was
anxious to get the match over and be free to go home.
We filed out of the hotel, Arthur Jukes leading. When I had passed
through the swing-doors, I found him gazing perplexedly up and down the
street.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"It's gone!"
"What has gone?"
"The car!"
"Oh, the car?" said Ralph Bingham. "That's all right. Didn't I tell you
about that? I bought it just now and engaged the driver as my
chauffeur, I've been meaning to buy a car for a long time. A man ought
to have a car."
"Where is it?" said Arthur, blankly. The man seemed dazed.
"I couldn't tell you to a mile or two," replied Ralph. "I told the man
to drive to Glasgow. Why? Had you any message for him?"
"But my ball was inside it!"
"Now that," said Ralph, "is really unfortunate! Do you mean to tell me
you hadn't managed to get it out yet? Yes, that is a little awkward for
you. I'm afraid it means that you lose the match."
"Lose the match?"
"Certainly. The rules are perfectly definite on that point. A period of
five minutes is allowed for each stroke. The player who fails to make
his stroke within that time loses the hole. Unfortunate, but there it
is!"
Arthur Jukes sank down on the path and buried his face in his hands. He
had the appearance of a broken man. Once more, I am bound to say, I
felt a certain pity for him. He had certainly struggled gamely, and it
was hard to be beaten like this on the post.
"Playing eleven hundred and one," said Ralph Bingham, in his odiously
self-satisfied voice, as he addressed his ball. He laughed jovially. A
messenger-boy had paused close by and was watching the proceedings
gravely. Ralph Bingham patted him on the head.
"Well, sonny," he said, "what club would _you_ use here?"
"I claim the match!" cried Arthur Jukes, springing up. Ralph Bingham
regarded him coldly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I claim the match!" repeated Arthur Jukes. "The rules say that a
player who asks advice from any person other than his caddie shall lose
the hole."
"This is absurd!" said Ralph, but I noticed that he had turned pale.
"I appeal to the judges."
"We sustain the appeal," I said, after a brief consultation with Rupert
Bailey. "The rule is perfectly clear."
"But you had lost the match already by not playing within five
minutes," said Ralph, vehemently.
"It was not my turn to play. You were farther from the pin."
"Well, play now. Go on! Let's see you make your shot."
"There is no necessity," said Arthur, frigidly. "Why should I play when
you have already disqualified yourself?"
"I claim a draw!"
"I deny the claim."
"I appeal to the judges."
"Very well. We will leave it to the judges."
I consulted with Rupert Bailey. It seemed to me that Arthur Jukes was
entitled to the verdict. Rupert, who, though an amiable and delightful
companion, had always been one of Nature's fat-heads, could not see it.
We had to go back to our principals and announce that we had been
unable to agree.
"This is ridiculous," said Ralph Bingham. "We ought to have had a third
judge."
At this moment, who should come out of the hotel but Amanda Trivett! A
veritable goddess from the machine.
"It seems to me," I said, "that you would both be well advised to leave
the decision to Miss Trivett. You could have no better referee."
"I'm game," said Arthur Jukes.
"Suits _me_," said Ralph Bingham.
"Why, whatever are you all doing here with your golf-clubs?" asked the
girl, wonderingly.
"These two gentlemen," I explained, "have been playing a match, and a
point has arisen on which the judges do not find themselves in
agreement. We need an unbiased outside opinion, and we should like to
put it up to you. The facts are as follows:..."
Amanda Trivett listened attentively, but, when I had finished, she
shook her head.
"I'm afraid I don't know enough about the game to be able to decide a
question like that," she said.
"Then we must consult St. Andrews," said Rupert Bailey.
"I'll tell you who might know," said Amanda Trivett, after a moment's
thought.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"My _fiance_. He has just come back from a golfing holiday. That's
why I'm in town this morning. I've been to meet him. He is very good at
golf. He won a medal at Little-Mudbury-in-the-Wold the day before he
left."
There was a tense silence. I had the delicacy not to look at Ralph or
Arthur. Then the silence was broken by a sharp crack. Ralph Bingham had
broken his mashie-niblick across his knee. From the direction where
Arthur Jukes was standing there came a muffled gulp.
"Shall I ask him?" said Amanda Trivett.
"Don't bother," said Ralph Bingham.
"It doesn't matter," said Arthur Jukes.
8
_The Heel of Achilles_
On the young man's face, as he sat sipping his ginger-ale in the
club-house smoking-room, there was a look of disillusionment. "Never
again!" he said.
The Oldest Member glanced up from his paper.
"You are proposing to give up golf once more?" he queried.
