Her Weight in Gold and others Part 30

"By Jove!" exclaimed Rip, apropos of nothing. A great light beamed in his face.

"By Jove!" repeated Jeff, divining his thought.

Then, just to prove that they understood each other, they drove at least two hundred and fifty yards off the first tee, straight down the course. Jeff showed Beppy how to overcome the slice. She got a hundred and fifty yard ball.

"For heaven's sake!" she exclaimed, surprised by her own prowess. "How wonderful! And how easy, when you know how."

With singular coincidence of purpose, the two Van Winkles set about to teach their partners how to play better golf than they had ever played before. By the time they were playing the long eighth hole, the young men were so exercised over the discovery of a vocation that they sliced badly into the rough. Trudging side by side through the tall gra.s.s, looking for b.a.l.l.s which the caddies had lost, they addressed each other in excited undertones.

"Nothing could suit me better," said Jeff.

"It's like finding money. Lessons at three dollars an hour and the privilege of selling all the golf b.a.l.l.s to the players. How's that?

Shall we tackle it?"

Jeff experienced a momentary pang of doubt. "Of course we'd lose our standing as amateurs. We'd be professionals, you know."

"What's the odds? Even amateurs have to live, old son."

"What will the girls think of us?" dolefully.

"They can't blame us for earning an honest dollar."

"A Van Winkle earning an honest dollar!" scoffed Jeff, with a short laugh. "It's incredible. No one will believe it."

"Here's what I think," said Rip seriously. "We ought to make a clean breast of everything those girls. Tell 'em just how we stand. I'll stake my head they'll stand for it."

"Tell 'em we've been kicked out by the governor?" gasped Jeff.

"Sure. A rich man's sons earning their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. Horrible ogre of a father, d'ye see? Romance of the highest order. By ginger, Jeff, I'm strong for it. It's honest work and I'm not ashamed of it."

The Barrows girls witnessed the strange spectacle of two brothers in quest of golf-b.a.l.l.s shaking hands with each other in the centre of a wire-gra.s.s swamp, and blinked their beautiful eyes in amazement.

At the "nineteenth hole," over tea and highb.a.l.l.s, the Van Winkle twins made humble confession to the high priestesses of W----. They did not spare themselves. On the contrary, they confessed their utter worthlessness and paid homage to the father who had sent them out in the world to retrieve themselves.

"And what do you think of the scheme?" asked Rip at the end of a lengthy and comprehensive explanation of the project in mind.

"Fine!" cried the two girls in a breath. "Then, the first thing to do is to convince the club that it needs a professional," said Jeff eagerly. He was looking into Beppy's big brown eyes.

"But it doesn't need TWO," spoke Toots.

The four faces fell. "I never thought of that," murmured Jeff.

"The Wayside Club has no instructor," cried Rip, grasping at a straw.

"But no one thinks of going to Wayside," protested Toots. "They are perfectly dreadful."

"Still they could be taught how to play golf," said Rip. "In any event, beggars can't be choosers. We both want to stay in W----."

"Well, there's only one way out of it," said Beppy quickly. "You, Ripley, apply to the Wayside for the position. Jefferson has already spoken for the place here."

"He has not!" exclaimed Toots indignantly.

"He has! I am on the golf committee, so that settles it. I'll call a meeting of the committee tomorrow--"

"I don't see why Ripley should be sacrificed--"

"Wait, girls," broke in Ripley with a laugh. "It's very flattering to us, but please don't quarrel on our account. We can settle it nicely by flipping a coin."

"Heads," said Jefferson without hesitation. He won. "Sorry, old chap."

"We shall have to join Wayside," lamented Toots. "Oh, how I hate it."

"I wouldn't join until you see whether I land the place," advised Ripley. "I suppose I COULD go to some other city."

Both girls uttered such a harmonious protest against that alternative, that he said he wouldn't consider leaving his brother for anything in the world.

"I know the president of Wayside," said Beppy consolingly. "He used to be in business with father. I'll see him tomorrow and tell him---"

"See him TODAY," advised Toots firmly.

"You are adorable," whispered Rip as he walked beside her toward the automobile. "I wish I could do something to show how much I appreciate your--your friendship." Her response was a most enchanting smile. Under his breath he said: "Gad, I'd like to kiss you!" It is barely possible that thoughts speak louder than words and that she heard him, for she said something in reply under her own breath that would have made it a very simple matter for him to kiss her if he had been acquainted with the silent tongue.

The Van Winkle twins, in antic.i.p.ation of success crowning their efforts to become professional instructors in the two country clubs, outlined a splendid and cunning campaign for themselves. By inspiring a fierce rivalry between the would-be golfers of the two clubs, they could build up a thriving practice in their chosen profession. The rivalry was already bitter along other lines. If they could get the men of the clubs into a fighting humour over the golf situation, there would be no end to the lessons they would demand of their instructors. By using a little strategy, the twins figured they could keep the clubs in a state of perpetual tournament. The results would be far-reaching and gratifying.

Before the end of the week, the redoubtable sons of old Bleecker Van Winkle, "leaders of cotillions in the Four Hundred and idols of Newport and Bar Harbor," (according to the local press), were installed as instructors in the rival clubs. Everybody in town, except the conspiring Barrows girls, regarded the situation as a huge joke. The fashionable young "bloods" were merely doing it for the "fun of the thing." That was the consensus of opinion. The news was telegraphed to the New York papers and the headlines in Gotham were worth seeing. The twins winked at each other and--played golf.

Be it said to their credit, they were soon earning twenty-five or thirty dollars a day--and saving half of it!

So intense was the golf fever in W---- that the middle of July found the links of both clubs so crowded that it was almost impossible to play with anything except a putter. Nearly every foursome had a gallery following it and no one spoke above a whisper after he entered the club grounds, so eager were the members to respect the proprieties of golf.

Men who had but lately scoffed at the little white ball now talked of stymies and lies and devits as if they had known them all their lives.

Hooks, tops and slices were on every man's tongue, and you might have been pardoned for thinking that Bunker Hill was smack in the centre of W----, and that Col. Bogie had come there to be beaten to death in preference to being executed in any other city in the world.

The merry Van Winkles, good fellows and good sports that they were, thrived with the game, and kept straight down the course of true love as well.

"Jeffy," said Rip one evening after returning from a rather protracted call on Toots Barrows, "I have asked her to marry me."

"So have I," said Jeff, who had returned with him from the Barrows home. "I wonder what the governor will say?"

"I'm not worrying about him. I'm wondering what the girls' mother will say."

"No one will say we are marrying them for their money, that's positive.

Everybody here thinks we've got millions and millions."

"Oh, by the way, did she accept you!"

"Certainly. Did she accept you?"

"Of course. Another thing, did she say anything to you about hurrying the thing along a bit, so as to have it over with before her mother gets wind of it?"