"Just a minute, gentlemen," said he. "Do not say anything which you might afterward regret. Remember the stakeholder is still with us. My friend here is not, as you intimate, a crook. Neither is he a sure-thing player. We have some sure-thing players with us, but he is not one of them. He is merely the one-armed golf champion of Dubuque--and the Middle West." Imagine an interlude here for fireworks, followed by pertinent questions. "Yes, yes, I know," said Perkins soothingly. "He can't play a lick with two arms. He never could. Matter of fact, he never learned. He fell off a haystack in Iowa--how many years ago was it, Cal?" "Twelve," said Mr. Cottle. "Twelve next July." "And he broke his left arm rather badly," explained the Ooley-cow. "Didn't have the use of it for--how many years, Cal?" "Oh, about six, I should say." "Six years. A determined man can accomplish much in that length of time. Cottle learned to play golf with his right arm--fairly well, as you must admit. Finally he got the left arm fixed up--they took a piece of bone out of his shin and grafted it in--newfangled idea. Decided there was no sense in spoiling a one-armed star to make a dub two-armed golfer. Country full of 'em already. That's the whole story. You picked him for an easy mark, a good thing. You thought he had a bad bet and you had a good one. Don't take the trouble to deny it. Gentlemen, allow me to present the champion one-armed golfer of Iowa and the Middle West!" "Yes," said Cottle modestly, "when a man does anything, give him credit for it. Personally I'd rather have the cash!" "How do you feel about it now?" asked the Ooley-cow. Judging by their comments, they felt warm--very warm. Hot, in fact. The Ooley-cow made just one more statement, but to me that statement contained the gist of the whole matter. "This," said he, "squares us on the wallet proposition. I didn't say anything about it at the time, but that struck me as a scaly trick. So I invited Cal to come out and pay me a visit.... Shall we go back to the clubhouse?" * * * * * I made Little Doc Ellis see the point; perhaps I can make you see it now. Returning to the original simile, the Ooley-cow was willing to be milked for golf balls and luncheons and caddie hire. That was legitimate milking, and he did not resent it. He would have continued to give down in great abundance, but when they took fifty dollars from him, in the form of a bogus reward, he kicked over the bucket, injured the milkers and jumped the fence. Why? I'm almost ashamed to tell you, but did you ever hear of a country cow--an Iowa cow--that would stand for being milked from the wrong side? I think this will be all, except that I anticipate a hard winter for the golfing beginners at our club. ADOLPHUS AND THE ROUGH DIAMOND I