The Major, D.O.S

I despise the sort of man who gloats and pokes his finger at you and reminds you that he told you so. I hope I am not in that class, and I would be the last to rub salt into an open wound; still I see no harm in calling attention to the fact that I once expressed an opinion which had to do with Englishmen in general and Major Cuthbert Eustace Lawes—D.S.O., and a lot of other initials—in particular. What is more, that opinion was expressed in the presence of Waddles Wilmot and one other director of the Yavapai Golf and Country Club.

"You can't tell much about an Englishman by looking at him."

Those were my very words, and I stand by them. I point to them with pride. If Waddles had listened to me—but Waddles never listens to anybody. Sometimes he looks as if he might be listening, when as a matter of fact he is only resting his voice and thinking up something cutting and clever to say next.

Speaking of Waddles, the fault is not all his. We have indulged him with too much authority. We have allowed him to become a sort of autocrat, a golfing Pooh-Bah, a self-appointed committee of one with arbitrary powers. He began looking after the club when it was in its infancy, and now that the organisation has grown to quite respectable proportions he does not seem to know how to let go gracefully. He still looks after us, whether we want him to or not, and if it is only the getting out of a new score card Waddles must attend to it, having the first word, the last word and all the words between.

If any one presumes to disagree with him Waddles merely snorts in that disdainful way of his and goes on talking louder and louder until finally the opposition succumbs, blown down by sheer lung power, as it were, gassed before reaching the trenches. Wind is all right in its place, and in moderation, but a steady gale gets on the nerves in time. Waddles is a human simoom, carrying dust, sand and cactus.

I say this in all kindness, for I am really fond of the old boy. He has many admirable qualities, and frequently tells us what they are, but consideration for others is not one of them; and when he plays golf the things he does to an opponent are sinful. He is just as ruthless and overbearing on the links as he is in committee meeting—but of this, more anon—much more. I made my remark about Englishmen a month or so after the Major became a member of the club. We understood that Lawes was a retired infantry officer in poor health, and when he arrived in our part of the world he brought with him a Hindu servant with his head wrapped up in about forty yards of cheesecloth, an unquenchable thirst, some gilt-edged letters of introduction from big people, and a hobnail liver. He was proposed by two of our financial moguls and passed the membership committee without a whisper of dissent.

"This old bird," said Waddles, "is probably a cracking good golfer. Nearly all Englishmen are. We can use him to plug up that weak spot on the team." And of course he looked straight at me when he said it. Goodness knows, I never asked to be put on the club team, and I play my worst golf in competition.

Some of the other men thought that the Major would lend a bit of tone to the organisation. I presume they got the idea from the string of initials after his name.

As to his golfing, the Major proved a disappointment. He did not seem in any haste to avail himself of the privileges of active membership, and when at the club he spent all his time sitting on the porch and staring at the mountains in the distance. I don't remember ever seeing him without a tall brandy highball at his elbow.

Personally, the Major wasn't much to look at. You could just as easily have guessed the age of a mummy. He was long-legged and cadaverous, with thin, sandy hair and a yellowish moustache that never seemed to be trimmed. His mouth was always slightly ajar, his front teeth were unduly prominent, and his chin was short and receded at an acute angle. A side view of the Major suggested a tired, half-starved old rabbit that had lost all interest in life. His eyes were a faded light blue in colour and blinked constantly without a vestige of human expression. He was freckled like a turkey egg—freckled all over, but mostly on the neck and the forearms. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was in a thin, hesitating treble, reminiscent of a strayed sheep, and he had an exasperating habit of leaving a sentence half finished and beginning on another one. He could sit for hours, staring straight in front of him and apparently seeing nothing at all. When addressed he usually jumped half out of his chair and said something like this:

"Eh? Oh! God-bless-me! God-bless-me! What say?"

Socially he was a very mangy-looking lion, but we understood that he was very well connected in the old country and not so stupid as he seemed. He couldn't have been, and lived. He was a bachelor of independent means; he bought a bungalow on Medway Hill and a six-cylinder runabout, which the servant learned to drive, after a fearsome fashion. This put the Major out of the winter-visitor class—which was reassuring—but as the weeks passed and he was never seen with a golf club in his hands Waddles began to worry about that weak spot on the team.

Three of us were watching Lawes one afternoon through a window of the lounging room, which commands a view of the porch. The Major was spread out in a big wicker chair, and, save for certain mechanical movements of the right hand and arm, was as motionless as a turtle on a log. As usual, Waddles was doing most of the talking.

"Ain't he the study in still life, eh?... With the accent on the still—get me? Still! Ho, ho! Not bad a bit.... Gaze upon him, gentlemen; the world's most consistent rum hound! He hasn't moved a muscle in the last hour except to lift that glass. Wonderful type of the athletic Englishman, what-oh? Devoted to sports and pastimes, my word, yes! He wouldn't qualify for putting the shot, but for putting the highball I'll back him against all comers."

"Oh, I don't know," said Jay Gilman, who is a conservative sort of chap and knows Waddles well enough not to believe everything he says. "I don't know. The old boy makes a drink last a long time. He doesn't order many in the course of an afternoon. I've never seen him the least bit edged."

