"Make 'em payable to cash," suggested Cottle. "You'll probably tear 'em up after the game. Now the next thing is a stakeholder----" "Is that--necessary?" asked Old Man Sprott. "Sure!" said Cottle. "I might run out on you. Let's have everything according to Hoyle--stakeholder and all the other trimmings. Anybody'll be satisfactory to me; that young fellow getting an earful at the door; he'll do." So I became the stakeholder--the custodian of eleven hundred and sixty dollars in coin and two checks representing a like amount. I thought I detected a slight nervousness in the signatures, and no wonder. It was the biggest bet those old petty larcenists had ever made in their lives. They went in to luncheon--at the invitation of the Ooley-cow, of course--but I noticed that they did not eat much. Cottle wandered out to the practise green, putter in hand, forgetting all about the mint toddy which, by the way, had never been ordered. V "You drive first, sir," said Uncle Billy to Cottle, pursuing his usual system. "We'll follow you." "Think you'll feel easier if I should hit one over into the eucalyptus trees yonder?" asked the man from Dubuque. "Little nervous, eh? Does a big bet scare you? I was counting on that.... Oh, very well, I'll take the honour." "Just a second," said Old Man Sprott, who had been prowling about in the background and fidgeting with his driver. "Does the stakeholder understand the terms of the bet? Mr. Cottle is playing a match with each of us individually----" "Separately and side by each," added Cottle. "Using only one arm," said Old Man Sprott. "If he uses both arms in making a shot," put in Uncle Billy, "he forfeits both matches. Is that correct, Mr. Cottle?" "Correct as hell! Watch me closely, young man. I have no moustache to deceive you--nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Watch me closely!" He teed his ball, dropped his left arm at his side, grasped the driver firmly in his right hand and swung the club a couple of times in tentative fashion. The head of the driver described a perfect arc, barely grazing the top of the tee. His two-armed swing had been a thing of violence--a baseball wallop, constricted, bound up, without follow-through or timing, a combination of brute strength and awkwardness. Uncle Billy's chin sagged as he watched the easy, natural sweep of that wooden club--the wrist-snap applied at the proper time, and the long graceful follow-through which gives distance as well as direction. Old Man Sprott also seemed to be struggling with an entirely new and not altogether pleasant idea. "Watch me closely, stakeholder," repeated Cottle, addressing the ball. "Nothing up my sleeve but my good right arm. Would you gentlemen like to have me roll up my sleeve before I start?" "Drive!" grunted Uncle Billy.