He reflected on it a good deal during the day, and, running across Sigsbee, a fellow Cape Pleasanter, after dinner that night at the Sybarites’ Club, he spoke of the matter to him. It so happened that both had dined excellently, and were looking on the world with a sort of cosy benevolence. They were in the mood when men pat small boys on the head and ask them if they mean to be President when they grow up.
“I called up Archie Mealing today,” said McCay. “Did you know he was engaged?”
“I did hear something about it. Girl of the name of Wilson, or—”
“Milsom. She’s going to spend the summer at Cape Pleasant, Archie tells me.”
“Then she’ll have a chance of seeing him play in the championship competition.”
McCay sucked his cigar in silence for a while, watching with dreamy eyes the blue smoke as it curled ceiling-ward. When he spoke his voice was singularly soft.
“Do you know, Sigsbee,” he said, sipping his Maraschino with a gentle melancholy—“do you know, there is something wonderfully pathetic to me in this business. I see the whole thing so clearly. There was a kind of quiver in the poor old chap’s voice when he said: ‘She is coming to Cape Pleasant,’ which told me more than any words could have done. It is a tragedy in its way, Sigsbee. We may smile at it, think it trivial; but it is none the less a tragedy. That warmhearted, enthusiastic girl, all eagerness to see the man she loves do well—Archie, poor old Archie, all on fire to prove to her that her trust in him is not misplaced, and the end—Disillusionment—Disappointment—Unhappiness.”
“He ought to keep his eye on the ball,” said the more practical Sigsbee.
“Quite possibly,” continued McCay, “he has told her that he will win this championship.”
“If Archie’s mutt enough to have told her that,” said Sigsbee decidedly, “he deserves all he gets. Waiter, two Scotch highballs.”
McCay was in no mood to subscribe to this stony-hearted view.
“I tell you,” he said, “I’m sorry for Archie! I’m sorry for the poor old chap. And I’m more than sorry for the girl.”
“Well, I don’t see what we can do,” said Sigsbee. “We can hardly be expected to foozle on purpose, just to let Archie show off before his girl.”
McCay paused in the act of lighting his cigar, as one smitten with a great thought.
“Why not?” he said. “Why not, Sigsbee? Sigsbee, you’ve hit it.”
“Eh?”
“You have! I tell you, Sigsbee, you’ve solved the whole thing. Archie’s such a bully good fellow, why not give him a benefit? Why not let him win this championship? You aren’t going to tell me that you care whether you win a tin medal or not?”
Sigsbee’s benevolence was expanding under the influence of the Scotch highball and his cigar. Little acts of kindness on Archie’s part, here a cigar, there a lunch, at another time seats for the theatre, began to rise to the surface of his memory like rainbow-coloured bubbles. He wavered.
“Yes, but what about the rest of the men?” he said. “There will be a dozen or more in for the medal.”
“We can square them,” said McCay confidently. “We will broach the matter to them at a series of dinners at which we will be joint hosts. They are white men who will be charmed to do a little thing like that for a sport like Archie.”
“How about Gossett?” said Sigsbee.
McCay’s face clouded. Gossett was an unpopular subject with members of the Cape Pleasant Golf Club. He was the serpent in their Eden. Nobody seemed quite to know how he had got in, but there, unfortunately, he was. Gossett had introduced into Cape Pleasant golf a cheerless atmosphere of the rigour of the game. It was to enable them to avoid just such golfers as Gossett that the Cape Pleasanters had founded their club. Genial courtesy rather than strict attention to the rules had been the leading characteristics of their play till his arrival. Up to that time it had been looked on as rather bad form to exact a penalty. A cheery give-and-take system had prevailed. Then Gossett had come, full of strange rules, and created about the same stir in the community which a hawk would create in a gathering of middle-aged doves.
“You can’t square Gossett,” said Sigsbee.
McCay looked unhappy.
“I forgot him,” he said. “Of course, nothing will stop him trying to win. I wish we could think of something. I would almost as soon see him lose as Archie win. But, after all, he does have off days sometimes.”
“You need to have a very off day to be as bad as Archie.”
They sat and smoked in silence.
“I’ve got it,” said Sigsbee suddenly. “Gossett is a fine golfer, but nervous. If we upset his nerves enough, he will go right off his stroke. Couldn’t we think of some way?”
McCay reached out for his glass.
“Yours is a noble nature, Sigsbee,” he said.
“Oh, no,” said the paragon modestly. “Have another cigar?”
In order that the reader may get the mental half-Nelson on the plot of this narrative which is so essential if a short story is to charm, elevate, and instruct, it is necessary now, for the nonce (but only for the nonce), to inspect Archibald’s past life.
Archibald, as he had stated to McCay, was engaged to a Miss Milsom—Miss Margaret Milsom.
