he began to murmur.
“‘If I love you, oh, my beloved, what are poverty or riches?’”
It was the verse upon the cushion.
He stumbled over a croquet ball in the darkness and brought his eyes
down from the heavens.
“Carteret, you’re an ass,” he muttered. He fumbled for his pocket
handkerchief and blew his nose. Then wandered on across the lawn till
he came to the path that led to the stables, where his motor was
waiting. Here he stopped and looked back at the house. The lamplight
was still streaming from the library windows, and the silence, save for
the night things, was still unbroken. For perhaps a minute he stood and
gazed; then he turned and went down the pathway.
THE MATTER OF A MASHIE
V
THE MATTER OF A MASHIE
Cutting had been taken into the firm, to the disgust of the junior
partners. They agreed that he would never amount to much, being given
over to sports and unprofitable ways of life.
It came about as a result of Cutting getting himself engaged. There was
no excuse for his getting himself engaged. He was poor, and She was
poor, and they both had rich friends and expensive ideas of life. But,
as sometimes happens in such cases, Providence was fairly shocked into
making unexpected arrangements.
Cutting’s uncle was the head of the firm. Said he: “I am going to give
you six months’ trial. If you are not satisfactory you will have to get
out. Good morning.”
The elder Cutting was a great lawyer. As a man he was a gruff-spoken
old person, a worshiper of discipline, and continuously ashamed of
his kind-hearted impulses. For forty-five years he had reached his
office at nine o’clock in the morning, and had remained there till six
at night. After that he went to the club and took his exercise at a
whist-table. He considered the new out-of-door habits of professional
men a scandal.
The junior partners had grown up in this school of thought, and as
a matter of course they disapproved of Mr. Richard Cutting. It was
unfortunate that Mr. Cutting cared little whether they disapproved or
not. It was also imprudent; for the junior partners not unnaturally
had it in mind to make his connection with the firm end with his six
months’ probation.
The previous week a crisis had been reached. Cutting was away two
entire days for a Long Island golf tournament. The junior partners
conferred with the senior partner, and there was a very complete
unpleasantness.
“I shall be forced to terminate our arrangement unless I hear better
reports of you from my associates,” said the elder Cutting, in
conclusion. He believed it his duty to say this; he was also honestly
irritated.
The junior partners were gratified; they considered that they had
settled the younger Cutting.
It was a muggy September morning, and the office force was hot and
irritable. Something unusual and disturbing was in the air. The junior
partners were consulting anxiously in the big general room where most
of the clerks worked, and where the younger Cutting had his desk. The
younger Cutting had not yet appeared. He came in as the clock was
pointing to twelve minutes past ten. The junior partners glanced up at
the clock, and went on again in animated undertones.
Cutting opened his desk, sat down, and unfolded his newspaper. He was a
beautiful, clean-looking youth with an air of calm and deliberation.
He regarded the junior partners with composure, and began to read.
“No,” Mr. Bruce was saying; “it is too late to do anything about it
now. The case is on to-day’s calendar, and will be called the first
thing after lunch. Our witnesses haven’t been notified or subpœnaed,
and the law hasn’t been looked up.”
Smith shook his head sourly. “The old man is getting more absent-minded
every year,” he said. “We can’t trust him to look after his business
any longer. The managing clerk gave him a week’s notice, and told him
about it again yesterday. You think there is no chance of getting more
time?”
Bruce looked at his colleague with contempt. “_You_ might,” he said
sarcastically; “_I_ can’t.”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for it,” said Smith. “I don’t want to tackle
Heminway.”
Bruce laughed dryly. “The case has been put over for us I don’t know
how many times already,” he said. “I don’t blame Heminway. He gave us
ample notice that he couldn’t do it again.”
“That’s true,” said Smith.
Reed _vs._ Hawkins, the case in question, was a litigation of small
financial importance, about which the senior Cutting had formed a novel
and ingenious theory of defense. Instead of turning it over to the
younger men, he kept it as a legal recreation. But he never got to it.
It was his Carcassonne.
The day of trial would come, and he would smile blandly, and remark:
“True! That has slipped my mind completely. Bruce, kindly send over to
Heminway and ask him to put it over the term. I want to try that case
myself. A very interesting point of law, Bruce, very interesting.”
The last time this had happened, the great Mr. Heminway observed that
professional etiquette had been overtaxed, and that the Reed case must
go on. People who knew Mr. Heminway did not waste their breath urging
him to change his mind.
Messrs. Bruce and Smith considered the situation for a time in silence.
