The Golf Omnibus (20 page)

It was a lovely morning, and, as I bicycled along, keeping a fatherly eye on Arthur's activities, I realized for the first time in my life the full meaning of that exquisite phrase of Coleridge:

for in the pellucid air everything seemed weirdly beautiful, even Arthur Juke's heather-mixture knickerbockers, of which hitherto I had never approved. The sun gleamed on their seat, as he bent to make his shots, in a cheerful and almost a poetic way. The birds were singing gaily in the hedgerows, and such was my uplifted state that I, too, burst into song, until Arthur petulantly desired me to refrain, on the plea that, though he yielded to no man in his enjoyment of farmyard imitations in their proper place, I put him off his stroke. And so we passed through Bayside in silence and started to cover that long stretch of road which ends in the railway bridge and the gentle descent into Woodfield.

Arthur was not doing badly. He was at least keeping them straight. And in the circumstances straightness was to be preferred to distance. Soon after leaving Little Hadley he had become ambitious and had used his brassey with disastrous results,
slicing his fifty-third into the rough on the right of the road. It had taken him ten with the niblick to get back on to the car tracks, and this had taught him prudence.

He was now using his putter for every shot, and, except when he got trapped in the cross-lines at the top of the hill just before reaching Bayside, he had been in no serious difficulties. He was playing a nice easy game, getting the full face of the putter on to each shot.

At the top of the slope that drops down into Woodfield High Street he paused.

“I think I might try my brassie again here,” he said. “I have a nice lie.”

“Is it wise?” I said.

He looked down the hill.

“What I was thinking,” he said, “was that with it I might wing that man Bingham. I see he is standing right out in the middle of the fairway.”

I followed his gaze. It was perfectly true. Ralph Bingham was leaning on his bicycle in the roadway, smoking a cigarette. Even at this distance one could detect the man's disgustingly complacent expression. Rupert Bailey was sitting with his back against the door of the Woodfield Garage, looking rather used up. He was a man who liked to keep himself clean and tidy, and it was plain that the cross-country trip had done him no good. He seemed to be scraping mud off his face. I learned later that he had had the misfortune to fall into a ditch just beyond Bayside.

“No,” said Arthur. “On second thoughts, the safe game is the one to play. I'll stick to the putter.”

We dropped down the hill, and presently came up with the opposition. I had not been mistaken in thinking that Ralph Bingham looked complacent. The man was smirking.

“Playing three hundred and ninety-six,” he said, as we drew near. “How are you?”

I consulted my score-card.

“We have played a snappy seven hundred and eleven,” I said.

Ralph exulted openly. Rupert Bailey made no comment. He was too busy with the alluvial deposits on his person.

“Perhaps you would like to give up the match?” said Ralph to Arthur.

“Tchah!” said Arthur.

“Might just as well.”

“Pah!” said Arthur.

“You can't win now.”

“Pshaw!” said Arthur.

I am aware that Arthur's dialogue might have been brighter, but he had been through a trying time.

Rupert Bailey sidled up to me.

“I'm going home,” he said.

“Nonsense!” I replied. “You are in an official capacity. You must stick to your post. Besides, what could be nicer than a pleasant morning ramble?”

“Pleasant morning ramble my number nine foot!” he replied, peevishly. “I want
to get back to civilization and set an excavating party with pickaxes to work on me.”

“You take too gloomy a view of the matter. You are a little dusty. Nothing more.”

“And it's not only the being buried alive that I mind. I cannot stick Ralph Bingham much longer.”

“You have found him trying?”

“Trying! Why, after I had fallen into that ditch and was coming up for the third time, all the man did was simply to call to me to admire an infernal iron shot he had just made. No sympathy, mind you! Wrapped up in himself. Why don't you make your man give up the match? He can't win.

“I refuse to admit it. Much may happen between here and Royal Square.”

