"Ten!" barked Waddles. "The suffering Moses! Ten! Henry, are you sure you're quite well--not overexcited or anything?" "All I had was four lemonades." "Ah!" said Waddles. "Four lemonades--and Sam Totten winked at the bar boy every time. Why, if I cut you from eighteen to ten that'll put you in Class A!" "I think that's where I belong." "I'll have to talk with the head bar boy," said Waddles. "He shouldn't be so reckless with that gin. It costs money these days. Listen to me, Henry. Take hold of your head with both hands and try to get what I say. You went out to-day and shot your fool head off. You played the best round of golf in your long and sinful career. You made an eighty-two. You'll never make an eighty-two again as long as you live. It would be a crime to handicap you on to-day's game, Henry. It would be manslaughter to put you in Class A. You don't belong there. If you want me to cut you I'll put you down to sixteen, and even then you won't play to that mark unless you're lucky." "I think I belong at ten," said Peacock. I began to appreciate that line about the terrible insistence of the meek. "Get out of here!" ordered Waddles, suddenly losing his patience. "Go home and pray for humility, Henry. Lay off the lemonade when Sam Totten is in the crowd. Lemonade is bad for you. It curdles the intelligence and warps the reasoning faculties. Shoo! Scat! Mush on! Vamose! Beat it! Hurry up! _Wiki-wiki!_ Chop-chop! _Schnell!_" "Then you won't cut me to ten?" "I--will--not!" Henry sighed and started for the door. He turned with his hand on the knob. "I still think I belong there," was his parting shot. "Might as well settle this thing right now," said Waddles to himself. Then he lifted up his voice in a howl that made the electric lights quiver. "Send Tom in here!" The head bar boy appeared, grinning from ear to ear. "Tom," said Waddles, "don't you know you oughtn't to slip a shot of gin into an old man's lemonade?" "Ain't nobody gits gin in his lemonade, suh, 'less he awdeh it thataway." "What did Mr. Peacock have?" "Plain lemonade, suh." "No kick in it at all?" "Not even a wiggle, suh." "That'll do," said Waddles; and Tom went back to his work. There was a long silence. By his laboured breathing I judged that Waddles was lacing his shoes. Once more he thought aloud. "Tom wouldn't lie to me, so it wasn't gin. Now, I wonder.... I wonder if that old coot has got what they call 'delusions of grandeur'?" III On the Monday following the contest for the Hemmingway Cup I met the Bish at the country club. We arrived there between nine and ten in the morning, and the first man we saw was Mr. Henry Peacock. He was out on the eighteenth fairway practising approach shots, and the putting green was speckled with balls. "Hello!" said the Bish. "Look who's here! Practising too. You don't suppose that old chump is going to try to make a golfer of himself, this late along?" I said that it appeared that way.