“Well,” said Smith, at last, “it’s bad for the firm to let a judgment
be taken against us by default, but I don’t see anything else to do.”
At this moment the elder Cutting emerged from his private office with
his hat on. Obviously he was in a hurry, but he paused as he came
through.
“Have you attended to that Reed matter?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to do but let it go by default,” said Bruce.
Mr. Cutting stopped. “Get more time!” he said sharply.
“I can’t,” said Bruce. “Heminway has put his foot down. No one can make
him change his mind now.”
“Stuff!” said Mr. Cutting. “Dick, go over and tell Heminway I want that
Reed case put over the term.” And he went out.
Cutting finished the Gravesend races, laid the paper on his desk,
scribbled a stipulation, and leisurely departed.
As the door closed, the junior partners looked at each other and
smiled. Then said Smith, “I wish I could be there and see it.”
Bruce chuckled. He could imagine the scene tolerably well. “It will
do him a lot of good,” he said. Then he added: “Don’t you think I had
better write personally to Hawkins and explain matters? Of course we
shall have to pay the costs.”
“Yes,” said Smith; “it’s better to explain at once. It’s a piece of bad
business.”
The younger Cutting announced himself as Mr. Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce
& Smith. That was a name which carried weight, and the office boy
jumped up and looked at him curiously, for he took him for _the_ Mr.
Cutting. Then he led him down a private passage into the inner and holy
place of the great Mr. Heminway.
“He’ll be back in a moment, sir,” said the boy. “He’s stepped into Mr.
Anson’s office.” Mr. Anson was the junior partner.
The door into the waiting-room was ajar about an inch. Cutting peeped
through it, and saw the people who wished to consult the great lawyer.
He knew some of them. There was a banker who had recently thrown Wall
street into confusion by buying two railroads in one day. There were
others equally well known, and a woman whose income was a theme for
the Sunday newspapers. Cutting watched them stewing and fidgeting with
an unlovely satisfaction. It was unusual for such persons to wait for
anybody.
He discovered that by walking briskly toward the door he could make
them start and eye one another suspiciously, like men in a barber-shop
at the call of “Next!” When this entertainment palled, he played with
his hat. Still the great man did not come, and presently Cutting took a
tour of inspection about the room. As he reached the lawyer’s desk, a
golf-club caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a strangely weighted,
mammoth mashie. He picked it up and swung it.
“What an extraordinary thing!” he muttered. “It weighs a pound.” He
looked for the maker’s name, but the steel head had not been stamped.
He put it back on the desk-top, and was turning away when a row of
books caught his eye. Half concealed by a pile of papers was the
Badminton golf-book, an American book of rules, a score-book, a work
entitled “Hints for Beginners,” and a pamphlet of “Golf Don’ts.” In the
pigeonhole above lay several deeply scarred balls. Cutting laughed.
Just then he heard a step, and turned hastily around. A tall, imposing
figure stood in the private doorway--a man of sixty, with a grim,
clean-cut face.
“Well?” said Mr. Heminway, questioningly. He had a blunt, aggressive
manner that made Cutting feel as if he were about to ask a great favor.
“Well?” he repeated. “I’m very busy. Please tell me what I can do for
you.”
“My name’s Cutting,” the young man began--“Richard Cutting, of Cutting,
Bruce & Smith.”
The great lawyer’s face softened, and a friendly light came into his
eyes.
“I am glad to know you,” he said. “I knew your father. Your uncle and I
were classmates. That was a long time ago. Are you the ‘R.’ Cutting who
won the golf tournament down on Long Island last week?”
Cutting nodded.
“Well, well,” he exclaimed, “what a remarkable young man you must be!
You see,” he added, “I’ve taken it up in a mild way myself. I’m afraid
I shall never be able to get really interested, but it’s an excuse
for keeping out of doors. I wish I had begun it at your age. Every
afternoon on the links is so much health stored up for after life.
Remember that!”
“They say it _is_ wholesome,” said Cutting. “I gathered that you
played. I saw a mashie on your desk. If you don’t think me rude,
would you tell me where you got that thing? Or is it some sort of
advertisement?”
Mr. Heminway looked surprised. “Advertisement?” he repeated. “Oh, no.
That’s an idea of my own. You see, I need a heavy club to get distance.
I had this made. It weighs fourteen ounces,” he went on. “What do you
think of it?” He handed the thing over, and watched Cutting’s face.
“Do you want my honest opinion?” said Cutting.
The lawyer nodded.