I have seldom known a prophecy more swiftly fulfilled. At this moment the doors of the Woodfield Garage opened and a small car rolled out with a grimy young man in a sweater at the wheel. He brought the machine out into the road, and alighted and went back into the garage, where we heard him shouting unintelligibly to someone in the rear premises. The car remained puffing and panting against the kerb.

Engaged in conversation with Rupert Bailey, I was paying little attention to this evidence of an awakening world, when suddenly I heard a hoarse, triumphant cry from Arthur Jukes, and, turned, I perceived his ball dropping neatly into the car's interior. Arthur himself, brandishing a niblick, was dancing about in the fairway.

“Now what about your moving hazards?” he cried.

At this moment the man in the sweater returned, carrying a spanner. Arthur Jukes sprang towards him.

“I'll give you five pounds to drive me to Royal Square,” he said.

I do not know what the sweater-clad young man's engagements for the morning had been originally, but nothing could have been more obliging than the ready way in which he consented to revise them at a moment's notice. I dare say you have noticed that the sturdy peasantry of our beloved land respond to an offer of five pounds as to a bugle-call.

“You're on,” said the youth.

“Good!” said Arthur Jukes.

“You think you're darned clever,” said Ralph Bingham.

“I know it,” said Arthur.

“Well, then,” said Ralph, “perhaps you will tell us how you propose to get the ball out of the car when you reach Royal Square?”

“Certainly,” replied Arthur. “You will observe on the side of the vehicle a convenient handle which, when turned, opens the door. The door thus opened, I shall chip my ball out!”

“I see,” said Ralph. “Yes, I never thought of that.”

There was something in the way the man spoke that I did not like. His mildness seemed to me suspicious. He had the air of a man who has something up his sleeve. I was still musing on this when Arthur called to me impatiently to get in. I did so, and we drove off. Arthur was in great spirits. He had ascertained from the young
man at the wheel that there was no chance of the opposition being able to hire another car at the garage. This machine was his own property, and the only other one at present in the shop was suffering from complicated trouble of the oiling-system and would not be able to be moved for at least another day.

I, however, shook my head when he pointed out the advantages of his position. I was still wondering about Ralph.

“I don't like it,” I said.

“Don't like what?”

“Ralph Bingham's manner.”

“Of course not,” said Arthur. “Nobody does. There have been complaints on all sides.”

“I mean, when you told him how you intended to get the ball out of the car.”

“What was the matter with him?”

“He was too—ha!”

“How do you mean he was too—ha?”

“I have it!”

“What?”

“I see the trap he was laying for you. It has just dawned on me. No wonder he didn't object to your opening the door and chipping the ball out. By doing so you would forfeit the match.”

“Nonsense! Why?”

“Because,” I said, “it is against the rules to tamper with a hazard. If you had got into a sand-bunker, would you smooth away the sand? If you had put your shot under a tree, could your caddie hold up the branches to give you a clear shot? Obviously you would disqualify yourself if you touched that door.”

Arthur's jaw dropped.

“What! Then how the deuce am I to get it out?”

“That,” I said, gravely, “is a question between you and your Maker.”

It was here that Arthur Jukes forfeited the sympathy which I had begun to feel for him. A crafty, sinister look came into his eyes.

“Listen!” he said. “It'll take them an hour to catch up with us. Suppose, during that time, that door happened to open accidentally, as it were, and close again? You wouldn't think it necessary to mention the fact, eh? You would be a good fellow and keep your mouth shut, yes? You might even see your way to go so far as to back me up in a statement to the effect that I hooked it out with my⎯?”

I was revolted.

“I am a golfer,” I said, coldly, “and I obey the rules.”

“Yes, but⎯”

“Those rules were drawn up by⎯”—I bared by head reverently—“by the Committee of the Royal and Ancient at St. Andrews. I have always respected them, and I shall not deviate on this occasion from the policy of a lifetime.”

Arthur Jukes relapsed into a moody silence. He broke it once, crossing the West
Street Bridge, to observe that he would like to know if I called myself a friend of his his—a question which I was able to answer with a whole-hearted negative. After that he did not speak till the car drew up in front of the Majestic Hotel in Royal Square.

