The Carleton Case. Ellery H. Clark
against the green of the turf some twenty yards beyond. Still with the utmost deliberation he stepped back off the tee, and Carleton took his place. His style was almost the antithesis of Henderson’s. His tee was scarcely more than a pinch of the damp sand, just enough to insure a good lie for his ball; almost negligently, it seemed, he fell at once into his stance, swinging back with an astonishing freedom, yet with complete mastery of a somewhat dashing style, and coming through into a finish absolutely superb. Low and straight sped his ball, hardly more than twenty feet over the top of the bunker; then, beginning slowly to rise, soaring magnificently onward, finally to come to a stop some fifty or sixty yards beyond the road. Henderson whistled as they walked down the path. “Some one’s feeling fine,” he said. “Glad you got in one good one, anyway, Jack.”
Carleton smiled grimly. “Oh, a few more at home like that I guess,” he retorted, “you’ve got to crack an eighty to-day, Tommy, if you want to be in the game.”
His second shot, indeed, seemed to bear out his words. Henderson had taken an iron, cleared the bunker that guarded the green, and was safely on its farther edge in two, but Carleton, playing a high, clean mashie, with plenty of back-spin, managed to lay his ball up within a dozen feet of the flag. On the green Henderson putted true and straight, his ball stopping so near the hole as to make a four a certainty. Carleton, with a little more deliberation than he had yet shown, eyed the line of his put. “Easy,” he muttered to himself, half-aloud, “nothing to it; easiest thing you know; just get the line, follow her through, and she—goes—down.”
With the final word the ball ticked against the farther edge of the cup, and dropped gently in for a three. Henderson, holing out, whistled again. “Somebody’s got their good eye with ’em,” he observed, and Carleton, picking up his ball, drew a long breath of content. “Oh, the devil,” he answered good-naturedly, “this is one of my days; I can do anything I want to to ’em to-day;” and in silence they strode away for the second tee.
Outward for the first nine holes they played, into a world, green under foot and blue and white above, the sunshine just pleasantly warm, the cool westerly breeze barely stirring the green leaves in the tree-tops, and faintly rousing the drooping direction flags below. A world of good-fellowship, a world of youth and joy, and withal, the rigor of the game to make them at times wholly unconscious, at times all the more conscious, of the glory above, around, beneath them. Henderson, the safe and sane, was on his game, making the first nine holes in an even forty, but Carleton played beyond himself. Twice only on the outward journey did he make mistakes, and for both he atoned by pulling off two shots well-nigh marvelous—one a clean, slashing brassie that put him on the edge of the green on the long fifth—four hundred and fifty yards—in two; one a straight, deadly put of twenty-five feet at the eighth; no wonder that Henderson unwillingly totaled a thirty-six for his rival, puckered his lips, but this time without the whistle, and mournfully shook his head. Coming in, indeed, Carleton’s pace slackened a bit, and his playing became, in Henderson’s phrase, “considerably more like a human being’s.” Mistakes, one or two of them costly, were not lacking; his putting fell off a bit; his confidence seemed a little to diminish; yet, spite of all, he still played brilliantly, and when on the eighteenth, he drove a long, straight ball, far over the quarry, with no danger between him and the home hole, Henderson was forced to admit defeat. He himself finished as steadily as ever, coming in without any serious error, without anything especially brilliant, with a card all fours and fives, in forty-two, and thus handed it an eighty-two for the round. Carleton’s card in was more irregular; it was marred by two sixes, but these were balanced by two threes and an occasional four, altogether forty-one for the second nine, and a total of seventy-seven. Surely, the gold medal lay all but in his grasp, and Henderson, indeed, had the grace to acknowledge it. “You’re all right, Jack,” he said, as they parted, “see you to-morrow afternoon, but I guess you’ve got things cinched; this is your lucky day;” and Carleton, though perforce he shrugged his shoulders and said that no one could ever tell, felt in his heart that the prize was as good as won.
At the club-house he dressed, and then, finding that he had plenty of time, walked leisurely down to the train, and started back for town. For a while, just comfortably tired with the afternoon’s round, he was content to sit back in his seat with passive enjoyment, with eyes half closed, playing over again each stroke of the round in pleasant retrospect, again smashing straight low balls from the tee, again laying up his approach shots, again successfully holing long, difficult puts. It made pleasant enough dreaming, and he sat thus until Hillside was reached.
Then suddenly, two men, entering hurriedly, took the vacant seat behind him, evidently resuming their conversation where it had been broken off as they had boarded the train. Their first words drove golf a million miles from his brain. “So it busted clean to hell, did it?” asked the stout man, panting with haste and excitement.
“Did it?” echoed his companion, with a certain dismal pride, the sense of proprietorship that one gains in the communication of bad news, “well, I should say it did. Didn’t begin till two o’clock, and then, say, you never saw such a time in your life. Smash—Bang—Smash! Everything thrown over, right and left; why, down at Wellman’s—”
The train roared into the long tunnel, and the rest of the sentence was lost. It was enough, and Carleton, sitting motionless, felt a sudden sickening reaction creep over him. A game of golf—a gold medal—and the market again in the grip of a panic beside which the first break of three days ago must have been as nothing. And then, insistently, he began to wonder—how bad—how bad? His margin had been slender enough before—hardly sufficient, really, to pass muster unless tinctured with the dangerous kindness of friendship—he clenched his hands; his mouth had gone suddenly dry—
Inside the smoky station the train came to a halt. Alighting, he paused to buy the evening papers from a clamorous newsboy; then without stopping even to glance at them, hastened straight to his office. It was long after the hour of closing. The office boy was gone, the door made fast. Unlocking it, he entered, sat down at his desk, and began hastily to examine the letters and memoranda reposing there. “Ring up Mr. Turner,” was penciled half a dozen times in the office boy’s round, sprawling hand, with various additions, “Important,” “Urgent,” “At once,” “Ring 698, Lincoln;” that was Harris and Wheeler’s; “Ring Main, 422;” that was Claxton Brothers. He turned to the papers. Lord above, what headlines! Panic—market crash—houses suspended—banks in danger—half dazed, he gazed for a moment around him, as if doubting that it could all be real; then, with a grim feeling that nothing could much matter now, he read steadily the long rows of stock quotations; and ever, as he read down a column, values dropped downward with him, and never, as he turned to the top of the next, did they rise again. Once more he had to stop, unable to grasp the truth; Akme Mining, nine and a half; Suburban Electric, forty-seven; Fuel, sixty-three; it was all impossible.
Through the slide in the office door a letter fluttered gently to the floor. He rose and picked it up. It had Turner’s name in the corner. Inside was a hasty scrawl, “Things very bad; must have ten thousand additional margin at opening to-morrow, sure.” As he laid it down, the telephone rang; “Yes,” he answered, “Mr. Harris; oh, yes, I know; five thousand; yes; thanks; you’ve got to have it at the opening; all right; good-by.” He hung up the receiver, and turned to confront a telegraph boy at his elbow. He hastily signed, and ripped open the envelope. This time the laconic message was from Claxton Brothers. “Good,” he muttered, “only five thousand more. This is fine,” and he threw himself back in his office chair, and for a moment or two thought hard. Then he smiled ironically. “Oh, yes,” he muttered, “Henderson got it right, as usual; this is certainly my lucky day;” then after a moment, he added, “Well, I suppose it’s a case of must now. It’s all I can do.” He rose, shrugging his shoulders, and thrusting the papers into his pocket, he hurriedly left the office.
CHAPTER V
A QUESTION OF HONOR