"Fellow like that never gets edged," argued Waddles. "The skin stays just so full all the time. Can't get any fuller. Did you ever try to talk with his royal jaglets? Sociable as an oyster! I tried to get him opened up the other day. He's been in India and Africa and everywhere else, they tell me, and I thought he might want to gas about his experiences. War stuff. Nothing stirring. A frost. Kidded him about the Boers, and the way the embattled farmers hung it on perfidious Albion. Couldn't even get a rise out of him. All he did was stare at me with those fishy eyes of his and make motions with his Adam's apple! Ever notice the way he watches you when you're talking to him? It's enough to make a man nervous! A major, eh? If he was a major, I wonder what the shave-tail lieutenants were like! D.S.O.! They got the initials balled up when they hitched that title to him. It should have been D.O.S.!"

"All right," said Gilman; "I'll bite. I'll be the Patsy. Why D.O.S.?"

"Dismal Old Souse, of course!" cackled Waddles. "Fits him like a glove, eh?"

It was then that I expressed my opinion, as previously quoted: "You can't tell much about an Englishman by looking at him."

But Waddles only laughed. He usually laughs at his own witticisms.

"D.O.S.," said he. "Impromptu, but good. I'll have to tell it to the boys!"

---

But for Cyril, I suppose the Major would have remained a chair warmer indefinitely.

Cyril was the Major's nephew, doing a bit of globe trotting after getting out of college, and he dropped in out of a clear sky, taking the Major entirely by surprise. We heard later that all the Major said was, "Bless me, it's Cyril, isn't it?"

Looking at the boy, you knew at once what the Major had been like at twenty-five or thereabouts; so it goes without saying that Cyril was no motion-picture type for beauty. He was tall and thin and gangling, his feet were always in his way, his clothes did not fit him and would not have fitted anything human, his cloth hats were really not hats at all but speckled poultices, and he was as British as the unicorn itself. He was almost painfully shy when among strangers, and blushed if any one spoke to him; but his coming seemed to cheer the Major tremendously. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I presume the D.O.S. had been lonely for his kind. Cyril was his kind—no question about that—and the pair of them held a love feast which lasted all of one afternoon. Waddles witnessed this touching family reunion and told us about it afterward, but it is likely he handled the truth in his usual nonchalant manner. Waddles would never spoil a good story for the sake of mere accuracy.

"It was great stuff!" said he. "They sat out there on the porch and gabbled terribly. A dumb man couldn't have got a word in edge-wise. The Major was never at a loss for a topic of conversation. As fast as one was exhausted he would look in his glass and say, 'Shan't we have another, dear boy?' Friend Nephew never missed his cue once. 'Rawther!' he'd say, or 'Right-oh!' Then the Major would hoist signals of distress and make signs at the waiter. Oh, it was lovely to see them taking so much comfort in each other's society—and so much nourishment."

"What I want to know is this," put in Jay Gilman: "Did it liven 'em up any?"

"Not so you could notice it with the naked eye. For all the effect that anybody could see, the stuff might just as well have been poured into a pair of gopher holes. They went away at six o'clock, solemn and dignified, loaded to capacity but not even listing the least bit from the cargo they'd taken on. A lot of raw material wasted. That sort of thing is inhuman—uncanny. It must be a gift that runs in families—what?"

Before long we had a real sensation—the Major blossomed out into a playing member. A mummy doing a song and dance wouldn't have created any more excitement round the clubhouse. Even the caddies were talking about it.

Sam broke the news to me while I was practising mid-iron shots on the other side of the eighteenth green. Sam has carried my bag for years. He is too old to be a caddie, too young to be a member of the Supreme Court, and too wise for either job. He shoots the course in the seventies every time he can dodge the greens keeper—play by employes being strictly prohibited. He has forgotten more golf than I shall ever know, and tries hard to conceal the superiority he feels, but never quite makes the grade. You know the sort of caddie I mean—every club has a few like Sam.

"There you go again! What did I tell you about playin' the ball too far off your right foot? Stiffen up those wrists a bit—don't let 'em flop so. Put some forearm into the shot, and never mind lookin' up to see where the ball goes.... Say, that long, thin gentleman, him with the nose and teeth—the one they call the Major, that sits on the porch so much liftin' tall ones—I caddied for him this morning."

"You don't tell me so!"

"Yeh, I do. Sure! Him and his relative—the young fellah. Serial, ain't it? Well, they was both out early this morning, the Major beefin' a little about losin' his sleep, and sayin' he wouldn't make a fool of himself for anybody else on earth; but after he connected with a few shots he began to enjoy it and talk about what a lovely day it was goin' to be. You know how it is: any weather looks good to you when your shots are comin' off."

"Can he play at all?"

"Who, the Major? A shark, I tell you! That old boy has been a great golfer in his day, and it wasn't so long ago neither. To look at him you wouldn't think he had a full cleek shot in his system, but that's where he'd fool you. What's more, he knows where it's goin' when he ties into it. The young fellah plays a mighty sweet game—mighty sweet. He hits everything clean and hard and right on the line, but give the Major a few days' practise and he'll carry my small change every time. Knows more golf than Serial—got more shots, and he's a whale with his irons. He's a little wild with his wood off the tee—hooks too much and gets into trouble—but when he straightens out that drive he'll have Serial playin' the odd behind him. Say, it'd be great to get 'em both into the Invitation Tournament, eh?"