"Not golf. Betting on golf." The Young Man frowned. "I've just been let
down badly. Wouldn't you have thought I had a good thing, laying seven
to one on McTavish against Robinson?"
"Undoubtedly," said the Sage. "The odds, indeed, generous as they are,
scarcely indicate the former's superiority. Do you mean to tell me that
the thing came unstitched?"
"Robinson won in a walk, after being three down at the turn.
"Strange! What happened?"
"Why, they looked in at the bar to have a refresher before starting for
the tenth," said the young man, his voice quivering, "and McTavish
suddenly discovered that there was a hole in his trouser-pocket and
sixpence had dropped out. He worried so frightfully about it that on
the second nine he couldn't do a thing right. Went completely off his
game and didn't win a hole."
The Sage shook his head gravely.
"If this is really going to be a lesson to you, my boy, never to bet on
the result of a golf-match, it will be a blessing in disguise. There is
no such thing as a certainty in golf. I wonder if I ever told you a
rather curious episode in the career of Vincent Jopp?"
"_The_ Vincent Jopp? The American multi-millionaire?"
"The same. You never knew he once came within an ace of winning the
American Amateur Championship, did you?"
"I never heard of his playing golf."
"He played for one season. After that he gave it up and has not touched
a club since. Ring the bell and get me a small lime-juice, and I will
tell you all."
* * * * *
It was long before your time (said the Oldest Member) that the events
which I am about to relate took place. I had just come down from
Cambridge, and was feeling particularly pleased with myself because I
had secured the job of private and confidential secretary to Vincent
Jopp, then a man in the early thirties, busy in laying the foundations
of his present remarkable fortune. He engaged me, and took me with him
to Chicago.
Jopp was, I think, the most extraordinary personality I have
encountered in a long and many-sided life. He was admirably equipped
for success in finance, having the steely eye and square jaw without
which it is hopeless for a man to enter that line of business. He
possessed also an overwhelming confidence in himself, and the ability
to switch a cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other without
wiggling his ears, which, as you know, is the stamp of the true Monarch
of the Money Market. He was the nearest approach to the financier on
the films, the fellow who makes his jaw-muscles jump when he is
telephoning, that I have ever seen.
Like all successful men, he was a man of method. He kept a pad on his
desk on which he would scribble down his appointments, and it was my
duty on entering the office each morning to take this pad and type its
contents neatly in a loose-leaved ledger. Usually, of course, these
entries referred to business appointments and deals which he was
contemplating, but one day I was interested to note, against the date
May 3rd, the entry:
"_Propose to Amelia_"
I was interested, as I say, but not surprised. Though a man of steel
and iron, there was nothing of the celibate about Vincent Jopp. He was
one of those men who marry early and often. On three separate occasions
before I joined his service he had jumped off the dock, to scramble
back to shore again later by means of the Divorce Court lifebelt.
Scattered here and there about the country there were three ex-Mrs.
Jopps, drawing their monthly envelope, and now, it seemed, he
contemplated the addition of a fourth to the platoon.
I was not surprised, I say, at this resolve of his. What did seem a
little remarkable to me was the thorough way in which he had thought
the thing out. This iron-willed man recked nothing of possible
obstacles. Under the date of June 1st was the entry:
"_Marry Amelia_";
while in March of the following year he had arranged to have his
first-born christened Thomas Reginald. Later on, the short-coating of
Thomas Reginald was arranged for, and there was a note about sending
him to school. Many hard things have been said of Vincent Jopp, but
nobody has ever accused him of not being a man who looked ahead.
On the morning of May 4th Jopp came into the office, looking, I
fancied, a little thoughtful. He sat for some moments staring before
him with his brow a trifle furrowed; then he seemed to come to himself.
He rapped his desk.
"Hi! You!" he said. It was thus that he habitually addressed me.
"Mr. Jopp?" I replied.
"What's golf?"
I had at that time just succeeded in getting my handicap down into
single figures, and I welcomed the opportunity of dilating on the
noblest of pastimes. But I had barely begun my eulogy when he stopped
me.
"It's a game, is it?"
"I suppose you could call it that," I said, "but it is an offhand way
of describing the holiest----"
"How do you play it?"
"Pretty well," I said. "At the beginning of the season I didn't seem
able to keep 'em straight at all, but lately I've been doing fine.
Getting better every day. Whether it was that I was moving my head or
gripping too tightly with the right hand----"
"Keep the reminiscences for your grandchildren during the long winter
evenings," he interrupted, abruptly, as was his habit. "What I want to
know is what a fellow does when he plays golf. Tell me in as few words
as you can just what it's all about."
"You hit a ball with a stick till it falls into a hole."
"Easy!" he snapped. "Take dictation."