by Julie Ganz
The leopard cannot change his spots—possibly he wouldn’t if he could; and, this being the case, the next best thing is to overlook as many of his freckles as possible.
Yesterday I sat on the porch at the Country Club and listened while the Dingbats said kind and complimentary things about young Ambrose Phipps, alias Little Poison Ivy, alias The Pest, alias Rough and Reddy. One short week ago the Dingbats would have voted him a nuisance and a menace to society in general. Yesterday they praised him to the skies. It just goes to show that good can be found in anybody—if that is what you are looking for.
Understand me: there has been no change in Ambrose. He is still as fresh as a mountain breeze. Unquestionably he will continue to treat his elders with a shocking lack of respect and an entire absence of consideration. He was bom with a deep depression where his bump of reverence should have been located, and neither realises nor regrets his deficiency.
He will never change. It is the Dingbats who have changed. The whole club has changed, so far as Ambrose is concerned.
We are all trying to overlook the dark spots in his character and see good in him, whether it is there or not.
Now as to the Dingbats: if you do not know them you have missed something rich and rare in the golfing line. There are four of them, all retired capitalists on the shady side of sixty. They freely admit that they are the worst golfers in the world, and in a pinch they could prove it. They play together six days a week—a riotous, garrulous, hilarious foursome, ripping the course wide open from the first tee to the home green; and they get more real fun out of golf than any men I know. They never worry about being off their game, because they have never been on it; they know they can be no worse than they are and they have no hope of ever being better; they expect to play badly, and it is seldom that they are disappointed. Whenever a Dingbat forgets to count his shots in the bunkers, and comes home in the nineties, a public celebration takes place on the clubhouse porch.
Yesterday it was Doc Pinkinson who brought in the ninety-eight—and signed all the tags; and between libations they talked about Ambrose Phipps, who was practising brassy shots off the grass beside the eighteenth green.
Little Poison Ivy was unusually cocky, even for him, and every move was a picture. At the end of his follow-through he would freeze, nicely balanced on the tip of his right toe, elbows artistically elevated, clubhead up round his neck; and not a muscle would he move until the ball stopped rolling. He might have been posing for a statue of the Perfect Golfer. When he walked it was with a conscious little swagger and a flirting of the short tails of his belted sport coat. He was hitting them clean, he was hitting them far, he had an audience—and well he knew it. Ambrose was in his glory yesterday afternoon!
“By golly!” exclaimed Doc Pinkinson. “Ain’t that a pretty sight? Ain’t it a treat to see that kid lambaste the ball?”
“Certainly is,” agreed Old Treanor with a sigh. “Perfect form—that’s what he’s got. And confidence in himself,” put in Old Myles. “That’s the big secret. You can see it in every move he makes. Confidence is a wonderful thing!”
“And youth,” said Daddy Bradshaw. “That’s the most wonderful thing of all. It’s his youth that makes him so—so flip. Got a lot to say, for a kid; but—somehow I always liked him for it.”
“Me too!” chimed in Doc Pinkinson. “Dog gone his skin! He used to make me awful mad, that boy. . . . Oh, well, I reckon I’m kind of cranky, anyway. . . . Yes; I always liked Ambrose.”
Now that was all rot, and I knew it. What’s more, the Dingbats knew it too. They hadn’t always liked Ambrose. A week ago they would have marked his swaggering gait, the tilt of his chin, the conscious manner in which he posed after every shot; and they would have said Ambrose was showing off for the benefit of the female tea party at the other end of the porch—and they wouldn’t have made any mistake, at that.
No; they hadn’t always liked young Mr. Phipps. Nobody had liked him. To be perfectly frank about it, we had disliked him openly and cordially, and had been at no pains to keep him from finding it out. We had snubbed him, insulted him and ignored him on every possible occasion. Worst of all, we had made a singleton of him. We had forced him to play alone, because there wasn’t a man in all the club who wanted him as a partner or as an opponent. There is no meaner treatment than this; nor is there anything more pathetically lonely than a singleton on a crowded golf course. It is nothing more or less than a grown-up trip to Coventry. I thought of all these things as I listened to the prattling of the Dingbats.