Now our Invitation Tournament is the big show of the year in golfing circles. Waddles sees to that. All members of the association are eligible, but visitors have to have a card and an invitation as well.

Waddles always scans these visitors very closely, and if a man is known as a cup hunter no amount of pressure can get him in. The Major, being a member of the club, was automatically invited to participate, but Cyril must be classed as a visitor.

I went to Waddles and told him what Sam had told me, suggesting that here was the chance to coax the Major off the porch for good, and perhaps get him onto the team later. I said that I thought it would be a graceful thing to issue an invitation to Cyril without waiting for a request from the Major.

"You poor fish!" said Waddles. "I was going to do that anyway. Do you think I'm asleep all the time?"

That is the way with Waddles. He can catch an idea on the fly, and before it settles he has adopted it as his own. He doesn't care a brass-mounted continental who scared it up in the first place. Before it lights it is his—all his. He said he didn't believe the Major was half so good as his advance notices, and, as for the full cleek shot, he pooh-poohed that part of the story entirely. Waddles has never mastered the cleek, but he is a demon with a bulldog spoon or with a brassy.

"I'll do this thing—as a common courtesy to a member," said Waddles; "but I'm not counting on the Major's golf. A man can't lay off for months and come back playing any sort of a game."

So the invitation was issued in Cyril's name, and we went in search of the Major. He was on the porch and Cyril was practising putts on the clock green.

Waddles can be very formal and dignified and diplomatic when he wants to be, and as a salve spreader he has few equals and no superiors. He pays a compliment in such a bluff, hearty fashion that it carries with it an air of absolute sincerity.

"Major," he began, "I can't tell you how delighted I am to hear that you have taken up the game again. Aside from the pleasure, it is bound to benefit your health."

"Eh?" said the Major, staring at Waddles intently. "Oh, yes! I'm feeling quite well at present, thanks."

"And you'll feel better for taking exercise," continued Waddles. "We are hoping that you will enter our Invitation Tournament next week. You'll get a number of good matches, meet some charming people and make some friends. Play begins on Wednesday."

"Ah!" said the Major.

"You can pick your own partner in the qualifying round." And here Waddles brought out the envelope containing the invitation. "I thought likely you might want to play with your nephew."

The Major took the envelope and opened it. After he had read the inclosure he looked up at Waddles and smiled.

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," said he. "Most kind. Cyril will appreciate this.... Shan't we have a drink?"

"Can you beat him?" said Waddles to me when we were back in the lounging room. "Just about as chummy as an oyster!"

"Either that or very inattentive," said I; "but just the same I think he'll play. Cyril will persuade him."

"I don't care a whoop whether he plays or not," growled Waddles. "I hate a man who can't loosen up and talk!"

"There is only one thing worse," said I, "and that is a man who talks too much."

Waddles took my remark as personal and wolfed at me for half an hour. Why is it that the man who has no consideration for your feelings is always so confoundedly sensitive about his own?

---

Flashing now to a close-up of the scores for the qualifying round, there were two strange faces in the first sixteen—Cyril's and the Major's—and Cyril walked off with the cup offered for low man. His seventy-three created quite a commotion among the Class A men, but the Major's eighty-one was what knocked them all a twister. Even Waddles was amazed. Waddles had turned in an eighty-five, which barely got him into the championship flight, but medal scores are nothing in Waddles' life. Match play is where he shines—match play against a nervous opponent.

"The old rum-hound must have been shooting over his head," said Waddles. "I'll bet he holed a lot of niblick shots."

I might have been in the fourth flight if I had not picked up my ball after playing eleven in the ditch at the fifth hole, and by that act eliminated myself from the tournament. I finished the round, of course, and signed my partner's card, becoming thereafter a mere spectator and a bit of the gallery.

Sam was disgusted with me—so much so that he refused me advice or sympathy. As a usual thing Sam walks up on a drive and selects the club which he thinks I should use. I may disagree with him, but I notice that in the end I always make the shot with the club of his selection. If I am short he tells me that I spared the shot; if I am over he says I hit it too hard.

After the catastrophe at the fifth hole Sam stood the bag on end and turned his back, a statue of silent contempt. When he allows me to pick out a club I know that he has washed his hands of me; when he will not accept a cigarette I am past praying for. I can think of nothing more keenly humiliating than to feel myself a disappointment to a caddie like Sam, but I have disappointed him so often that he should be getting hardened to it by now.

The first and second rounds of match play took place on Thursday, and the pairings put Cyril at the top of the drawing and the Major at the bottom. When the day was over the first flight had assumed a distinctly international aspect, for the semifinalists appeared as follows:

Waddles versus Cyril; Jay Gilman versus the Major.

Cyril had won his matches quite handily and without being pressed, but the Major had caught a brace of seasoned campaigners, one of whom took him to the twentieth hole before he passed out on the end of a long rainbow putt.

Gilman had played his usual steady game—nothing brilliant about it, but extremely dependable; and, as for Waddles, he had staggered along on the ragged edge of defeat both morning and afternoon, annoying his opponents as much as possible and winning quite as much with his head as with his clubs.

