The Golf Omnibus (26 page)

“Hello!”

“Is that you, Mr. Waters? This is Eunice Bray.” The receiver shook in Ramsden's hand. “I've just remembered. Weren't we talking about something last night? Didn't you ask me to marry you or something? I know it was something.”

Ramsden gulped three times.

“I did,” he replied hollowly.

“We didn't settle anything, did we?”

“Eh?”

“I say, we sort of left it kind of open.”

“Yuk!”

“Well, would it bore you awfully,” said Eunice's soft voice, “to come round now and go on talking it over?”

Ramsden tottered.

“We shall be quite alone,” said Eunice. “Little Wilberforce has gone to bed with a headache.”

Ramsden paused a moment to disentangle his tongue from the back of his neck.

“I'll be right over!” he said huskily.

AFTER WE HAD
sent in our card and waited for a few hours in the marbled ante-room, a bell rang and the major-domo, parting the priceless curtains, ushered us in to where the editor sat writing at his desk. We advanced on all fours, knocking our head reverently on the Aubusson carpet.

“Well?” he said at length, laying down his jewelled pen.

“We just looked in,” we said humbly, “to ask if it would be all right if we sent you an historical story.”

“The public does not want historical stories,” he said, frowning coldly.

“Ah, but the public hasn't seen one of ours!” we replied.

The editor placed a cigarette in a holder presented to him by a reigning monarch, and lit it with a match from a golden box, the gift of the millionaire president of the Amalgamated League of Working Plumbers.

“What this magazine requires,” he said, “is red-blooded, one-hundred-per-cent dynamic stuff, palpitating with warm human interest and containing a strong, poignant love-motive.”

“That,” we replied, “is us all over, Mabel.”

“What I need at the moment, however, is a golf story.”

“By a singular coincidence, ours is a golf story.”

“Ha! say you so?” said the editor, a flicker of interest passing over his finely-chiselled features. “Then you may let me see it.”

He kicked us in the face, and we withdrew.

On the broad terrace outside his palace, overlooking the fair expanse of the Royal gardens, King Merolchazzar of Oom stood leaning on the low parapet, his chin in his hand and a frown on his noble face. The day was fine, and a light breeze bore up to him from the garden below a fragrant scent of flowers. But, for all the pleasure it seemed to give him, it might have been bone-fertilizer.

The fact is, King Merolchazzar was in love, and his suit was not prospering. Enough to upset any man.

Royal love affairs in those days were conducted on the correspondence system. A monarch, hearing good reports of a neighbouring princess, would despatch messengers with gifts to her Court, beseeching an interview. The Princess would name a date, and a formal meeting would take place; after which everything usually buzzed along pretty smoothly. But in the case of King Merolchazzar's courtship of the Princess of the Outer Isles there had been a regrettable hitch. She had acknowledged the gifts, saying that they were just what she had wanted and how had he guessed, and had added that, as regarded a meeting, she would let him know later. Since that day no word had come from her, and a gloomy spirit prevailed in the capital. At the Courtiers' Club, the meeting-place of the aristocracy of Oom, five to one in
pazazas
was freely offered against Merolchazzar's chances, but found no takers; while in the taverns of the common people, where less conservative odds were always to be had, you could get a snappy hundred to eight. “For in good sooth,” writes a chronicler of the time on a half-brick and a couple of paving-stones which have survived to this day, “it did indeed begin to appear as though our beloved monarch, the son of the sun and the nephew of the moon, had been handed the bitter fruit of the citron.”

The quaint old idiom is almost untranslatable, but one sees what he means.

As the King stood sombrely surveying the garden, his attention was attracted by a small bearded man with bushy eyebrows and a face like a walnut, who stood not far away on a gravelled path flanked by rose bushes. For some minutes he eyed this man in silence, then he called to the Grand Vizier, who was standing in the little group of courtiers and officials at the other end of the terrace. The bearded man, apparently unconscious of the Royal scrutiny, had placed a rounded stone on the gravel, and was standing beside it making curious passes over it with his hoe. It was this singular behaviour that had attracted the King's attention. Superficially it seemed silly, and yet Merolchazzar had a curious feeling that there was a deep, even a holy, meaning behind the action.

“Who,” he inquired, “is that?”

“He is one of your Majesty's gardeners,” replied the Vizier.

“I don't remember seeing him before. Who is he?”

The Vizier was a kind-hearted man, and he hesitated for a moment.

“It seems a hard thing to say of anyone, your Majesty,” he replied, “but he is a Scotsman. One of your Majesty's invincible admirals recently made a raid on the inhospitable coast of that country at a spot known to the natives as S'nandrews and brought away this man.”

“What does he think he's doing?” asked the King, as the bearded one slowly raised the hoe above his right shoulder, slightly bending the left knee as he did so.

“It is some species of savage religious ceremony, your Majesty. According to the admiral, the dunes by the seashore where he landed were covered with a multitude
of men behaving just as this man is doing. They had sticks in their hands and they struck with these at small round objects. And every now and again⎯”

“Fo-o-ore!” called a gruff voice from below.

“And every now and again,” went on the Vizier, “they would utter the strange melancholy cry which you have just heard. It is a species of chant.”

The Vizier broke off. The hoe had descended on the stone, and the stone, rising in a graceful arc, had sailed through the air and fallen within a foot of where the King stood.

“Hi!” exclaimed the Vizier.

The man looked up.

“You mustn't do that! You nearly hit his serene graciousness the King!”

“Mphm!” said the bearded man nonchalantly, and began to wave his hoe mystically over another stone.

Into the King's careworn face there had crept a look of interest, almost of excitement.

“What god does he hope to propitiate by these rites?” he asked.

“The deity, I learn from your Majesty's admiral is called Gowf.”

