The Colonel is a shrewd judge of how far he can go in shearing a lamb, and when he sees signs that the victim is getting bare in spots and is about ready to stop betting with him, he cleans up all the spare fleece with the lumbago trick. I'll never forget how he worked it on me. I had been betting him five and ten dollars a match and winning nothing but sympathy and advice and I was about ready to quit the Colonel as a poor investment. The next time I went out to the club I found Colonel Jimmy sitting on the porch in the sun and I heard him groan even before I saw him. Naturally I asked what was the matter. "Oh, it's this cursed lumbago again! I must have caught cold after my shower the other night and--ouch!--just when I'd been looking forward to a nice little game this afternoon, too! It's a real pleasure to play with a young man like you who--ouch! O-o-o!" After a while he began to wonder whether light exercise would do him any good. I thought it might and he let me persuade him. If I would give him my arm as far as his locker--ouch! All the time he was dressing he grunted and groaned and rubbed his back and cursed the lumbago bitterly. He said it was the one thing the devil didn't try on Job because it would have fetched him if he had. He worried some because he would have to drive with an iron, not being able to take a full swing with a wooden club. Then when he had me all ribbed up properly, he dropped a hint where I couldn't help but stumble over it. "You have always named the bet," said Colonel Jimmy. "Don't take advantage of my condition to raise it beyond reason." Up to that time the idea of making a bet with a cripple hadn't occurred to me. It wouldn't have seemed fair. I got to thinking about the fives and the tens that the old rascal had taken away from me when the advantage was all on his side and-- "I suppose I shouldn't expect mercy," said Colonel Jimmy, fitting his remarks to my thought like a mind reader. "I have been quite fortunate in winning from you, William, when you were not playing your best. This seems an excellent opportunity for you to take revenge. This cursed lumbago----" The match was finally made at five dollars a hole, and if I hadn't been ashamed of taking advantage of a cripple I would have said ten. Colonel Jimmy whined a little and said that in his condition it was almost a shame for me to raise the bet to five dollars a hole and that he couldn't possibly allow me any more than five strokes where before he had been giving me eight and ten. He said he probably wouldn't get any distance off the tees on account of not being able to take a full swing, and I agreed on the basis of five strokes, one each on the five longest holes.