three times, but you never knew.
Presently Jopp came in.
'Anybody called up?' he asked.
'Nobody on business. An assortment of your wives were on the wire
wishing you luck. They asked me to say that they will be on the course
tomorrow.'
For a moment it seemed to me that the man's iron repose was shaken.
'Luella?' he asked.
'She was the first.'
'Jane?'
'And Jane.'
'And Agnes?'
'Agnes,' I said, 'is right.'
'H'm!' said Vincent Jopp. And for the first time since I had known him
I thought that he was ill at ease.
* * * * *
The day of the final dawned bright and clear. At least, I was not awake
at the time to see, but I suppose it did; for at nine o'clock, when I
came down to breakfast, the sun was shining brightly. The first
eighteen holes were to be played before lunch, starting at eleven.
Until twenty minutes before the hour Vincent Jopp kept me busy taking
dictation, partly on matters connected with his wheat deal and partly
on a signed article dealing with the Final, entitled 'How I Won.' At
eleven sharp we were out on the first tee.
Jopp's opponent was a nice-looking young man, but obviously nervous. He
giggled in a distraught sort of way as he shook hands with my employer.
'Well, may the best man win,' he said.
'I have arranged to do so,' replied Jopp, curtly, and started to
address his ball.
There was a large crowd at the tee, and, as Jopp started his
down-swing, from somewhere on the outskirts of this crowd there came
suddenly a musical 'Boo!' It rang out in the clear morning air like a
bugle.
I had been right in my estimate of Vincent Jopp. His forceful stroke
never wavered. The head of his club struck the ball, despatching it a
good two hundred yards down the middle of the fairway. As we left the
tee I saw Amelia Merridew being led away with bowed head by two members
of the Greens Committee. Poor girl! My heart bled for her. And yet,
after all, Fate had been kind in removing her from the scene, even in
custody, for she could hardly have borne to watch the proceedings.
Vincent Jopp made rings round his antagonist. Hole after hole he won in
his remorseless, machine-like way, until when lunch-time came at the
end of the eighteenth he was ten up. All the other holes had been
halved.
It was after lunch, as we made our way to the first tee, that the
advance-guard of the Mrs. Jopps appeared in the person of Luella
Mainprice Jopp, a kittenish little woman with blond hair and a
Pekingese dog. I remembered reading in the papers that she had divorced
my employer for persistent and aggravated mental cruelty, calling
witnesses to bear out her statement that he had said he did not like