“Guess he won’t have any trouble getting games now, hey?” chuckled Old Treanor.
“Huh!” grunted Doc Pinkinson. “He’s dated up a week ahead—with Moreman and that bunch! A week ahead!”
“And he’ll make ’em step!” chirped Daddy Bradshaw. “Here’s to him, boys—a redhead and a fighter! Drink her down!”
“A redhead and a fighter!” chorused the Dingbats, lifting their glasses.
Yes; they drank to Ambrose Phipps, and one short week ago they wouldn’t have tolerated him on the same side of the course with them. Our pet leopard still has his spots, but we are now viewing him in the friendly shade cast by a battered old silver cup: namely and to wit, the Edward B. Wimpus Team Trophy, permanently at home on the mantelpiece in the lounging room.
II
Going back to the beginning, we never had a chance to blame Ambrose on the Membership Committee; he slipped in on us via the junior- member clause. Old Man Phipps does not play golf; but he is a charter member of the club and, according to the by-laws, the sons of members between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one enjoy all the privileges of the institution.
Ambrose was nineteen when he returned rather hurriedly from college. He did this at the earnest and unanimous request of the Faculty and, it was whispered, the police department of the university town. He hadn’t done much of anything, but he had tried very hard to drive a touring car and seven chorus girls through a plate-glass window into a restaurant. The press agent of the show saw his chance to get some publicity for the broilers, and after an interview with the Faculty Ambrose caught the first train for home.
Having nothing to do and plenty of time in which to do it, Ambrose decided to become a golfer. Old Dunn’l MacQuarrie, our professional, sold him a large leather bag full of tools and gave him two lessons. Thus equipped and fortified, young Mr. Phipps essayed to brighten our drab lives by allowing us to play golf with him. Now this sort of thing may be done in some clubs, but not in ours. We do not permit our sacred institutions to be “rushed” by the golfing novice. We are not snobbish, but we plead guilty to being the least bit set in our ways. They are good ways, and they suit us. The club is an old one, as golf clubs go in this country, and most of the playing members are men past forty years of age. Nearly all of the foursomes are permanent affairs, the same men playing together week after week, season in and season out. The other matches are made in advance, by telephone or word of mouth, and the member who turns up minus a game on Saturday afternoon is out of luck.
We do not leap at the stranger with open arms. We do not leap at him at all. We stand off and look him over. We put him on probation; and if he shapes up well, and walks lightly, and talks softly, and does not try to dynamite his way into matches where he is not wanted, some day he will be invited to fill up a foursome. Invited—make a note of that. Now see what Ambrose did.
With his customary lack of tact, he selected the very worst day in the week to thrust himself upon our notice. It was a Saturday, and the lounging room was crowded with members, most of whom were shaking dice for the luncheons. With a single exception, all the foursomes were made up for the afternoon.
A short, sturdily built youngster came through the doorway from the locker room and paused close to the table where I was sitting. His hair was red—the sort of red that will not be ignored—and he wore it combed straight back over the top of his head. His slightly irregular features were covered with large brown freckles, and on
his upper lip was a volunteer crop of lightish fuzz, which might, in time, become a moustache. His green sport coat was new, his flannel trousers were new, his shoes were new—from neck to sole he fairly shrieked with newness. Considering that he was a stranger in a strange club, a certain amount of reticence would not have hurt the young man’s entrance; but he burst through the swinging door with a skip and a swagger, and there was a broad grin on his homely countenance. It was quite evident that he expected to find himself among friends.
“Who wants a game?” he cried. “Don’t all speak at once, men!”
A few of the members nearest the door glanced up, eyed the youth curiously, and returned to their dice boxes. The others had not heard him at all. Harson and Billford looked at me.
“Who’s the fresh kid?” asked Billford.
“That,” said I, “is Ambrose Phipps, only son of Old Man Phipps.”
“Humph!” grunted Harson. “The living, breathing proof that marriage is a failure. What’s he want?”