“Then give it away, Mr. Heminway,” said the young man, respectfully,
“or melt it into rails. You know you can’t play _golf_ with that.”
The lawyer looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Why, distance isn’t a question of weight!” said Cutting. “It’s a
fact that you get the best distance with the lightest clubs. Most
professionals use ladies’ cleeks.”
The great lawyer looked thoughtful. “Is that so?” he asked. He was
trying to account for this doctrine out of his experience. “It seems
absurd,” he added.
“It’s so, though,” said Cutting. He heard the banker in the next room
cough ominously. He took up his hat.
“Sit down, sit down!” exclaimed the lawyer. “I want to find out about
this. I’ve been doing pretty well, except at the quarry-hole. That
beats me. It’s only one hundred and twenty-five yards, so that I’m
ashamed to use a driver; and with an iron I go in--I go in too often.”
“Everybody goes in at times,” Cutting remarked encouragingly; “it’s a
sort of nerve hazard, you know.”
“I go in more than ‘_at times_,’” said the lawyer. “Last Saturday I
lost sixteen balls there--and my self-respect. That’s too much, isn’t
it?”
Cutting looked severely away at the portrait of Chief Justice Marshall.
“Yes,” he said; “that is rather often.” The idea of Mr. Heminway
profanely filling up the hill quarry with golf-balls appealed to him.
“Still,” he went on, “you must pardon me, but I don’t think it could
have been because your clubs were too light.”
“Well,” demanded the lawyer, “what do I do that’s wrong?”
Cutting looked him over critically. “Of course I’ve never seen you
play,” he said. “I should judge, though, that you hit too hard, for one
thing.”
“I suppose I do,” said the lawyer. “I get irritated. It appears so
simple.”
“You see,” Cutting continued, “there are three things that you ought
always to keep in mind--”
There was a rap on the door, and a clerk put his head in.
“Mr. Pendleton,” he began, mentioning the banker’s name.
The lawyer waved him out. “I’m busy,” he said; “tell him I’ll see him
directly. Three things?” he repeated, turning to Cutting. “What are
they?”
“In the first place,” said the young man, “when you swing, you must
keep your arms away, and you mustn’t draw back with your body. Your
head mustn’t move from side to side.”
The lawyer looked puzzled.
“Fancy a rod running down your head and spine into the ground. Now
that makes your neck a sort of pivot to turn on when you swing. It’s
like this.” He took the club and illustrated his idea. “A good way to
practise,” he added, “is to stand with your back to the sun and watch
your shadow. You can tell then if your head moves.”
“That’s ingenious,” observed Mr. Heminway. He looked about the room as
if he expected to find the sun in one of the corners. The awnings were
down, and only a subdued light filtered in.
“We might manage with an electric light,” he suggested. He turned on
his desk-lamp, and arranged it on the top of the desk so that it cast
its glare on the floor. Then he pulled down the window-shade.
“That’s good,” said Cutting, “only it’s rather weak. Watch the shadow
of my head.” He began swinging with the mashie.
“I see,” said Mr. Heminway; “that’s very ingenious.”
“It insures an even swing,” said Cutting. “Now, the next thing,” he
went on, “is to come back slowly and not too far. That’s the great
trick about iron shots especially. You can hardly come back too slowly
at first. All the golf-books will tell you that. It’s put very well in
McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons.’”
Mr. Heminway looked over the books on his desk. “I know I bought
McPherson,” he said. “I think I lent it to Anson. He’s insane about the
game.” He rang his bell, and a boy appeared.
“Tell Mr. Anson that I want McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons,’” he said.
“You see,” Cutting went on, “you get just as much power and more
accuracy.” He illustrated the half-swing several times. “A stroke like
that, well carried through, will give you a hundred and twenty-five
yards. I have a mashie with which I sometimes get a hundred and fifty.”
The lawyer stretched out his hand for the club. “That looks simple,” he
said; “let me try it.”
Just then the boy came back with the book and a note. The note was from
the banker. “He told me to be sure and have you read it right off,”
said the boy.
“All right,” said Mr. Heminway. He put the note on his desk. “Tell him
that I shall be at liberty in a minute.”
“I really ought to be going,” said Cutting; “you are very busy.”
“Sit down,” said the lawyer. “I want to get the hang of this swing.
That was a pretty good one,” he said, after a pause. “Did I do anything
wrong?”
“No,” said Cutting; “only you came back too fast, and pumped up and
down instead of taking it smoothly; and you moved your head. Keep your
eyes on your shadow as if it were the golf-ball. That’s better,” he
added.
