"At any rate," said Small, "I've cured your lumbago for you, Colonel. You can charge that thousand to doctor bills!" Colonel Jimmy gulped a few times, his neck swelled and his face turned purple. There wasn't a single thing he could find to say in answer to that remark. He started for the seventeenth tee, snarling to himself. I couldn't stand it any longer. I drew Archie aside. "I think you might have told me," I said. "Told you what?" "Why, about Small--if that's his name. What have you done? Rung in a professional on the old man?" "Professional, your grandmother!" said Archie. "Small is an amateur in good standing. Darned good standing. If the Colonel knew as much about the Middle West as he pretends to know, he'd have heard of Small. Wonder how the old boy likes the Chicago method of shearing a pig?" The old boy didn't like it at all, but the seventeenth hole put the crown on his rage and mortification. Small drove another long straight ball, and after the Colonel had got through sneering about that he topped his own drive, slopped his second into a bunker, and reached the green in five when he should have been there in two. I thought the agony was over, but I didn't give Small credit for cat-and-mouse tendencies. "In order to get all the good out of this lumbago treatment," said he, "it ought to go the full eighteen holes." Then, with a deliberation that was actually insulting, he played his second shot straight into a deep sand trap. I heard a queer clucking, choking noise behind me, but it was only David Cameron doing his best to keep from laughing out loud. "Muster Small is puttin' the shoe on the other foot!" said David. "Ay, it's his turn to waste a few now." "Cheer up, Colonel!" said Small. "You fooled away a lot of shots early in the match--on account of your lumbago, of course. I'm just as generous as you are when it comes to halving holes with an easy mark." To prove it Small missed a niblick shot a foot, but pitched out on his fourth, and, by putting all over the green, finally halved the hole. When Small stood up on the eighteenth tee for his last drive he looked over at the Colonel and nodded his head. "Colonel?" said he. Colonel Jimmy grunted--rather a profane grunt, I thought. "Dormie!" said Small. "Confound it, sir! You talk too much!" "So I've heard," said Small. "I'll make you a business proposition, Colonel. Double or quits on the last hole? I understand that's what you do when you're sure you can win. Two thousand or nothing?... No? Oh, all right! No harm done, I suppose?" Colonel Jimmy had a burglar's chance to halve the match by winning the last hole, and he fought for it like a cornered wolf. They were both on the green in threes, Small ten feet from the cup and the Colonel at least fifteen. If he could sink his putt and Small should miss his, the match would be square again.