Fore! Part 32

Me, I ratheh play this Af'ican golf with two dice. That's some goat getteh, too, an' lots of people quits it; but I notice they always comes back. Yes, suh; they always comes back."

II

As the runabout coughed and sputtered along the county road the man at the wheel had time to think over the whole matter. Everything considered, he decided that he had acted wisely.

"Been playing too much golf, anyway," he told himself. "Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day afternoons, Sundays and holidays--too much!... And then worrying about my game in between. It'll be off my mind now.... One thing sure--Mary'll be glad to hear the news. That old joke of hers about being a golf widow won't go any more. Yes, she'll have to dig up a new one.... Maybe I have been a little selfish and neglectful. I'll make up for it now, though. Sundays we can take the big car and go on picnics. The kids'll like that."

He pursued this train of thought until he felt almost virtuous. He could see himself entering the house; he could picture his wife's amazement and pleasure; he could hear himself saying something like this:

"Well, my dear, you've got your wish at last. After thinking it all over I've decided to cut out the golf and devote myself to the family. Yes; I'm through!"

In this highly commendable spirit he arrived at home, only to find the shades drawn and the front door locked. As Coyne felt for his key ring he remembered that his wife had said something about taking the children to spend the day with her mother. It was also the servant's afternoon off and the house was empty. Coyne was conscious of a slight disappointment; he was the bearer of glad tidings, but he had no audience.

"Oh, well," he thought; "it's been a long time since I had a quiet Sunday afternoon at home. Do me good. Guess I'll read a while and then run over to mother's for supper. I don't read as much as I used to. Man ought to keep up to date."

Then, because he was a creature of habit and the most methodical of men, he must have his pipe and slippers before sitting down with his book.

Mary Coyne was a good wife and a faithful mother, but she abominated a pipe in the living room; and she tolerated slippers only when they were of her own choosing.

Now there are things which every woman knows; but there is one thing which no woman has ever known and no woman will ever know--namely, that she is not competent to select slippers for her lord and master. Bob Coyne was a patient man, but he loathed slippers his wife picked out for him. He was pledged to a worn and disreputable pair of the pattern known as Romeos--relics of his bachelor days. They were run down at the heel and thin of sole; but they were dear to his heart and he clung to them obstinately in spite of their shabby appearance. After the honeymoon it had been necessary to speak sternly with his wife on the subject of the Romeos, else she would have thrown them on the ash heap. Since that interview Mrs. Coyne--obedient soul!--had spent a great portion of her married life in finding safe hiding places for those wretched slippers; but no matter where she put them, they seemed certain of a triumphant resurrection.

Coyne went on a still hunt for the Romeos, and found them at last, tucked away in the clothes closet of the spare room upstairs. This closet was a sort of catchall, as the closets of spare rooms are apt to be; and as Coyne stooped to pick up the slippers he knocked down something which had been standing in a dark corner. It fell with a heavy thump, and there on the floor at his feet was a rusty old mid-iron--the first golf club Coyne had ever owned.

He had not seen that mid-iron in years, but he remembered it well. He picked it up, sighted along the shaft, found it still reasonably straight and unwarped, balanced the club in his hands, waggled it once as if to make a shot; then he replaced it hastily, seized the slippers, and hurried downstairs.

The book of his selection was one highly recommended by press and pulpit, hence an ideal tale for a Sunday afternoon; so he dragged an easy-chair to the front window, lighted his pipe, put his worn Romeos on a taboret, and settled down to solid comfort. In spite of the fact that the book was said to be gripping, and entertaining from cover to cover, Coyne encountered some difficulty in getting into the thing. He skimmed through the first chapter, yawned and looked at his watch.

"They're just getting away for the afternoon round," said he; and then, with the air of one who has caught himself in a fault, he attacked Chapter Two. It proved even worse than the first. He told himself that the characters were out of drawing, the situations impossible, and the humour strained or stale.

At the end of Chapter Three he pitched the book across the room and closed his eyes. Five minutes later he rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and went slowly upstairs. He a.s.sured himself he was not in search of anything; but his aimless wanderings brought him at last to the spare room, where he seated himself on the edge of the bed. He remained there for twenty minutes, motionless, staring into s.p.a.ce. Then he rose, crossed the room and disappeared in the clothes closet. When he came out the rusty mid-iron came with him. Was this a sign of weakness, of deterioration in the moral fibre, an indication of regret! Perish the thought! The explanation Mr. Coyne offered himself was perfectly satisfactory. He merely wished to examine the ten-year-old shaft and ascertain whether it was cracked or not. He carried the venerable souvenir to the window and scrutinised it closely; the shaft was sound.

"A good club yet," he muttered.

As he stood there, holding the old mid-iron in his hands, ten years slipped away from him. He remembered that club very well--almost as well as a man remembers his first sweetheart. He remembered other things too--remembered that, as a youth, he had never had the time or the inclination to play at games of any sort. He had been too busy getting his start, as the saying goes. Then, at thirty, married and well on his way to business success, he had felt the need of open air and exercise.

He had mentioned this to a friend and the friend had suggested golf.

