Ade's Fables Part 23

In other words, he was Through.

The senile Wrecks and the prattling Juveniles, for whom the Game was invented, could have his Part of it for all time.

Never again would he walk on the Gra.s.s or cook his Arms or dribble Sand all over the dark and trampled Ground where countless Good Men had suffered.

No, Indeed!

So next day he bought all the Paraphernalia known to the Trade, and his name was put up at a Club.

It was one of those regular and sure-enough Clubs. High East Winds prevailed in the Locker-Room. Every member was a Chick Evans when he got back to the nineteenth hole.

Mr. Pallzey now began to regard the Ancient and Honorable Pastime as a compendium of Sacraments, Ordeals, Incantations, and Ceremonial Formalities.

He resigned himself into the Custody of a professional Laddie with large staring Knuckles and a Dialect that dimmed all the memories of Lauder.

In a short time the Form was cla.s.sy, but the Score had to be taken out and buried after every Round.

Mr. Pallzey saw that this Mundane Existence was not all Pleasure. He had found his Life-Work. The Lode-Star of his declining Years would be an even one hundred for the eighteen Flags.

Wife would see him out in the Street, feeling his way along, totally unmindful of his Whereabouts. She would lead him into the Shade, snap her Fingers, call his Name, and gradually pull him out of the Trance.

He would look at her with a filmy Gaze and smile faintly, as if partly remembering and then say: "Don't forget to follow through. Keep the head down--tight with the left--no hunching--pivot on the hips. For a Cuppy Lie, take the Nib. If running up with the Jigger, drop her dead.

The full St. Andrews should not be thrown into a Putt. Never up, never in. Lift the flag. Take a pickout from Casual Water but play the Roadways. To overcome Slicing or Pulling, advance the right or left Foot. Schlaffing and Socketing may be avoided by adding a hook with a top-spin or _vice versa_. The Man says there are twenty-six Things to be remembered in Driving from the Tee. One is Stance. I forget the other twenty-five."

Then the Partner of his Joys and Sorrows, with the accent on the Debit Side, would shoot twenty Grains of Asperin into him and plant him in the Flax.

Next morning at Breakfast he would break it to her that the Bra.s.sie had developed too much of a Whip and he had decided to try a forty-inch Shaft.

They had Seasoned Hickory for Breakfast, Bunkers for Luncheon, and the Fair Green for Dinner.

As a matter of course they had to give up their comfortable Home among the Friends who had got used to them and move out to a strawboard Bungalow so as to be near the Execution Grounds.

Mrs. Pallzey wanted to do the White Mountains, but Mr. Pallzey needed her. He wanted her to be waiting on the Veranda at Dusk, so that he could tell her all about it, from the preliminary Address to the final Foozle.

Sometimes he would come home enveloped in a foglike Silence which would last beyond early Candle Lighting, when he would express the Opinion that the Administration at Was.h.i.+ngton had proved a Failure.

Perhaps the very next Evening he would lope all the way up the Gravel and breeze into her presence, smelling like a warm gust of Air from Dundee.

He would ask her to throw an Amber Light on the Big Hero. He would call her "Kid" and say that Vardon had nothing on him. Her man was the Gink to show that Pill how to take a Joke.

Then she would know that he had won a Box of b.a.l.l.s from Mrs. Talbot's poor old crippled Father-in-Law.

She could read him like a Barometer. If he and Mr. Hilgus, the Real Estate Man, came home together fifteen feet apart, she would know it had been a Jolly Day on the Links.

By the second summer, Mr. Pallzey had worked up until he was allowed to use a Shower Bath once hallowed by the presence of Jerome Travers.

He was not exactly a Duffer. He was what might be called a sub-Duffer, or Varnish, which means that the Committee was ashamed to mark up the Handicap.

He still had a good many superfluous Hands and Feet and was bleeding freely on every Green.

Sometimes he would last as far as the Water-Hazard and then sink with a Bubbling Cry.

Notwithstanding which, he kept on trying to look like the Photographs of Ouimet.

If he spun into the High Spinach off at the Right it was Tough Luck.

If he whanged away with a Niblick down in a bottomless Pit, caromed on a couple of Oaks, and finally angled off toward the Cup, he would go around for Days talking about Some Shot.

As his Ambition increased, his Mental Arithmetic became more and more defective and his Moral Nature was wholly atrophied.

As an Exponent of the more advanced Play he was a Fliv, but as a Matchmaker he was a Hum-Dinger.

He knew he was plain pastry for the Sharks, so he would hang around the first Tee waiting to cop out a Pudding.

One day he took on Mrs. Olmstead's Infant Son, just home from Military School.

The tender Cadet nursed him along to an even-up at the Punch-Bowl and then proceeded to smear His vital Organs all over the Bad Lands.

That evening Mr. Pallzey told her she would have to cut down on Household Expenses.

Six years after he gave up the Business Career and consecrated himself to something more Important, Mr. Pallzey had so well mastered the baffling Intricacies that he was allowed to trail in a Foursome with the President of the Club. This happened once.

It is well known that any Person who mooches around a Country Club for a sufficient Period will have some kind of a Cup wished on to him.

Fourteen years after Mr. Pallzey threw himself into it, Heart and Soul, and when the Expenses approximated $30,000, he earned his Halo.

One evening he came back to his haggard Companion, chortling infant-wise, and displayed something which looked like an Eye-Cup with Handles on it.

He said it was a Trophy. It was a Consolation Offering for Maidens with an allowance of more than eighteen.

After that their daily Life revolved around the $2 bargain in Britannia. Mrs. Pallzey had to use Metal Polish on it to keep it from turning black.

When the Visitors lined up in front of the Mantel and gazed at the tiny Shaving Mug, the Cellar Champion of the World would regale them with the story of hair-breadth 'Scapes and moving Adventures by Gravel Gulleys and rus.h.i.+ng Streams on the Memorable Day when he (Pallzey) had put the Blocks to Old Man McLaughlin, since deceased.

Then he would ask all present to feel of his Forearm, after which he would pull the Favorite One about Golf adding ten years to his life.

Mrs. Pallzey would be sitting back, pouring Tea, but she never chimed in with any Estimate as to what had been the effect on her Table of Expectations.

MORAL: Remain under the Awning.

THE NEW FABLE OF THE LONESOME CAMP ON THE FROZEN HEIGHTS

Elam was the main Whizzer in a huddle of Queen Annes, bounded on the North by a gleaming Cemetery, on the East by a limping subdivision, on the South by a deserted Creamery, and on the West by an expanse of Stubble.

Claudine was the other two-thirds of the Specialty.