While they were on the seventeenth green I spied old Waddles against the skyline, cutting off the entire sunset, and I climbed the hill to tell him the news. You may believe it or not, but up to that moment I had overlooked Waddles entirely. I had been stupid enough to think that the show I had been witnessing was an impromptu affair--a thing of pure chance, lacking a stage manager. Just as I reached the top of the hill, enlightenment came to me--came in company with Mary's laugh, rippling up from below. At a distance it sounded genuine. A shade of disappointment crossed Waddles' wide and genial countenance. "So it didn't work," said he. "It didn't work--and I'm sixteen dollars to the bad. Hey! Quit pounding me on the back! Anybody but a born ass would have known the whole thing was cooked up for Mary's benefit--and you've just tumbled, eh? Now then, what has he done?" Briefly, and in words of one syllable, I sketched Russell's activities. Waddles wagged his head soberly. "Treated her just the same as if he was already married to her, eh? A mixed foursome is no-o-o place for a mean man; give him rope enough and he'll hang himself. How do they stand?" I had not been keeping the score, so we walked down the hill to the eighteenth tee. "Pretty soft for you folks," said Waddles with a disarming grin. "Pretty soft. You've only got to beat a net 98." "Zat so?" asked Bill carelessly, but Russell snatched a score card from his pocket. Instantly his whole manner changed. The sullen look left his face; his eyes sparkled; he smiled. "We're here in 94," said Russell. "Ten off of that--84. Why--it's a cinch, Mary, a cinch! And I thought you'd thrown it away!" "And you?" asked Waddles, turning to Bill. "Oh," said Russell casually, "they've got a gross of 102. What's their handicap?" "Sixteen," answered Waddles. "A net 86." Russell became thoughtful. "H'm-m. Close enough to be interesting. Still, they've got to pick up three strokes on us here. Mary, all you've got to do is keep your second shot out of trouble. Go straight, and I'll guarantee to be on the green in three." Mary didn't say anything. She was watching Waddles--Waddles, with his lip curled into the scornful expression which he reserves for cup hunters and winter members who try to hog the course. Russell drove and the ball sailed over the direction post at the summit of the hill. "That'll hold 'em!" he boasted. "Now just keep straight, Mary, and we've got 'em licked!" Bill followed with another of his tremendous tee shots--two hundred pounds of beef and at least a thousand pounds of contempt behind the pill--and away they went up the path. Russell fell in beside Mary, and at every step he urged upon her the vital importance of keeping the ball straight. He simply bubbled and fizzed with advice, and he smiled as he offered it. I never saw a man change so in a short space of time. "Well, partner," apologised Beth, "I'm sorry. If I'd only played a tiny bit better----"