Fore! Part 17

I told him what I thought, and again there was silence and cheese.

"Do you think Mary is going to marry that--that crook?" demanded Waddles.

"That's what they say."

More cheese.

"I'd like to tell her," said Waddles thoughtfully, "but it's just one of the things that isn't being done this season. I'd like to give her a line on that handsome scalawag--before it's too late. I can't waltz up to her and tell her that he's bogus. There must be some other way. But how? How?"

Waddles sighed and attacked the cheese again. You'd hardly think that a man could get an inspiration out of the kind of cheese that our House Committee buys to give away, but before Waddles left the club that evening he informed me that a mixed-foursome tournament wouldn't be half bad--for a change.

"You won't get many entries," said I. "You know how the men fight shy of any golf with women in it."

"Don't want many."

"Then why a tournament?" I asked. "The entry fees won't pay for the cups."

"I'm giving the cups," said Waddles, and investigated the cheese bowl once more. "Two of 'em. One male cup and one female cup. About sixteen dollars they'll set me back, but I've an idea--just a sneaking, lingering sc.r.a.p of a notion--that I'll get my money's worth."

And he went away mumbling to himself and blowing cracker crumbs out of his mouth.

IV

Of course you know the theory of the mixed foursome. There are four players, two men and two women, and each couple plays one ball. It sounds very simple. Miss Jones and Mr. Brown are partners. Miss Jones drives, and it is up to Mr. Brown to play the next shot from where the ball lies, after which Miss Jones takes another pop at the pill, and so on until the putt sinks. Yes, it sounds like an innocent pastime, but of all forms of golf the mixed foursome carries the highest percentage of danger and explosive material. It is the supreme test of nerves and temper, and the trial-by-acid of the disposition.

In our club there is an unwritten law that no wife shall be partnered with her husband in a mixed-foursome match, because husbands and wives have a habit of saying exactly what they think about each other--a practise which should be confined to the breakfast table. There was a case once--but let us avoid scandal. She has a new husband and he has a new wife.

Waddles' mixed-foursome tournament was scheduled for a Thursday, and it was amazing how many of the male members discovered that imperative business engagements would keep them from partic.i.p.ating in the contest.

The women were willing enough to play--they always are, bless 'em!--but it was only after a vast amount of effort and Mexican diplomacy that Waddles was able to lead six goats to the slaughter. Six, did I say?

Five. Russell Davidson needed no urging.

The man who gave Waddles the most trouble was Bill Hawley. Bill was polite about it, but firm--oh, very firm. He didn't want any mixed foursomes in his young life, thank you just the same. More than that, he was busy. Waddles had to put it on the ground of a personal favour before Bill showed the first sign of wavering.

When I arrived at the club on Thursday noon I found Waddles sweating over the handicaps for his six couples. Now it is a cinch to handicap two women or two men if they are to play as partners, but to handicap a woman and a man is quite another matter, and all recognised rules go by the board. I watched the old boy for some time, but I couldn't make head or tail of his system. Finally I asked him how he handicapped a mixed foursome.

"With prayer," said Waddles. "With prayer, and in fear and trembling.

And sometimes that ain't any good."

I noted that he had given Mary Brooke and Russell Davidson the lowest mark--10. Beth Rogers and Bill Hawley were next with 16, and the other couples ranged on upward to the blue sky.

"Of course," I suggested, "the low handicap is something of a compliment, but haven't you slipped Davidson a bit the worst of it?"

"Not at all," growled Waddles. "He was just crazy to get into this thing, and he wouldn't have been unless he figured to have a cinch; consequently, hence and by reason of which I've given him a mark that'll make him draw right down to his hand. He won't play any four-flush here." Waddles then arranged the personnel of the foursomes, and jotted down the order in which they would leave the first tee. When I saw which quartette would start last I offered another suggestion.

"You're not helping Bill's game any," said I. "You know that he doesn't like Davidson, and----"

Waddles stopped me with his frozen-faced, stuffed-owl stare. In deep humiliation I confess that at the time I attributed it to his distaste for criticism. I realise now that it must have been amazement at my stupidity.

"Excuse me for living," said I with mock humility.

"There is no excuse," said Waddles heavily.

Bill turned up on the tee at the last moment, and if he didn't like the company in which he found himself he masked his feelings very well.

"How do, Mary? Beth, this is a pleasure. How are you, Davidson? Ladies first, I presume?"

"Drive, Miss Rogers," said Davidson.

Now a fluffy blonde is all right, I suppose, if she wears a hair net.

Beth doesn't, and her golden aureole would make a Circa.s.sian woman jealous. Still, there are people who think Beth is a beauty. I more than half suspect that Beth is one of them. Beth drove, and the ball plumped into the cross bunker.

"Oh, partner!" she squealed. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"That's all right," Bill a.s.sured her. "I've often been in there myself.

Takes a good long shot to carry that bunker."

"It's perfectly dear of you to say so!"

"Fore!" said Mary, who was on the tee, and the conversation ceased.

"Better shoot to the left," advised Russell, "and go round the end of the bunker."

Mary stopped waggling her club to look at him. If there is anything in which the female of the golfing species takes sinful pride it is the length of her drive. She likes to stand up on a tee used by the men and smack the ball over the cross bunker. She wouldn't trade a two-hundred-yard drive for twenty perfect approach shots. She may be a wonder on the putting green, but she offers herself no credit for that.

It is the long tee shot that takes her eye--the drive that skims the bunker and goes on up the course. Waddles says the proposition of s.e.x equality has a bearing on the matter, but I claim that it is just ordinary, everyday pride in being able to play a man's game, man fashion.

Coming from a total stranger, that suggestion about driving to the left would have been regarded as a deadly insult; coming from Russell----

"But I think I can carry it," said Mary with a tiny pout.

"Change your stance and drive to the left." The suggestion had become a command.

"Fore!" said Mary again--and whacked the ball straight into the bunker--straight into the middle of it.

"Now, you see?" Russell was aggravated, and showed it. "If you had changed your stance and put that ball somewhere to the left you might have given me a chance to reach the green. As it is----"

He was still enlarging upon her offence as they moved away from the tee.

Mary did not answer him, but she gave Beth a bright smile, as much as to say, "What care I?" Bill trailed along in the rear, juggling a niblick, his homely face wiped clean of all expression.

There wasn't much to choose between the second shots--both lies were about as bad as could be--but Russell got out safely and Bill duplicated the effort.

Beth then elected to use her bra.s.sy, and sliced the ball into the long gra.s.s. Of course she had to wail about it.

"Isn't that just too maddening? Partner, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't you care," grinned Bill. "That's just my distance with a mashie.

And as for long gra.s.s, I dote on it."

Mary was taking her bra.s.sy out of the bag when Russell b.u.t.ted in again--with excellent advice, I must confess.