"But that's an old man's game!" Yes; he had said that very thing. His ears burned at the recollection of his folly.

"Think so? Tackle it and see."

He had been persuaded to spend one afternoon at the Country Club. Is there a golfer in all the world who needs to be told what happened to Mr. Robert Coyne? He had hit one long, straight tee shot; he had holed one difficult putt; and the whole course of his serious, methodical existence had been changed. The man who does not learn to play any game until he is thirty years of age is quite capable of going daft over tiddledywinks or dominoes. If he takes up the best and most interesting of all outdoor sports his family may count itself fortunate if he does not become violent.

Never the sort of person who could be content to do anything badly, Bob Coyne had applied himself to the Royal and Ancient Pastime with all the simple earnestness and dogged determination of a silent, self-centred man. He had taken lessons from the professional. He had brought his driver home and practised with it in the back yard. He had read books on the subject. He had studied the methods and styles of the best players.

He had formed theories of his own as to stance and swing. He had even talked golf to his wife--which is the last stage of incurable golfitis.

As he stood at the window, turning the rusty mid-iron in his hands, he recalled the first compliment ever paid him by a good player--the more pleasing because he had not been intended to hear it. It came after he had fought himself out of the duffer cla.s.s and had reached the point where he was too good for the bad ones, but not considered good enough for the topnotchers.

One day Corkrane had invited him into a foursome--Coyne had been the only man in sight--and Corkrane had taken him as a partner against such redoubtable opponents as Millar and Duffy. Coyne had halved four holes and won two, defeating Millar and Duffy on the home green. Nothing had been said at the time; but later on, while polishing himself with a towel in the shower room, Coyne had heard Corkrane's voice:

"Hey, Millar!"

"Well?"

"That fellow Coyne--he's not so bad."

"I believe you, Corky. He won the match for you."

"Thought I'd have to carry him on my back; but he was right there all the way round. Yep; Coyne's a comer, sure as you live!"

And the subject of this kindly comment had blushed pink out of sheer gratification.

A pretty good bunch, those fellows out at the club! If it had done nothing else for him, Coyne reflected, golf had widened his circle of friends. Suddenly there came to him the realisation that he would have a great deal of spare time on his hands in the future. Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days would be long days now; and Sundays----Coyne sighed deeply and swung the rusty mid-iron back and forth as if in the act of studying a difficult approach.

"But what's the use?" he asked himself. "I haven't got a shot left--not a single shot!"

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mid-iron between his knees and his head in his hands. At the end of twenty minutes he rose and began to prowl about the house, looking into corners, behind doors, and underneath beds and bureaus.

"Seems to me I saw it only the other day," said he. "Of course Bobby might have been playing with it and lost it."

It was in the children's playroom that he came upon the thing, which he told himself he found by accident. It was much the worse for wear; nearly all the paint had been worn off it and its surface was covered with tiny dents. Bob Junior had been teaching his dog to fetch and carry and the dents were the prints of sharp puppy teeth.

"Well, what do you think of that!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Coyne, pretending to be surprised. "As I live--a golf ball! Yes; a golf ball!"

He stood looking at it for some time; but at last he picked it up. With the rusty mid-iron in one hand and the ball in the other, he went downstairs, pa.s.sed through the house, unlocked the back door and went into the yard. Behind the garage was a smooth stretch of lawn, fifty feet in diameter, carefully mowed and rolled. In the centre of this emerald carpet was a hole, and in the hole was a flag. This was Mr.

Coyne's private putting green.

"Haven't made a decent chip shot in a month.... No use trying now. All confounded foolishness!"

So saying, the man who had renounced Colonel Bogey and all his works dropped the ball twenty feet from the edge of the putting green. The lie did not suit him; so he altered it slightly. Then he planted his disreputable Romeos firmly on the turf, waggled the rusty mid-iron a few times, pressed the blade lightly behind the ball, and attempted that most difficult of all performances--the chip shot. The ball hopped across the lawn to the smooth surface of the putting green and rolled straight for the cup, struck the flag and stopped two inches from the hole.

"Heavens above!" gasped Mr. Coyne, rubbing his eyes. "Look at that, will you? I hit the pin, by golly--_hit the pin_!"

At dusk Mrs. Coyne returned. The first thing she noticed was that a large rug was missing from the dining room. Having had experience, she knew exactly where to look for it. On the back porch she paused, her hands on her hips. The missing rug was hanging over the clothesline, and her lord and master, in shirtsleeves and the unspeakable Romeos, was driving a single golf ball against it.

Whish-h-h! Click! Thud!

"And I guess that's getting my weight into the swing!" babbled Mr.

Coyne. "I've found out what I've been doing that was wrong. Watch me hit this one, Mary."

Mrs. Coyne was everything that a good wife should be, but she sniffed audibly.

"I've told you a dozen times that I didn't want you knocking holes in that rug!" said she.

"Why, there isn't a hole in it, my dear."

"Well, there will be if you keep on. It seems to me, Bob, that you might get enough golf out at the club. Then you won't scandalise the neighbours by practising in the back yard on Sunday afternoons. What do you suppose they'll think of you?"