I
Colonel Jimmy threatens to resign from the club. He says it was sharp
practice. Archie MacBride says it wasn't half as sharp as the lumbago
trick which the Colonel worked on him as well as several of the other
young members. Colonel Jimmy Norman is one of the charter members of our
golf club. He is about as old as Methuselah and he looks it. That is
what fools people. It doesn't fool the handicap committee, though.
They've got the Colonel down to 8 now and he hasn't entered a club
competition since for fear they'll cut him to 6. Respect for age is a
fine thing, I admit, but anybody who can step out and tear off 79's and
80's on the Meadowmead course--72 par and a tough 72 at that--isn't
entitled to much the best of it because he can remember the Civil War
and cast his first vote for Tilden.
Mind you, I don't say that Colonel Jimmy shoots 79's every day, but he
shoots 'em when he needs 79's to win, and that's the mark of a real
golfer. And bet? The old pirate will bet anything from a repainted golf
ball to a government bond. He has never been known to take his clubs out
of the locker without a gamble of some sort. The new members pay all the
expenses of Colonel Jimmy's golfing, as well as the upkeep of his
limousine--the old members are shy of him--and the way he can nurse a
victim along for months without letting him win a single bet is nothing
short of miraculous. I ought to know, for I am one of Colonel Jimmy's
graduates, and, while I never beat him in my life, he always left me
with the impression that I would surely rook him the next time--if I had
any luck. Somehow I never had the luck.
Colonel Jimmy has the gentle art of coin separation down to an exact
science. Perhaps this is because he made his money in Wall Street and
applies Wall Street methods to his golf. After every match he waits
around until he collects. He always apologises for taking the money and
says that he hopes you'll be on your game the next time.
The Colonel is a shrewd judge of how far he can go in shearing a lamb,
and when he sees signs that the victim is getting bare in spots and is
about ready to stop betting with him, he cleans up all the spare fleece
with the lumbago trick. I'll never forget how he worked it on me. I had
been betting him five and ten dollars a match and winning nothing but
sympathy and advice and I was about ready to quit the Colonel as a poor
investment.
The next time I went out to the club I found Colonel Jimmy sitting on
the porch in the sun and I heard him groan even before I saw him.
Naturally I asked what was the matter.
"Oh, it's this cursed lumbago again! I must have caught cold after my
shower the other night and--ouch!--just when I'd been looking forward to
a nice little game this afternoon, too! It's a real pleasure to play
with a young man like you who--ouch! O-o-o!"
After a while he began to wonder whether light exercise would do him any
good. I thought it might and he let me persuade him. If I would give him
my arm as far as his locker--ouch!
All the time he was dressing he grunted and groaned and rubbed his back
and cursed the lumbago bitterly. He said it was the one thing the devil
didn't try on Job because it would have fetched him if he had. He
worried some because he would have to drive with an iron, not being able
to take a full swing with a wooden club. Then when he had me all ribbed
up properly, he dropped a hint where I couldn't help but stumble over
it.
"You have always named the bet," said Colonel Jimmy. "Don't take
advantage of my condition to raise it beyond reason."
Up to that time the idea of making a bet with a cripple hadn't occurred
to me. It wouldn't have seemed fair. I got to thinking about the fives
and the tens that the old rascal had taken away from me when the
advantage was all on his side and--
"I suppose I shouldn't expect mercy," said Colonel Jimmy, fitting his
remarks to my thought like a mind reader. "I have been quite fortunate
in winning from you, William, when you were not playing your best. This
seems an excellent opportunity for you to take revenge. This cursed
lumbago----"
The match was finally made at five dollars a hole, and if I hadn't been
ashamed of taking advantage of a cripple I would have said ten.
Colonel Jimmy whined a little and said that in his condition it was
almost a shame for me to raise the bet to five dollars a hole and that
he couldn't possibly allow me any more than five strokes where before he
had been giving me eight and ten. He said he probably wouldn't get any
distance off the tees on account of not being able to take a full swing,
and I agreed on the basis of five strokes, one each on the five longest
holes.
I went out to the professional's shop to buy some new balls. David
Cameron is a good club maker, but a disappointing conversationalist. He
says just so much, and then he stops and rubs his left ear. I told David
that I had caught Colonel Jimmy out of line at last and would bring him
home at least six or seven down.
"Ay," said David. "He'll be havin' one of his attacks of the lumba-ago
again, I'm thinkin'. Ye've raised the bet?"
I admitted that the bet had been pressed a little. "Ye're not gettin' as
many str-rokes as usual?"
I explained about the Colonel's not being able to take a full swing with
his wooden clubs.
"Ay," said David, beginning to polish his left ear.
"I wish you'd tell me what you think," said I.