The next instant there was a heavy chug, and the fourteen-ounce mashie
bit the nap off a patch of carpet.
There was a commotion in the anteroom, but Mr. Heminway seemed not to
hear it.
“I was keeping my eyes on the shadow that time,” he said.
Cutting laughed sympathetically. “I know it’s pretty hard. You have
to remember about seven different things at once. It’s bad for the
carpet, though. You ought to have a door-mat. A door-mat is a good
thing to practise on. The fiber gives very much the same surface as
turf.”
Mr. Heminway rang his bell again. “Joseph,” he said, “bring the
door-mat here. Tell Mr. Lansing to get a new one for the outer office,
and leave this one.” The boy came back with the mat. The lawyer kicked
it into position, and began again. “This _is_ better,” he observed.
“I’ll keep it here till I learn.”
“That’s the only way to do,” said Cutting. “Go in to win. If you
practise every day with a proper club, you’ll get the hang of it in a
month or two. But you _must_ use a light club.”
Mr. Heminway stopped. “A month or two?” he asked.
“Why, yes,” said Cutting. “For a large and rather stout man, you are
very active. I’ve no doubt, if you give your mind to it, you can show
pretty decent form in a couple of months. You ought to practise with
your coat off, though; it binds you.”
The lawyer’s mouth became grim, but he took off his coat. There was an
office rule against shirt-sleeves.
[Illustration: The lawyer’s mouth became grim]
Here the office boy appeared again, and the great man glared at him.
“Mrs. Carrington,” said Joseph. “She says she’s got to see you about
important business, and she can’t wait, and she’s going to sail for
Europe to-morrow morning.”
“Tell Mrs. Carrington,” said Mr. Heminway, “that I shall see her as
soon as I am at leisure.”
The boy withdrew hastily.
The lawyer took his stance by the door-mat again, and began to swing.
Cutting now settled himself in a chair, and lighted a cigarette.
“That’s better,” he said presently, “much better. You’re getting the
trick.”
Mr. Heminway stopped for a minute, and straightened up. He was
beginning to puff. “I think I begin to see how that’s done,” he said.
“It’s simple when you get the knack of it. Cutting, come down and stop
next Sunday with me in the country, and we’ll go over the course. I
sha’n’t be able to give you much of a game, but there are some fellows
down there who can; and I want you to show me how to get over that
quarry-hole.”
“I should like to very much,” said Cutting. He meant this. The girl who
was going to be Mrs. Cutting was stopping at the other Heminways’, who
had the place next.
“The last time I played that quarry-hole,” the lawyer went on, “I took
twenty-seven for it. And it’s all in that swing,” he muttered. He
crossed over to the rug, and went to work again. “Criticize me now,” he
said. “How’s this?”
Cutting leaned back in his chair.
“Oh, you must carry it through better,” he said. “Let your left arm
take it right out. You’re cramped. You’re gripping too tightly. Try it
without gripping with your right hand at all. You’ll get the idea of
the finish. That’s better. Now right through with it! Oh, Lord!” he
gasped.
There was a crash of glass, then a great thump, and a hubbub of
screams and masculine exclamations. The heavy club had slipped from the
lawyer’s hand and had sailed through the glass door into the middle of
the waiting-room.
[Illustration: There was a crash of glass]
The great lawyer hurriedly put on his coat. “I suppose I’ll have to
straighten things out in there,” he observed. “But that was the idea,
wasn’t it--right out!” There was a twinkle in his eye.
He opened the door. In a circle around the fourteen-ounce mashie stood
his clients.
“Oh, just a moment,” broke in Cutting. “Can’t that Reed case go over
the term? My uncle wanted me to ask for a postponement.”
“Certainly,” said the lawyer. “Tell the managing clerk to sign the
stipulation. I’ll meet you Saturday at the three-ten train.” Then he
put on his cross-questioning expression. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he
said calmly, “whom have I the honor of seeing first?”
Who that person was Cutting never knew, because he at once slipped
out through the private way, and got his paper signed. Then he went
back to his office, crossed over to his desk, and took up the newspaper
again. There were the scores of the medal play at Shinnecock, in which
he was interested.
Presently Mr. Bruce happened out of his private room, and Mr. Smith
coincidently happened out of his.
“By the way, Mr. Cutting,” said Bruce, amiably, “how about that Reed
matter?”
