“I don’t know why you should say that,” he retorted. “It’s a splendid game.”
“I rank it,” said the Oldest Member, “with the juvenile pastime of marbles.”
The young man pondered for some moments.
“Well, anyway,” he said at length, “it was good enough for Drake.”
“As I have not the pleasure of the acquaintance of your friend Drake, I am unable to estimate the value of his endorsement.”
“The Drake. The Spanish Armada Drake. He was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe when they told him that the Armada was in sight. ‘There is time to finish the game,’ he replied. That’s what Drake thought of bowls.”
“If he had been a golfer, he would have ignored the Armada altogether.”
“It’s easy enough to say that,” said the young man, with spirit, “but can the history of golf show a parallel case?”
“A million, I should imagine.”
“But you’ve forgotten them, eh?” said the young man, satirically.
“On the contrary,” said the Oldest Member. “As a typical instance, neither more nor less remarkable than a hundred others, I will select the story of Rollo Podmarsh.” He settled himself comfortably in his chair, and placed the tips of his fingers together. “This Rollo Podmarsh—”
“No, I say!” protested the young man, looking at his watch.
“This Rollo Podmarsh—”
“Yes, but—”
This Rollo Podmarsh (said the Oldest Member) was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and like other young men in that position he had rather allowed a mother’s tender care to take the edge off what you might call his rugged manliness. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had permitted his parent to coddle him ever since he had been in the nursery; and now, in his twenty-eighth year, he invariably wore flannel next his skin, changed his shoes the moment they got wet, and—from September to May, inclusive—never went to bed without partaking of a bowl of hot arrowroot. Not, you would say, the stuff of which heroes are made. But you would be wrong. Rollo Podmarsh was a golfer, and consequently pure gold at heart; and in his hour of crisis all the good in him came to the surface.
In giving you this character-sketch of Rollo, I have been at pains to make it crisp, for I observe that you are wriggling in a restless manner and you persist in pulling out that watch of yours and gazing at it. Let me tell you that, if a mere skeleton outline of the man has this effect upon you, I am glad for your sake that you never met his mother. Mrs. Podmarsh could talk with enjoyment for hours on end about her son’s character and habits. And, on the September evening on which I introduce her to you, though she had, as a fact, been speaking only for some ten minutes, it had seemed like hours to the girl Mary Kent, who was the party of the second part to the conversation.
Mary Kent was the daughter of an old schoolfriend of Mrs. Podmarsh, and she had come to spend the autumn and winter with her while her parents were abroad. The scheme had never looked particularly good to Mary, and after ten minutes of her hostess on the subject of Rollo she was beginning to weave dreams of knotted sheets and a swift getaway through the bedroom window in the dark of the night.
“He is a strict teetotaller,” said Mrs. Podmarsh.
“Really?”
“And has never smoked in his life.”
“Fancy that!”
“But here is the dear boy now,” said Mrs. Podmarsh, fondly.
Down the road towards them was coming a tall, well-knit figure in a Norfolk coat and grey flannel trousers. Over his broad shoulders was suspended a bag of golf clubs.
“Is that Mr. Podmarsh?” exclaimed Mary.
She was surprised. After all she had been listening to about the arrowroot and the flannel next the skin and the rest of it, she had pictured the son of the house as a far weedier specimen. She had been expecting to meet a small, slender young man with an eyebrow moustache and pince-nez; and this person approaching might have stepped straight out of Jack Dempsey’s training-camp.
“Does he play golf?” asked Mary, herself an enthusiast.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Podmarsh. “He makes a point of going out on the links once a day. He says the fresh air gives him such an appetite.”
Mary, who had taken a violent dislike to Rollo on the evidence of his mother’s description of his habits, had softened towards him on discovering that he was a golfer. She now reverted to her previous opinion. A man who could play the noble game from such ignoble motives was beyond the pale.
“Rollo is exceedingly good at golf,” proceeded Mrs. Podmarsh. “He scores more than a hundred and twenty every time, while Mr. Jenkinson, who is supposed to be one of the best players in the club, seldom manages to reach eighty. But Rollo is very modest—modesty is one of his best qualities—and you would never guess he was so skilful unless you were told.
“Well, Rollo darling, did you have a nice game? You didn’t get your feet wet, I hope? This is Mary Kent, dear.”
Rollo Podmarsh shook hands with Mary. And at her touch the strange dizzy feeling which had come over him at the sight of her suddenly became increased a thousandfold. As I see that you are consulting your watch once more, I will not describe his emotions as exhaustively as I might. I will merely say that he had never felt anything resembling this sensation of dazed ecstasy since the occasion when a twenty-foot putt of his, which had been going well off the line, as his putts generally did, had hit a worm-cast sou’-sou’-east of the hole and popped in, giving him a snappy six. Rollo Podmarsh, as you will have divined, was in love at first sight. Which makes it all the sadder to think Mary at the moment was regarding him as an outcast and a blister.
Mrs. Podmarsh, having enfolded her son in a vehement