"I'm thinkin'," said David, "that ye'll not have noticed that the
climate hereabouts is varra benefeecial to certain for-rms o' disease.
I've known it to cure the worst case o' lumba-ago between the clubhouse
an' the fir-rst tee. The day o' meeracles is not past by ony means,"
concluded David, rubbing his ear hard.
I suspected then that I had a bad bet. I was sure of it when I saw
Colonel Jimmy pulling his driver out of the bag on the first tee.
"I thought you said you'd have to drive with an iron." I reminded him of
it anyway.
"I might as well try the wood," said Colonel Jimmy. "I'll have to
shorten up my swing some and I suppose I'll top the ball."
He groaned and he grunted when he took his practice swing, and said that
he was really afraid he'd have to call the bet off, but when he hit the
ball he followed through like a sixteen-year-old, and it went sailing
down the middle of the course, a good 200 yards--which is as far as
Colonel Jimmy ever drives.
"Well, I'll declare!" he crowed. "Look at that ball go! I had no idea I
could do it! And with this lumbago too!"
There's no use in prolonging the agony with a detailed account of the
match. The old shark was out for the fag end of the fleece crop so far
as I was concerned, and he surely gave me a close clip. He made a 79
that day and I had to hand him my check for forty dollars. It might not
have been so much, only on every tee the Colonel whined about his
lumbago and got me in such a state of mind that I couldn't keep my eye
on the ball to save my life.
When we got back to the clubhouse, David Cameron was sitting in the door
of his shop, rubbing his left ear thoughtfully. He knew it wouldn't have
been safe for him to ask about the match. Colonel Jimmy, confound him,
blatted right along, apologising to me for playing "better than he knew
how" and all that sort of rot. He said he hoped we could have another
match soon, and perhaps I was a little crusty with him. At any rate he
was satisfied that my forty-dollar check was the last contribution he
would ever get from me, and he took up with Archie MacBride, who had
just joined the club and was learning the game.
Archie hails from out West somewhere and he has the Eastern agency for a
lot of stuff manufactured in Chicago. In the beginning he didn't know
any of the younger members at Meadowmead and that made it easy for the
Colonel to take him under his wing. The old rascal has rather a pleasant
manner--in the clubhouse at least--and he talked Chicago to Archie--what
a wonderful city it is and all that stuff. He talked the same way to me
about Cincinnati.
I watched the shearing proceed to the lumbago stage, but I didn't
interfere. In the first place, it wasn't any of my business. In the
second, I hadn't been introduced to MacBride. And, besides, I had a sort
of curiosity to know how he would act when he was stung. He looked more
like a goat than a lamb to me.
One day I was sitting on the porch and MacBride came out of the locker
room and sat down beside me. Colonel Jimmy was over on the extra green,
practicing sidehill putts. Somehow we drifted into conversation.
"Did you ever play with that old fellow over there?" said he.
"A few times."
"Ever beat him?"
"No-o. Nor anybody else. His methods are--well, peculiar."
"Darned peculiar! I don't know but that the grand jury ought to
investigate 'em. If you shoot 110 at him, he's just good enough to win.
If you make a 90, he's still good enough to win. He's always good enough
to win. The other day I came out here and found him all doubled up
with----"
"Lumbago, wasn't it?"
MacBride held out his hand immediately.
"Both members of the same lodge!" said he. "I feel better now. He nicked
me for an even hundred. What did he get you for?"
Nothing cements a friendship like a common grievance. We had both been
rooked by the lumbago trick and we fell to discussing the Colonel and
his petty larceny system of picking on the new members.
"Far be it that I should squeal," said Archie. "I hope I'm a good loser
as far as the money goes, but I hate to be bunkoed. I handed over one
hundred big iron dollars to that hoary old pirate--and I smiled when I
did it. It hurt me worse to smile than it did to part with the
frog-skins, but I wanted the Colonel to think that I didn't suspect him.
I want him to regard me as a soft proposition and an easy mark because
some day I am going to leave a chunk of bait lying around where that old
coyote can see it. If he gobbles it--good night. Yes, sir, I'm going to
slip one over on him that he'll remember even when they begin giving him
the oxygen."
"He'll never be trimmed on a golf course," said I.
"He'll never be trimmed anywhere else. It's the only game he plays. If
he sticks around this club, I'll introduce him to the Chicago method of
taking the bristles off a hog. I'm not sure, but I think it's done with
a hoe."
"It can't be done with a set of golf clubs," said I.
"Don't be too sure of that. By the way, my name's MacBride. What's
yours?... If you don't mind, I'll call you Bill for short. We will now
visit the nineteenth tee and pour a libation on the altar of friendship.
We will drink success to the Chicago method of shearing a hog. Simple,
effective, and oh, so painful!"