“It’s put over the term,” said Cutting, without looking up. “Here’s the
stipulation. Hello!” he added, half aloud, “here’s Broadhead winning
at Newport, four up and three to play. That’s funny. Did you see that,
Bruce? He’s been all off his form, too.”
“No,” said Mr. Bruce.
The junior partners retired with the stipulation, and were closeted
together for a long time. It puzzled them. They were impressed, and to
each other they admitted it.
Finally Mr. Smith rose and said that he had to go. “Perhaps we have
made a mistake,” he observed. “There must be something to this boy. He
got this.” He waved the stipulation.
“We had better give him more of a chance,” said Bruce.
And they did. Gradually they began to comprehend him, and then to like
him.
As for Cutting, he unbent himself, and got interested in his work. At
the end of the six months they spoke well of him, so that he continued
on in the firm; and when he was married they sent him a very beautiful
etching of “The Angelus.”
THE MEDAL OF HONOR STORY
VI
THE MEDAL OF HONOR STORY
Nature had made Caswell short, swarthy, high cheek-boned, with dark
hair and narrow dark eyes, and for ten years he had been sitting at
the feet of the Priest of Lake Biwa, dressing as the Japanese dress,
leading their life, and thinking as far as an Occidental may their
thought. In these ten years the inscrutable expression of the East had
begun to dawn in his eyes. His cheek-bones grew more prominent. His
nose had begun to flatten. He was a text for those who hold that the
soul makes the face. He could also sit upon the floor with his feet
tucked under him for indefinite periods, so that it was not strange
that among the Japanese he often passed as Nipon Jin (Japanese man).
One May morning he was in the Kin-Ka-Kuji, sitting by the water on the
lower balcony of the temple, watching the ancient carp as they slowly
wove and interwove among the lily stems, waiting to be fed. He often
came to the garden in May because the tourists were apt not to be there
then, for they desert Kioto when the summer heat has begun, and it was
his habit to come early in the day because the beauty of the place
renews itself with each morning’s dew and the fragrance of the new
flowers, as if in the first hours of the day a woman should be a girl
again.
None of Caswell’s friends knew what the esoterism of Biwa was or
was not; whether the venerable one with the shriveled, monkey-like
face had a sweeter communion with the eternal than others, or was a
deceiver, for the disciple never wrote or spoke of his experience, but
it was a fact that he had acquired the calmness of the East and that
was much, for he had his reasons for desiring peace. After his decade
of meditation he could regard the hurryings of men, the catching of
trains, and the yoke of small annoyances to which society bends its
neck, as one inside watches the buzzing of unclean flies against the
pane without.
He opened a book of verses by a Japanese poet and gazed across the
little, many-islanded lake, whose surface was a sisterhood of silver
pools, each framed in the new green of the young lotus pads. The
bamboos on the opposite bank glistened faintly as the intermittent
touch of an unfelt, unsuspected breeze stroked their plumes. The air
was sweet with pine and the pungent aroma of maples in new foliage, and
with perfumes from unseen gardens.
To Caswell each year of the past ten, “More weary seemed the sea, weary
the oar.” Of late the decision had been ripening to shut the door
forever upon his old world, and that morning a divine approval of his
course seemed to float into his soul upon a tide of peace. He closed
his eyes for a time; then he opened them with a fresh thirst for the
beauty of the place. Suddenly he started, for he heard a voice. It was
a woman’s voice, speaking with a cultivated New England intonation,
but literal and unsympathetic. His impulse was to flee.
“The temple is called Kin-Ka-Kuji or Roku-onji,” said the voice,
evidently reading from a guide-book, “from Kin-Ka-Ku, meaning golden
pavilion. In thirteen ninety-seven Yoshimitsu retired from the
shogunate--”
“Auntie,” interrupted another voice, “sha’n’t we shut the guide-book?
The garden is lovely enough as a garden.”
This was a woman’s voice, too, but soft and young, with low, resonant
tones that brought a thrill to the senses as sometimes comes with the
breath of a remembered perfume.
Caswell glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw a party of
tourists filing toward the temple on the path along the border of the
lake. At the head marched a gray-haired woman with a kind but somewhat
aggressive countenance. She carried an open guide-book. At her heels
was a fat, squat, shaven-headed Japanese boy, the guide. Behind him
there was a girl. He had only an instant’s glimpse of her, but he knew
that it was the girl that had spoken; lithe, slender, exquisite in
white. He looked across the lake again, but he looked without seeing.
The garden was full of the sweetness of blue eyes, the softness of fair
hair and the loveliness of a girl’s smile.