Early as the hour was, a certain bustle and animation already prevailed in that centre of the city, and the spectacle of a man in a golf-coat and plus-four knickerbockers hacking with a niblick at the floor of a car was not long in collecting a crowd of some dimensions. Three messenger-boys, four typists, and a gentleman in full evening-dress, who obviously possessed or was friendly with someone who possessed a large cellar, formed the nucleus of it; and they were joined about the time when Arthur addressed the ball in order to play his nine hundred and fifteenth by six newsboys, eleven charladies, and perhaps a dozen assorted loafers, all speculating with the liveliest interest as to which particular asylum had had the honour of sheltering Arthur before he had contrived to elude the vigilance of his custodians.

Arthur had prepared for some such contingency. He suspended his activities with the niblick, and drew from his pocket a large poster, which he proceeded to hang over the side of the car. It read:

COME

TO

McCLURG
AND
MACDONALD,

18, W
EST
S
TREET,

FOR

ALL GOLFING SUPPLIES.

His knowledge of psychology had not misled him. Directly they gathered that he was advertising something, the crowd declined to look at it; they melted away, and Arthur returned to his work in solitude.

He was taking a well-earned rest after playing his eleven hundred and fifth, a nice niblick shot with lots of wrist behind it, when out of Bridle Street there trickled a weary-looking golf-ball, followed in the order named by Ralph Bingham, resolute but going a trifle at the knees, and Rupert Bailey on a bicycle. The latter, on whose face and limbs the mud had dried, made an arresting spectacle.

“What are you playing?” I inquired.

“Eleven hundred,” said Rupert. “We got into a casual dog.”

“A casual dog?”

“Yes, just before the bridge. We were coming along nicely, when a stray dog grabbed our nine hundred and ninety-eighth and took it nearly back to Woodfield, and we had to start all over again. How are you getting on?”

“We have just played our eleven hundred and fifth. A nice even game.” I looked at Ralph's ball, which was lying close to the kerb. “You are farther from the hole, I think. Your shot, Bingham.”

Rupert Bailey suggested breakfast. He was a man who was altogether too fond
of creature comforts. He had not the true golfing spirit.

“Breakfast!” I exclaimed.

“Breakfast,” said Rupert, firmly. “If you don't know what it is, I can teach you in half a minute. You play it with a pot of coffee, a knife and fork, and about a hundred-weight of scrambled eggs. Try it. It's a pastime that grows on you.”

I was surprised when Ralph Bingham supported the suggestion. He was so near holing out that I should have supposed that nothing would have kept him from finishing the match. But he agreed heartily.

“Breakfast,” he said, “is an excellent idea. You go along in. I'll follow in a moment. I want to buy a paper.”

We went into the hotel, and a few minutes later he joined us. Now that we were actually at the table, I confess that the idea of breakfast was by no means repugnant to me. The keen air and the exercise had given me an appetite, and it was some little time before I was able to assure the waiter definitely that he could cease bringing orders of scrambled eggs. The others having finished also, I suggested a move. I was anxious to get the match over and be free to go home.

We filed out of the hotel, Arthur Jukes leading. When I had passed through the swing-doors, I found him gazing perplexedly up and down the street.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“It's gone!”

“What has gone?”

“The car!”

“Oh, the car?” said Ralph Bingham. “That's all right. Didn't I tell you about that? I bought it just now and engaged the driver as my chauffeur. I've been meaning to buy a car for a long time. A man ought to have a car.”

“Where is it?” said Arthur, blankly. The man seemed dazed.

“I couldn't tell you to a mile or two,” replied Ralph. “I told the man to drive to Glasgow. Why? Had you any message for him?”

“But my ball was inside it!”

“Now that,” said Ralph, “is really unfortunate! Do you mean to tell me you hadn't managed to get it out yet? Yes, that
is
a little awkward for you. I'm afraid it means that you lose the match.”

“Lose the match?”