. He had steadied; he had
his nerve back; every calculation worked; and when Dickson stymied, it
was a simple trick (the like of which he had practiced often) to hop
over the ball and roll into the hole, to the artless joy of his caddy.
"You're going to be the champeen," this worthy told Willy when they
trudged on; "guess that young lady's a mascot."

"I guess she is," said Willy. He was sure of it when at the home hole,
guarded by a high hedge, Dickson's ball was sliced into the stubborn net
of osage-orange roots. When his own ball sailed cleanly over the wall he
made an excuse of tying his shoe in order to get another view of "that
kid's" brilliant smile. The girl herself went on to the bench in sight
of the blackboard. Here she found herself beside an elderly man with a
great head of thick gray hair. He was clapping so vigorously that she
took him to be Willy's father, and sent him a glance of sympathy. "You
been all 'round with him?" said he. "What sort of a game is he playing?"

"Pretty bad until the fifteenth, and then a wonder," she returned
calmly.

"Rattled!" he snorted in disgust, as he chewed his cigar out of shape.
"First match game. How are the others? What's his chance?"

"He can beat them all if he will only think so," she returned in the
same even tone. Her voice was fuller, with a different and more
melodious intonation than those about him; he looked up at her quickly,
as if from a passing sense of the difference.

"Yes, he's rattled!" grunted the elderly gentleman. "Gone stale,
practicing every minute. Too anxious. Wants to please his father by
getting a little silverware."

"Aren't you his father?"

"_Me?_ No. His father could buy me up out of his pocket-money. His
father is Hiram G. Butler. I'm only his boss. He's learning the steel
business with me. I wish I _was_ his father; he's a genius in his way."

"I suppose his father is awfully proud of him."

"Proud nothing!" exploded the stout gentleman. "His father has bought
and sold and fought inventors so long that when he discovered that his
son was hatching formulas for open-hearth steel he was disgusted. Then
at college Will took honors in chemistry and was a grind; and when his
father wanted to load him with money, and told him to go ahead and make
all the societies, he sent the money back and said he didn't know any
boys in societies; the boys who ran after him were only after his money
and the other boys didn't want him. The trouble si