The time has come to say a few brief but burning words about the way friend Waddles plays the royal and ancient game of golf when there is anything in sight for the victor. I trust that when he reads this he will have the decency to remember that he had already cut my handicap to the quick, as it were.

To begin with, Waddles has no more form than an apple woman or a Cubist nude. He is so constructed that he cannot take a full swing to save his immortal soul. Everything has to be wrist and forearm with Waddles, but somehow or other he manages to snap his foolish little tee shots straight down the middle of the course, popping them high over the bunkers and avoiding all the traps and pits. The special providence that cares for taxicab drivers, sailors and drunken men seems to take charge of Waddles' ball in flight, imparting to it a tremendous overspin that gives it distance. I never saw Waddles square away at a drive without pitying him for his short, choppy swing; but he usually beats me about ten yards on account of the run that he gets. I never watched him jab at a putt without feeling certain that the ball was hit too hard to stay in the hole; but stay it does. Waddles actually putts with an overspin, and his ball burrows like a mole, dropping into the cup as if made of lead.

His brassy shots are just pusillanimous—there is no other word which describes them accurately—but somehow they keep on bouncing toward the pin. His irons run half-way and creep the rest of the distance. He always gets better results than his shots deserve, and complains that he should have had more. This one little trick of his is enough to drive an opponent crazy. Every golfer knows the moral—no, immoral—effect of going up against some one who gets more out of every shot than he puts into it, and still is not satisfied. It is like sitting in a poker game with a man who draws four to a deuce, makes an ace full, wins the pot, and then wolfs because it wasn't four aces.

I never played with Waddles without feeling certain that I could show him up on the long game, and it was straining to do it that ruined me. Trying to pick the tail feathers out of that lame duck has ruined many a golfer, the secret being that the duck isn't as lame as he looks. Waddles makes 'em all press—a big factor in his match play; but there are others, and not nearly so legitimate.

Playing the game strictly on merit, observing all the little niceties of demeanour and the courtesies due an opponent, Waddles would be a desperately hard man to beat; but he does not stop at merit. When he is out to win he does not stop anywhere. He has made a lifelong study of the various ways in which an opponent may be annoyed and put off his game, and he is the acknowledged master of all of them.

For instance, if he plays Doc Jones, who is chatty and conversational and likes to talk between shots, Waddles never opens his mouth once, but plods along with a scowl on his face and his lower lip sticking out a foot. Before long the poor little Doc begins to wonder whether he has said anything to hurt Waddles' feelings—and that is the end of Jones. But if Waddles plays Chester Hodge, who believes that the secret of a winning game is concentration, he is a perfect windmill, talking to Chester every minute, telling him funny stories, asking him questions, and literally conversing him off his feet.

Bill Mulqueen is nervous and impatient and hates to wait on his second shots; so when Waddles plays him he drives short and takes five minutes to play the odd, while Bill fumes and frets and accumulates steam for the final explosion, which never fails to strew the last nine with his mangled remains. On the other hand, old Barrison is deliberation itself, and Waddles beats him by playing his own shots quickly and then crowding Barry—hurrying him up, nagging at him, riding him from shot to shot, trying to speed up an engine that can't be speeded without racking itself to pieces. Joe Bowhan hates to have any one moving about the tee when he is setting himself to drive. Waddles licks him by washing his ball fresh on every hole. Joe can't see him, but he can hear him scouring away behind him. "Hand-laundered out of the contest again" is what Joe tells us when he comes into the clubhouse.

Perhaps the cruelest thing Waddles ever did was in the finals of the Spring Handicap against young Archie Gatter. The kid was inclined to think fairly well of himself and his game, but on the day of the match Waddles lugged a visiting golf architect round the course with him, planning improvements in the way of traps and bunkers, discussing various kinds of grass for the greens, arguing about soil, and paying no attention whatever to the wretched Archie—not even watching him make his shots. It broke the boy's heart to be ignored so completely, and he shot the last nine holes in a fat fifty-seven, finishing a total wreck.

These are only a few of Waddles' little villainies, and the fact that he is a consistent winner at match play bears out the theory that the best study of golf is golfers—splitting it fifty-fifty with the late Mr. Pope.

The most exasperating thing about Waddles is the bland, unconscious manner in which he perpetrates these outrages upon his opponents. He never seems aware that he is doing anything wrong or taking an unfair advantage; he pleads thoughtlessness if driven into a corner—and gets away with it too. You have to know Waddles very well before you are certain that every little movement has a meaning all its own and is part of a cold-blooded and deliberate plan of campaign.

With all these things in mind, I had a hunch that Friday's match with Cyril would be worth watching, and I was at the clubhouse at nine in the morning. Cyril and the Major were already there, driving practise balls. It was generally understood that the matches in the semi-finals would start at nine-thirty, and promptly on the dot Jay Gilman and the Major were on their way—both of them off to perfect drives.

