My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 13

"Good!" he cried. "Go to your room and get your sticks. I'll find out all about the course and how to get to it."

The brusk good-nature of the man hit me somehow; besides, I had not had a game for over three weeks. Think of it--three weeks! And goodness only knew when I should have the chance of another after this one. As for looking for work;--work was never to be compared with golf. Surely work could wait for one day!

"All right!--I'm game," I said, jumping up and entering into the spirit of gaiety that lay so easily on my new acquaintance.

"Good boy!" he cried, getting up and holding out his hand. "My name's Horsfal,--K. B. Horsfal,--lumberman, meat-packer, and the man whose name is on every trouser-suspender worth wearing. What's yours?"

"George Bremner," I answered simply.

"All right, George, my boy,--see you in ten minutes. But, remember, I called this tune, so I pay the piper."

That was music in my ears and I readily agreed.

"Make it twenty minutes," I suggested. "I have a short letter to write."

I wrote my letter, gave it to the boy to deliver for me and presented myself before my new friend right up to time.

In the half hour's run we had in the electric tram, I learned a great deal about Mr. K. B. Horsfal.

He had migrated from the Midlands of England at the age of seventeen.

He had kicked,--or had been kicked,--about the United States for some fifteen years, more or less up against it all the time, as he expressively put it; when, by a lucky chance, in a poverty-stricken endeavour to repair his broken braces, he hit upon a scheme that revolutionised the brace business: was quick enough to see its possibilities, patented his idea and became famous.

Not content to rest on his laurels,--or his braces,--he tackled the lumbering industry in the West and the meat-packing industry in the East, both with considerable success. Now he had to sit down and do some figuring when he wished to find out how many millions of dollars he was worth.

His wife had died years ago and his only daughter was at home in Baltimore.

Altogether, he was a new and delightful type to one like me,--a young man fresh from his ancestral roof in the north of staid and conventional old England.

He was healthy, vigorous, and as keen as the edge of a razor.

On and on he talked, telling me of himself, his work and his projects.

I got to wondering if he were merely setting the proverbial sprat; but the sprat in his case proved the whale. Every moment I expected him to ask me for some confidences in return, but on this point Mr. K. B.

Horsfal was silent.

We discovered our golfing ground, which proved to be a fairly good, little, nine-holed country course, rough and full of natural hazards.

K. B. Horsfal could play golf, that I soon found out. He entered into his game with the enthusiasm and grim determination which I imagined he displayed in everything he took a hand in.

He seldom spoke, so intent was he on the proper placing of his feet and the proper adjustment of his hands and his clubs.

Three times we went round that course and three times I had the pleasure of beating him by a margin. He envied me my full swing and my powerful and accurate driving; he studied me every time I approached a green and he scratched his head at some of my long putts; but, most of all, he rhapsodised on my manner of getting out of a hole.

"Man,--if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to keep out of."

I showed him the knack of it as it had been taught me by an old professional at Saint Andrews. K. B. Horsfal was in ecstasies, if a two-hundred-pound, keen, brusk, American business man ever allows himself such liberties.

Nothing would please him but that we should go another round, just to test out his new acquisition and give him the hang of the thing.

To his supreme satisfaction,--although I again beat him by the same small margin,--he reduced his score for the round by eight strokes.

On our journey back to the city, he began to talk again, but on a different tack this time.

"George,--you'll excuse me,--but, if I were you I would put that signet ring you are wearing in your pocket."

I looked down at it and reddened, for my ring was manifestly old, as it was manifestly strange in design and workmanship, and apt to betray an ident.i.ty.

I slipped it off my little finger and placed it in my vest pocket.

My companion laughed.

"'No sooner said than done,'" he quoted. "You see, George,--any one who saw you come in to the hotel last night could tell you had not been travelling for pleasure. The marks of an uncomfortable train journey, in a colonist car, were sticking out all over you. Now, golf clubs and a signet ring like that which you were sporting are enough to tell any man that you have been in the habit of travelling luxuriously and for the love of it."

I could not help admiring my new friend's method of deduction, and I thanked him for his kindly interest.

"Not a bit," he continued, "so long as you don't mind. For, it's like this,--I take it you have left home for some personal reason,--no concern of mine,--you have come out here to start over, or rather, to make a start. Good! You are right to start at the bottom of the hill.

But, from the look of you, I fancy you won't stick at anything that doesn't suit you. You are the kind of a fellow who, if you felt like it, would tell a man to go to the devil, then walk off his premises.

You see, I don't tab you as a milksop kind of Englishman exactly.

"Well,--out here they don't like Britishers who receive remittances every month from their mas or pas at home, for they have found that that kind is generally not much good. Hope you're not one, George?"

"No!" I laughed, rather ruefully, almost wishing I were. "With me, it is sink or swim. And, I do not mind telling you, Mr. Horsfal, that it will be necessary for me to leave the hotel to-morrow for less pretentious apartments and to start swimming for all I am worth."

"Good!" he cried, as if it were a good joke. "How do you propose starting in?"

"I have already commenced keeping an eye on the advertis.e.m.e.nts, which seem to be chiefly for real estate salesmen and partners with a little capital," I said.

"But, the fact is, I have made an application this morning for something I thought might suit me. But, even if I am lucky enough to be considered, the chances are there will be some flies in the ointment:--there always are."

My friend looked at me, as I thought, curiously.

"To-morrow morning," I went on, "it is my intention to begin with the near end of the business district and call on every business house, one after another, until I happen upon something that will provide a start.

"I have no love for the grinding in an office, nor yet for the grubbing in a warehouse, but, for a bit, it will be a case of 'needs must when the devil drives,'--so I mean to take anything that I can get, to begin with, and leave the matter of choice to a more opportune time."

"And what would be your choice, George?" he inquired.

"Choice! Well, if you asked me what I thought I was adapted for, I would say, green-keeper and professional golfer; gymnastic instructor; athletic coach; policeman; or, with training and dieting, pugilist. At a pinch, I could teach school."

K. B. Horsfal grinned and looked out of the car window at the apparently never-ending sea of charred tree stumps through which we were pa.s.sing.

"Not very ambitious, sonny!--eh!"

"No,--that is the worst of it," I answered. "I do not seem to have been planned for anything ambitious. Besides, I have no desire to ama.s.s millions at the sacrifice of my peace of mind. Why!--a millionaire cannot call his life his own. He is at the beck and call of everybody. He is consulted here and hara.s.sed there. He is dunned, solicited and blackmailed; he is badgered and pestered until, I should fancy, he wished his millions were at the bottom of the deep, blue sea."

"Lord, man!" exclaimed Mr. Horsfal, "but you have hit it right. One would almost think you had been through it yourself."

"I have not," I answered, "but I know most of the diseases that attack the man of wealth."