.

"Mebbe you could do a whole lot better!" he called to Sharon in tones
unnecessarily loud.

Sharon's reply, in a voice eminently soothing and by that calculated
further to irritate the novice, was in effect that Rapp, Senior, might
safely wager his available assets that Sharon Whipple could do better.

"Well, come on and do it then if you're so smart!" urged Rapp, Senior.
"Come on, once--I dare you!"

Sharon scorned--but rather weakly--the invitation. Secretly, through his
hostile study of the game, he had convinced himself that he by divine
right could do perfectly what these people did so clumsily. Again and
again his hands had itched for the club as he watched futile drives. He
knew he could hit the ball. He couldn't help hitting it, stuck up the
way it was on a pinch of sand--stuck up like a sore thumb. How did they
miss it time after time? He had meant to test his conviction in
solitude, but why not put it to trial now, and shame this doubting and
inept Rapp, Senior?

"Oh, well, I don't mind," he said, and waddled negligently to the tee.

Rapp, Senior, voiced loud delight. Gideon Whipple merely stood safely
back without comment, though there was a malicious waiting gleam in his
eyes.

"You folks make something out of nothing," scolded Sharon, fussily.

Grasping the proffered club he severely threatened with it the new ball
which Rapp, Senior, had obligingly teed up for him. In that moment he
felt a quick strange fear, little twinges of doubt, a suspicion that all
was not well. Perhaps the sudden hush of those about him conduced to
this. Even newly arrived players in the background waited in silence.
Then he recovered his confidence. There was the ball and there was the
club--it was easy, wasn't it? Make a mountain out of a mole hill, would
they? He'd show them!

Amid the hanging silence--like a portent it overhung him--he raised the
strange weapon and brought it gruntingly down with all the strength of
his stout muscles.

* * * * *

In the fading light of seven o'clock on that fair summer's evening John
McTavish for the hundredth time seized the heavy arms of Sharon Whipple
and bent them back and up in the right line. Then Sharon did the thing
faithfully in his own way, which was still, after an hour's trial, not
the way of John McTavish.

"Mon, what have I told ye?" expostulated John. He had quit calling
Sharon Sir-r-r. Perhaps his r's were tired, and anyway, Sharon