I waited to follow Cyril and Waddles—and a long, weary wait it was. There is nothing which secures the angora so neatly and completely as to be all dressed up and keyed up with nowhere to go. Have you ever seen a boxer fretting and chafing in his corner, waiting for the champion to put in an appearance; and did you ever stop to think that the champion, in his dressing room, was counting on the effect of that nervous period of inactivity? Golf is a game which demands mental poise, and Cyril was losing his, minute by minute. He prowled all over the place, searching for Waddles; he walked out and looked down the road toward town; he practiced putting—and hit every shot too hard. If he had not been an Englishman, and schooled to keep his feelings to himself, I think he would have said something of a blistering nature.

It was eleven-fifteen when Waddles arrived, dripping apologies from every pore. Had Cyril understood that nine-thirty was the hour? Well, wasn't that a shame—too bad he hadn't telephoned or something! Waddles stated—and there was and is no reason to doubt his word—that he thought the matches were scheduled for the afternoon. He dawdled in the locker room for a scandalously long time, while Cyril made little journeys to the first tee and back again, growing warmer and warmer with each trip.

When Waddles finally emerged, neatly swathed in flannels, he suggested lunch. Cyril replied a bit stiffly that he never took food in the middle of the day.

"And a hard match in front of you, too," said Waddles. "I couldn't think of starting without a sandwich. Do you mind waiting while I have one?"

Cyril lied politely, but it was a terrible strain on him, and Waddles consumed a sandwich, a glass of milk and forty-five minutes more. Then he had to have one of his irons wrapped where the shaft had split—another straw for the camel's back. By this time the Major and Jay had finished their match, the Major winning on the sixteenth green. They joined the gallery, after the usual ceremonies at the nineteenth hole.

"Are you ready?" asked Waddles, breezing out on the first tee—and that was rather nervy, too, seeing that Cyril hadn't been anything else for three mortal hours.

"After you, sir," said the boy, short and sharp. He knew that he was getting "the work," and he resented it.

It always suits Waddles to have the honour. He likes to shoot first because his tee shot usually makes an opponent sore. He popped one of his dinky little drives into the air, but instead of dropping into the bunker it floated beyond it to the middle of the course and ran like a scared rabbit.

"No distance!" grumbled Waddles, slapping his club on the tee. "No distance. I'm all out of luck to-day."

Well, that was no more than rubbing it in by word of mouth. It produced the desired effect, because Cyril nearly broke himself in two in an attempt to beat that choppy half-arm swing. He swung much too hard, didn't follow through at all, and the ball sliced into a trap far up to the right.

"Do you know what you did then?" asked Waddles. "You tried to kill it, you didn't follow through, and——"

"And I sliced. I know perfectly, thanks." And Cyril started down the course, with Waddles tagging at his hip and telling him what was the matter with his swing. Coming from a man who never took a full-arm wallop at a ball in his life, criticism must have seemed superfluous. I couldn't see Cyril's face, but his ears reddened.

Waddles slapped a brassy to the edge of the putting green, but Cyril, trying for distance out of a heel print, took too much sand and barely got back on the course again. His third reached the green, whereupon Waddles promptly laid his ball dead for a four. Cyril missed a twenty-footer and lost the first hole.

Again Waddles spatted out a drive that narrowly escaped a cross bunker, but it struck on a hard spot and ran fully one hundred yards before it stopped. Waddles knows every hard spot on the course and governs himself accordingly.

Cyril followed through this time—followed through so vigorously that the ball developed a hook. A cross wind helped it along into the rough grass, leaving him a nasty second shot over shrubbery and trees. It hadn't stopped rolling before Waddles was talking again.

"You know what you did then? Too much right hand; and your club head——"

"Precisely," said Cyril, and left the tee almost on a dog-trot; but Waddles trotted with him, explaining what had happened to the club head. He was so earnest about it, so eager to be of assistance, so persistent, that Cyril did not know how to take him. Then, to add to the boy's discomfiture, Waddles played a perfect spoon shot, taking advantage of the wind, and the ball stopped six feet from the pin. Only a miracle could have saved Cyril after that, and there were no miracles left in his system. His ball carried low from the rough, struck the limb of a tree and glanced out of bounds. He played another, which dropped into thick weeds, and then picked up, conceding the hole. All the way to the third tee Waddles expounded the theory of the niblick shot out of grass, pausing only to spat another perfect ball down the course.

It was here that Cyril left the wood in his bag and took out a cleek. He wanted distance and he needed direction, our third hole calling for a well-placed tee shot; but he sliced just enough to put him squarely behind the largest tree on the entire course.

"I was sure you'd do that," said Waddles, sympathetically. "It's really a wooden club shot, and when you took your iron I knew you were afraid of it. Changing clubs is always a sign of weakness, don't you think so?"

Cyril mumbled something and started down the path, and at this point the old Major, who had been lingering in the background, swung in behind him with his first and last bit of advice.

"Keep your hair on, dear boy," he bleated. "Keep your hair on. Whatever happens, don't get waxy."

Cyril grunted but didn't say anything, and the Major dropped to the rear again, making queer little noises in his throat.

"Now the ideal—shot on this—hole," panted Waddles, overtaking his victim, "is a little bit—farther to the left. A hook—doesn't hurt you—as much—as a slice——"

"I'm not hurt yet!" snapped Cyril.

"Why, of course not!" cried Waddles with the heartiest good nature. "Of course not—but if your ball—had been farther to the left—you wouldn't have to play—over that tree—and——" There was more, but Cyril did not wait to hear it.