Ambrose himself answered the question. He had advanced to our table.
“You gentlemen got a game?” he asked, laying his hand on Billford’s shoulder.
Now if there is anything that Billford loathes and detests, it is familiarity on short acquaintance. He hadn’t even met this fresh youth; so he shrugged his shoulder in a very pointed manner and glared at Ambrose. The boy did not remove his hand.
“ ’S all right, old top,” said he reassuringly. “It’s clean—just washed it. Clean as your shirt.” He bent down and looked at Billford’s collar. “No,” said he; “cleaner. . . . Well, how about it? Got your game fixed up?”
“We are waiting for a fourth man.” I answered because Billford didn’t seem able to say anything; he looked on the point of exploding.
“Oh, a fourth man, eh? Well, if he doesn’t turn up you know me.” And Ambrose passed on to the next table.
“Insufferable young rotter!” snarled Billford.
“Quite so,” said Harson; “but he’ll never miss anything by being too bashful to ask for it. Look! He’s asking everybody!” Ambrose made the entire circuit of the room. We could not hear what he said, but we felt the chill he left in his wake. Men glanced up when he addressed them, stared for an instant, and went back to their dice. Some of them were polite in their refusals, some were curt, some were merely disgusted. When he reached the table where Bishop, Gilmore, Moreman and Elder were sitting, they laughed at him. They are our star golfers and members of the team. The Dingbats were too much astonished to show resentment; but when Ambrose left them he patted Doc Pinkinson on the head, and the old gentleman sputtered for the best part of an hour.
It was a discouraging tour, and any one else would have hunted a quiet corner and crawled into it; but not Ambrose. He returned to our end of the room, and the pleased and expectant light in his eyes had given way to a steely glare. He beckoned to one of the servants.
“Hey, George! Who’s the boss here? Who’s the Big Finger?”
“Misteh Harson, he’s one of ’em, suh. He’s a membeh of the Greens Committee.”
“Show him to me!”
“Right there, suh, settin’ by the window.”
Ambrose strode across to us and addressed himself to Harson.
“My name is Phipps,” said he. “I’m a junior member here, registered and all that, and I want to get a game this afternoon. So far, I haven’t had any luck.”
Harson is really a mild and kindly soul. He hates to hurt any one’s feelings.
“Perhaps all the games are made up,” he suggested. “Saturday is a bad day, unless your match is arranged beforehand.”
“Zat so? Humph! Nice clubby spirit you have here. You make a fellow feel so much at home!”
“So we notice,” grunted Billford.
Ambrose looked at him and smiled. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant smile. Then he turned back to Harson.
“How about that fourth man of yours?” he demanded. “Has he shown up yet?”
Billford caught my eye.
“Some one must have left the outside door open,” said he. “Seems to me I feel a strong draught.”
“Put on another shirt!” Ambrose shot the retort without an instant’s hesitation. “Now say, if your fourth man isn’t here, what’s the matter with me?”
Possibly there is nothing the matter with you,” said Harson pleasantly; “but if you are a beginner——”
“Aw, you don’t need to be afraid of my game!” grinned Ambrose. “I’ll be easy picking.”
“That isn’t the point,” explained Harson. “Our game would be too fast for you.”
“Well, what of it? How am I ever going to learn if I never play with anybody better than I am? Don’t you take any interest in young blood, or is this a close corporation, run for the benefit of a lot of old fossils, playing hooky from the boneyard?”
“Oh, run away, little boy, and sell your papers!”Billford couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I will if you lend me that shirt for a make up!” snapped Ambrose. “Now don’t get mad, Cutie. Remember, you picked on me first. A man with a neck as thick as yours ought not to let his angry passions rise. First thing you know, you’ll bust something in that bonemeal mill of yours, and then you won’t know anything.” Ambrose put his hands on his hips and surveyed the entire gathering. “A nice, cheerful, clubby bunch!” he exclaimed. “Gee! What a picnic a hermit crab could have in this place, meeting so many congenial souls!”
