"I will if you lend me that shirt for a make-up!" snapped Ambrose. "Now don't get mad, Cutie. Remember, you picked on me first. A man with a neck as thick as yours ought not to let his angry passions rise. First thing you know, you'll bust something in that bonemeal mill of yours, and then you won't know anything." Ambrose put his hands on his hips and surveyed the entire gathering. "A nice, cheerful, clubby bunch!" he exclaimed. "Gee! What a picnic a hermit crab could have in this place, meeting so many congenial souls!" "If you don't like it," said Billford, "you don't have to stay here a minute." "That's mighty sweet of you," said Ambrose; "but, you see, I've made up my mind to learn this fool game if it takes all summer. I'd hate to quit now, even to oblige people who have been so courteous to me.... Well, good-by, you frozen stiffs! Maybe I can hire that sour old Scotchman to go round with me. He's not what you might call a cheerful companion, but, at that, he's got something on you. He's _human_, anyway!" Ambrose went outside and banged the door behind him. Billford made a few brief observations; but his remarks, though vivid and striking, were not quite original. Harson shook his head, and in the silence following Ambrose's exit we heard Doc Pinkinson's voice: "If that pup was mine I'd drown him; doggone me if I wouldn't!" Young Mr. Phipps, you will observe, got in wrong at the very start. III Bad news travels fast when a few press agents get behind it, and not all the personal publicity is handed out by a man's loving friends. Those who had met Ambrose warned those who had not, and whenever his fiery red head appeared in the lounging room there was a startling drop in the temperature. For a few weeks he persisted in trying to secure matches with members of the club, but nobody would have anything to do with him--not even old Purdue McCormick, who toddles about the course with a niblick in one hand and a mid-iron in the other, _sans_ bag, _sans_ caddie, _sans_ protection of the game laws. When such a renegade as Purdue refused to go turf-tearing with him Ambrose gave up in disgust and devoted himself to the serious business of learning the royal and ancient game. He infested the course from dawn till dark, a solitary figure against the sky line; our golfing Ishmael, a wild ass loose upon the links, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him. He wore a chip on his shoulder for all of us; and it was during this period that Anderson, our club champion and Number One on the team, christened Ambrose "Little Poison Ivy," because of the irritating effect of personal contact with him.