Waddles, executing his second with mechanical precision, carried the deep ravine with his mashie and put the ball on the green for a sure four. Off to the right Cyril prepared to do likewise, but the tree loomed ahead of him, his nerves were unstrung, his temper was ruffled, and instead of going cleanly under the ball he caught the turf four inches behind it and pitched into the ravine, where he found a lie that was all but unplayable.

"Tough luck!" said Waddles.

Cyril turned and looked at him. I expected an outburst of some sort, but the boy was evidently trying to keep his hair on.

"I didn't hit it," said he at length, swallowing hard. I heard an odd choking noise behind me. It was the Major, attempting to remain calm.

"Of course you didn't hit it!" agreed Waddles. "You took a hatful of turf; and you know why, don't you?"

Cyril groaned and plunged into the ravine.

Why follow the harrying details too closely? With the Major as chief mourner, and Waddles holding sympathetic postmortems on all his bad shots, Cyril suffered a complete collapse. I could have beaten him—any one could have beaten him—and as a matter of fact he beat himself. Having found his weak spot, Waddles never let up for an instant. Talk, talk, talk; his flow of conversation was as irritating as a neighbour's phonograph, and as incessant. I wondered that Cyril contained himself as well as he did, until I remembered that it is tradition with the English to lose as silently as they win.

The Major, who saw it all, addressed but one remark to me. It was on the tenth hole, and Waddles was showing Cyril why he had topped an iron shot.

"Look here," said the Major, jerking his thumb at Waddles, "does he always do this sort of thing? Talk so much, I mean?"

I replied, and quite truthfully, that it depended on the way he felt. The Major grunted, and that ended the conversation.

The match was wound up on the thirteenth; Cyril shook hands, complimented Waddles on his game, and made a bee line for the clubhouse. Nobody could blame him for not wanting to finish the round. Waddles tagged along at his elbow, gesticulating, explaining the theory of golf, even offering to illustrate certain shots with which Cyril had had trouble.

The Major spent the rest of the afternoon on the porch, nursing a tall glass and looking at the hills. After a shower Cyril joined him.

"The blooming Britons are holding a lodge of sorrow," said Waddles, who was in high spirits. "What's the betting on the finals to-morrow?"

"I'll back the Major," spoke up Jay Gilman, "if you'll promise not to talk the shirt off his back."

"Another dumb player, eh?" asked Waddles, grinning.

"Never opened his mouth to me but once the entire way round," answered Jay.

"And what did he say then?"

"As near as I recall," replied Jay, "he said 'Dormie!'"

"I hate a man who can't talk!" exclaimed Waddles.

"How you must hate yourself," I suggested, and was forced to dodge a match safe.

"Just the same," persisted Jay, "I'll take the Major's end if you'll promise to keep your mouth shut."

"I'll accept no bets on that basis," Waddles announced. "I like a friendly, chatty game."

"I've got you for fifty, then, and talk your head off!" And Jay laughed until I thought he would choke. As a matter of fact, he laughed all the rest of the afternoon.

---

Quite a gallery turned out for the finals, and this time there was no delay. Waddles was on hand early, and so was the Major. There was considerable betting, for Jay Gilman insisted on backing the Major to the limit.

"You're only doing that because he beat you," said Waddles in an injured tone of voice.

"Make it a hundred if you want to," was Jay's come-back.

"Fifty is plenty, thanks."

"What? Not weakening already?" asked Jay. "A hundred, and no limit on the conversation!"

"Got you!" snapped Waddles.

He would have taken the honour, too, if the Major had not beaten him to it. The old fellow ambled out on the tee, helped himself to a pinch of sand, patted it down carefully, adjusted his ball, and hit a screamer dead on the pin, with just enough hook to make it run well. Then he stepped back, clapped his hands to his waist and cackled—actually cackled like a hen.

"Do you know," said he, addressing Waddles—"I believe I've burst my belt! Yes, I'm quite certain I have; but don't fear, old chap. I sha'n't be indecent. I have braces on. Ho, ho, ho!"

Waddles paused with his mouth open. At first I thought he was going to say something, but evidently nothing occurred to him, so he teed his ball and took his stance.

"It was an old one," said the Major. "I've worn it for ages. Given me by Freddy Fitzpatrick. Queer chap, Fitz.... You don't mind my babbling a little, do you? Dare say I'm a bit nervous."

"Oh, not in the least," grunted Waddles, addressing his ball. He hit his usual drive, with the usual result, but his ball was at least forty yards short of the Major's.

"Very fortunate, sir!" bleated the Major, following Waddles from the tee. "Blest if I see how you do it! Your form—you don't mind criticism, old chap?—your form is wretchedly bad. Atrocious! Your swing is cramped, your stance is awkward, yet somehow you manage to get over the bunkers. Extraordinary, I call it. Some day you shall teach me the stroke if you will, eh?"

Waddles didn't say a word. He tucked his chin down into his collar and made tracks for his ball, but there was a puzzled look in his eyes. He didn't seem to know what to make of this sudden flood of conversation. The Major was with him every step of the way, blatting about his friend Fitzpatrick.