“If you don’t like it,” said Billford, “you don’t have to stay here a minute.”
“That’s mighty sweet of you,” said Ambrose; “but, you see, I’ve made up my mind to learn this fool game if it takes all summer. I’d hate to quit now, even to oblige people who have been so courteous to me. . . . Well, good-by, you frozen stiffs! Maybe I can hire that sour old Scotchman to go round with me. He’s not what you might call a cheerful companion, but, at that, he’s got something on you. He’s human, anyway!”
Ambrose went outside and banged the door behind him. Billford made a few brief observations; but his remarks, though vivid and striking, were not quite original. Harson shook his head, and in the silence following Ambrose’s exit we heard Doc Pinkinson’s voice:
“If that pup was mine I’d drown him; dog gone me if I wouldn’t!”
Young Mr. Phipps, you will observe, got in wrong at the very start.
III
Bad news travels fast when a few press agents get behind it, and not all the personal publicity is handed out by a man’s loving friends. Those who had met Ambrose warned those who had not, and whenever his fiery red head appeared in the lounging room there was a startling drop in the temperature.
For a few weeks he persisted in trying to secure matches with members of the club, but nobody would have anything to do with him—not even old Purdue McCormick, who toddles about the course with a niblick in one hand and a midiron in the other, sans bag, sans caddie, sans protection of the game laws. When such a renegade as Purdne refused to go turf-tearing with him Ambrose gave up in disgust and de voted himself to the serious business of learning the royal and ancient game. He infested the course from dawn till dark, a solitary figure against the sky line; our golfing Ishmael, a wild ass loose upon the links, his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him.
He wore a chip on his shoulder for all of us; and it was during this period that Anderson, our club champion and Number One on the team, christened Ambrose “Little Poison Ivy,” because of the irritating effect of personal contact with him.
Ambrose couldn’t have had a great deal of fun out of the situation; but MacQuarrie made money out of it. The redhead hired the professional to play with him and criticise his shots. The dour old Scotch mercenary did not like Ambrose any better than we did, but toward the end of the first month he admitted to me that the boy had the makings of a star golfer, though not, he was careful to explain, ‘‘the pr-roper temperament for the game.”
“But it’s just
amazin’, the way he picks up the shots,” said Dunn’l. “Ay, he’ll have every thing but the temperament.”
As the summer drew to a close the annual team matches began, and we forgot Ambrose and all else in our anxiety over the fate of the Edward B. Wimpus Trophy.
Every golf club, you must know, has its pet trophy. Ours is the worn old silver cup that represents the team championship of the Association. A pawnbroker wouldn’t look at it twice; but to us, who are familiar with its history and the trips it has made to different clubhouses, the Edward B. Wimpus Trophy is priceless, and more to be desired than diamonds or pearls.
When the late Mr. Wimpus donated the cup he stipulated that it should be held in trust by the club winning the annual team championship, and that it should become the property of the club winning it three times in succession. For twenty years we had been fighting for permanent possession of the trophy, and engraved on its shining surface was the record of our bitter disappointment—not to mention the disappointment of the Bellevue Golf Club. Twice we had been in a position to add the third and final victory, and twice the Bellevue quintet had dashed our hopes. Twice we had retaliated by preventing them from retiring the Wimpus Trophy from competition; and now, with two winning years behind us and a third opportunity in sight, we talked and thought of nothing else.
According to the rules governing team play in our Association, each club is represented by five men, contesting from scratch and without handicaps of any sort. In the past, two teams have outclassed the field, and once more history repeated itself, for the Bellevue bunch fought us neck and neck through the entire period of competition. With one match remaining to be played, they were tied with us for first place, and that match brought the Bellevue team to our course last Friday afternoon.
I was on hand when the visitors filed into the locker room at noon—MacNeath, Smathers, Crane, Lounsberry and Jordan—five seasoned and dependable golfers, veterans of many a hard match; fighters who never know when they are beaten. They looked extremely fit, and not in the least worried at the prospect of meeting our men on their own course.