"He had a stroke like yours, old Fitz. Frightfully crippled up with rheumatism, poor chap! Abominable golfer! No form, no swing, but the devil's own luck.... I say, what club shall you use next? I should take a cleek, but you don't carry one, I've noticed. Too bad. Very useful club, but it calls for a full, clean swing. You'd boggle a cleek horribly.... You're taking a brassy? Quite right, old chap, quite right. I should, too, if I couldn't depend on my irons."

Waddles waved the Major aside, and pulled off his shot; but it seemed to me that he hurried the least little bit. Perhaps he was expecting another outburst of language. His ball stopped ten yards short of the putting green.

"Ah!" said the Major. "You stabbed at that one, dear boy. Old Fitz stabbed his second shots too. Nervousness, I dare say; but you haven't the look of a man with nerves. Rather beefy for that, I should think. Tight match, and all. Too much food, perhaps. Never can tell, eh? Old Fitz was a gross feeder too.... Now I'm going to take an iron, and if you don't mind I wish you'd stand behind me and tell me how to shorten my swing a bit. I'm inclined to play an iron too strong.... A little farther over, if you please. I don't want you where I can see you, old chap, but I sha'n't mind your talking."

The Major pulled his mid-iron out of the bag and Waddles obliged with a steady stream of advice, not one item of which was heeded:

"Advance that left foot a little, and don't drop your shoulder so much! Come back a bit slower, keep your eye on the ball, start your swing higher up——"

At this point the blade of the mid-iron connected with the ball and sent it sailing straight for the pin—a beautiful shot, and clean as a whistle. A white speck bounded on the green and rolled past the hole.

"You see?" cried the Major. "Too strong—oh, much too strong!"

"You're up there for a putt!" snorted Waddles. "What did you expect—at this distance?"

"With your assistance," continued the Major, ignoring Waddles' sarcasm, "I shall shorten my swing. You've the shortest swing I've ever seen. Shorter than poor old Fitz's. I'm sorry about that belt, but I sha'n't be indecent. I have braces on—suspenders, I believe you call them." He squinted at his ball as he advanced. "Too strong. Never mind. I dare say I shall hole the putt.... You're taking a mashie next? Tricky shot—very, especially on a fast green."

Waddles composed himself with a visible effort and really achieved a very fine approach shot. The ball had the perfect line to the hole, but was three feet short of the cup.

"Never up, never in!" cackled the Major, and proceeded to sink a three—a nasty, twisting twelve-footer, and downhill at that. There was a patter of applause from the gallery, started by Gilman and Cyril. The Major marched to the second tee, babbling continually:

"I owe you an apology. Never had a three there before. Never shall again. Stroke under par, isn't it? Not at all bad for a beginning. Better luck next time. Wish I hadn't broken this belt. Puts me off my shots."

"What do you mean—better luck next time?" demanded Waddles, but got no response. The Major had switched to his friend Fitzpatrick, and was chirping about rheumatism and gout and heaven knows what all. He stopped talking just long enough to peel off another tremendous drive, and if he had taken the ball in his hand and carried it out on the course he couldn't have selected a better spot from which to play his second.

It was on this tee that Waddles tried to hand the Major's stuff back to him, probably figuring that he could stand as much conversation as his opponent, and last longer at the repartee. He began to tell the story of the Scotch golfer and his collie dog, which is one of the best things he does, but I noticed that when it came time for him to drive he grunted as he hit the ball, and when Waddles grunts it is a sign that he is calling up the reserves. He got the same old shot and the same old run, and would have finished the same old story, but the Major horned in with a long-winded reminiscence of his own, and the collie was lost in the shuffle. Another animal was lost too—a goat belonging to Waddles. He spoke sharply to his opponent before playing his second, and then sliced a spoon shot deep into the rough.

"Ah, too bad!" chirruped the Major. "And the grass is quite deep over there, isn't it? Now I shall use the mid-iron again, and you shall watch and tell me about my swing—that is, if you don't mind, old chap."

Waddles didn't mind. He told the Major enough things to rattle a wooden Indian, and just as the club had started to descend he raised his voice sharply. It would have made me miss the ball entirely, but it seemed to have no effect on the Major, who did not even flinch but lined one out to the green.

Waddles wandered off into the rough, mumbling to his caddie. The third shot was a remarkable one. He tore the ball out of the thick grass, raised it high in the air and put it on the green, six feet from the cup. The Major then laid his third shot stone-dead for a four. Waddles still had a difficult putt to halve the hole, but while he was studying the roll of the green the Major spoke up.

"I shan't ask you to putt that," said he. "I concede you a four."

Waddles stared at him with eyes that fairly bulged.

"You—what?" said he. "You give me this putt?"

The Major nodded and walked off the green. Waddles looked first at his ball, then at the cup, and then at the crowd of spectators. At last he picked up and followed, and a whisper ran through the gallery. The general impression prevailed that conceding a six-foot putt at the outset of an important match was nothing short of emotional insanity.

Of course since he had been offered a four on the hole Waddles could do nothing but accept it gracefully—and begin wondering why on earth his opponent had been so generous. I dare any golfer to put himself in Waddles' place and arrive at a conclusion soothing to the nerves and the temper. The most natural inference was that the Major held him cheaply, pitied him, did not fear his game.

I thought this was what the old fellow was getting at, but it was not until they reached the third putting green that I began to appreciate the depth of the Major's cunning and the diabolical cleverness of his golfing strategy.

Waddles had a two-foot putt to halve the third hole—a straight, simple tap over a perfectly flat surface—the sort of putt that he can make with his eyes shut, ninety-nine times out of the hundred. The Major had already holed his four, and I knew by the careless manner in which Waddles stepped up to his ball that he expected the Major to concede the putt. It was natural for him to expect it, since he had already been given a difficult six-footer.

Waddles stood there, waggling his putter behind the ball and waiting for the Major to say the word, but the word did not come. This seemed to irritate Waddles. He looked at the Major, and his expression said, plain as print, "You don't really insist on my making this dinky little putt?" It was all wasted, for the Major was regarding him with a fishy stare—looking clear through him in fact. The expectant light faded out of Waddles' eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and gave his attention to the shot, examining every inch of the line to the cup. It seemed to be a straight putt, but was it? Waddles took his lower lip in his teeth and tapped the ball very gently. It ran off to the left, missing the cup by at least three inches.

"Aha!" chuckled the Major. "You thought I would give you that one too, eh? Old Fitz used to say, 'Give a man a hard putt and he'll miss an easy one. After that he'll never be sure of anything.' Extraordinary how often it happens just that way. Seems to have an unsettling effect on the nerves. Tricky beggar, Fitz. Won the Duffers' Cup at Bombay by conceding a twenty-foot putt on the sixteenth green. Opponent went all to little pieces. Finished one down, with a fifteen on the last hole. Queer game, golf!"

"Yes," said Waddles, breathing hard, "and a lot of queer people play it. Your honour, sir."

The Major smacked out another long one, but Waddles, boiling inside and scarcely able to see the ball, topped his tee shot and bounded into the bunker.

"You see what it does," said the Major. "You were still thinking about that putt. The effect on the nerves——"

"Oh, cut it out!" growled Waddles. "Play the game right if you're going to play it at all! Your mouth is the best club in your bag!"

The Major did not resent this in the least; paid no attention in fact. He toddled away, blatting intermittently about his friend Fitz, and Waddles knocked half the sand out of the bunker before he finally emerged, spitting gravel and adjectives. Sore was no name for it! He lost the hole, of course, making him three down.

The rest of the contest was interesting, but only from a psychological point of view. Evidently considering that he had a safe lead the Major cut out the conversation and the horseplay and settled down to par golf. There was no lack of talk, however, for Waddles erupted constantly. Braced by the thought that he was annoying his opponent by these verbal outbursts, he managed to halve four holes in a row, but on the ninth green he missed another short putt. In the explosion that followed he blew off his safety valve completely, and the rest of the match degenerated into a riotous procession, so far as noise was concerned.

The thing I could not understand was that the Major held on the even tenour of his way, unruffled and serene as a June morning. The louder Waddles talked the better the old fellow seemed to like it. Never once did he seem disturbed; never once did he hesitate on a shot. With calm, mechanical precision he proceeded to go through Waddles like a cold breeze, and the latter was so busy thinking up things to say that he flubbed disgracefully, and was beaten on the thirteenth green, seven and five.

Well, Waddles may have his faults, but losing ungracefully is not one of them. He will fight you to the very last ditch, but once the battle is over he declares peace immediately. He walked up to the Major and held out his hand. He grinned, too, though I imagine it hurt his face to do it.

"You're all right, Major!" said he. "You're immense! You licked me and you made me like it. If I had your nerves—if I could concentrate on my shots and not let anything bother me——"

Some one behind me laughed. It was Jay Gilman.

"It has been a pleasure, dear chap," said the Major. "A pleasure, I assure you!"

---

Several of us had dinner at the club that night, Jay offering to give the party because of the money he had won from Waddles. When the coffee came on, America's representative in the finals attempted to explain his defeat.

"The Major began the gab-fest," said Waddles. "He started off chattering like a magpie and trying to rattle me, and naturally I went back at him with the same stuff. Fair for one as for the other, eh? I'll admit that he out-generalled me by giving me that putt on the second hole, but the thing that finally grabbed my angora was his infernal concentration. Never saw anything like it! Why, he actually asked me to stand behind him and criticise his swing—while he was shooting, mind you? Asked me to do it! And when I saw that he went along steady as the rock of Gibraltar—well, I blew, that's all. I went to pieces. The thing reacted on me. I'll bet that old rascal could listen to you all day long-and never top a ball!"

"You'd lose that bet," said Jay quietly.

"How do you mean—lose it?" demanded Waddles, bristling. "I talked my head off, and he didn't top any, did he?"

"No; and he didn't listen any, either. As a matter of fact, you could have fired a cannon off right at his hip without making him miss a shot."

"You don't mean to tell me——" said Waddles, gaping.

Jay laughed unfeelingly.

"You had a fat chance of talking the old Major out of anything!" said he. "He hasn't advertised it much, because he's rather sensitive about his affliction; but he's——"

"Deaf!" gulped Waddles.

"As a post," finished Jay.

Waddles' jaw dropped.

There was a long, painful silence.

Then Waddles crooked his finger at the waiter.

"Boy!" he called. "Bring me this dinner check!"