“Gowf? Gowf?” King Merolchazzar ran over in his mind the muster-roll of the gods of Oom. There were sixty-seven of them, but Gowf was not of their number. “It is a strange religion,” he murmured. “A strange religion, indeed. But, by Belus, distinctly attractive. I have an idea that Oom could do with a religion like that. It has a zip to it. A sort of fascination, if you know what I mean. It looks to me extraordinarily like what the Court physician ordered. I will talk to this fellow and learn more of these holy ceremonies.”

And, followed by the Vizier, the King made his way into the garden. The Vizier was now in a state of some apprehension. He was exercised in his mind as to the effect which the embracing of a new religion by the King might have on the formidable Church party. It would be certain to cause displeasure among the priesthood; and in those days it was a ticklish business to offend the priesthood, even for a monarch. And, if Merolchazzar had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little tactless in his dealings with that powerful body. Only a few mornings back the High Priest of Hec had taken the Vizier aside to complain about the quality of the meat which the King had been using lately for his sacrifices. He might be a child in worldly matters, said the High Priest, but if the King supposed that he did not know the difference between home-grown domestic and frozen imported foreign, it was time his Majesty was disabused of the idea. If, on top of this little unpleasantness, King Merolchazzar were to become an adherent of this new Gowf, the Vizier did not know what might not happen.

The King stood beside the bearded foreigner, watching him closely. The second stone soared neatly on to the terrace. Merolchazzar uttered an excited cry. His eyes were glowing, and he breathed quickly.

“It doesn't look difficult,” he muttered.

“Hoo's!” said the bearded man.

“I believe I could do it,” went on the King, feverishly. “By the eight green gods of the mountain, I believe I could! By the holy fire that burns night and day before the altar of Belus, I'm
sure
I could! By Hec, I'm going to do it now! Gimme that hoe!”

“Toots!” said the bearded man.

It seemed to the King that the fellow spoke derisively, and his blood boiled angrily. He seized the hoe and raised it above his shoulder, bracing himself solidly on widely-parted feet. His pose was an exact reproduction of the one in which the Court sculptor had depicted him when working on the life-size statue (“Our Athletic King”) which stood in the principal square of the city; but it did not impress the stranger. He uttered a discordant laugh.

“Ye puir gonuph!” he cried, “whitkin' o' a staunce is that?”

The King was hurt. Hitherto the attitude had been generally admired.

“It's the way I always stand when killing lions,” he said. “‘In killing lions,'” he added, quoting from the well-known treatise of Nimrod, the recognized text-book on the sport, “‘the weight at the top of the swing should be evenly balanced on both feet.'”

“Ah, weel, ye're no killing lions the noo. Ye're gowfing.”

A sudden humility descended upon the King. He felt, as so many men were to feel in similar circumstances in ages to come, as though he were a child looking eagerly for guidance to an all-wise master—a child, moreover, handicapped by water on the brain, feet three sizes too large for him, and hands consisting mainly of thumbs.

“O thou of noble ancestors and agreeable disposition!” he said, humbly. “Teach me the true way.”

“Use the interlocking grup and keep the staunce a wee bit open and slow back, and dinna press or sway the heid and keep yer e'e on the ba'.”

“My which on the what?” said the King, bewildered.

“I fancy, your Majesty,” hazarded the Vizier, “that he is respectfully suggesting that your serene graciousness should deign to keep your eye on the ball.”

“Oh, ah!” said the King.

The first golf lesson ever seen in the kingdom of Oom had begun.

Up on the terrace, meanwhile, in the little group of courtiers and officials, a whispered consultation was in progress. Officially, the King's unfortunate love affair was supposed to be a strict secret. But you know how it is. These things get about. The Grand Vizier tells the Lord High Chamberlain; the Lord High Chamberlain whispers it in confidence to the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog; the Supreme Hereditary Custodian hands it on to the Exalted Overseer of the King's Wardrobe on the understanding that it is to go no farther; and, before you know where you are, the varlets and scurvy knaves are gossiping about it in the
kitchens and the Society journalists have started to carve it out on bricks for the next issue of
Palace Prattlings
.

“The long and short of it is,” said the Exalted Overseer of the King's Wardrobe, “we must cheer him up.”

There was a murmur of approval. In those days of easy executions it was no light matter that a monarch should be a prey to gloom.

“But how?” queried the Lord High Chamberlain.

“I know,” said the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog. “Try him with the minstrels.”

“Here! Why us?” protested the leader of the minstrels.

“Don't be silly!” said the Lord High Chamberlain. “It's for your good just as much as ours. He was asking only last night why he never got any music nowadays. He told me to find out whether you supposed he paid you simply to eat and sleep, because if so he knew what to do about it.”

“Oh, in that case!” The leader of the minstrels started nervously. Collecting his assistants and tip-toeing down the garden, he took up his stand a few feet in Merolchazzar's rear, just as that much-enduring monarch, after twenty-five futile attempts, was once more addressing his stone.

Lyric writers in those days had not reached the supreme pitch of excellence which has been produced by modem musical comedy. The art was in its infancy then, and the best the minstrels could do was this—and they did it just as Merolchazzar, raising the hoe with painful care, reached the top of his swing and started down:

There were sixteen more verses, touching on their ruler's prowess in the realms of sport and war, but they were not destined to be sung on that circuit. King Merolchazzar jumped like a stung bullock, lifted his head, and missed the globe for the twenty-sixth time. He spun round on the minstrels, who were working pluckily through their song of praise:

“Get out!” roared the King.

“Your Majesty?” quavered the leader of the minstrels.

“Make a noise like an egg and beat it!” (Again one finds the chronicler's idiom impossible to reproduce in modem speech, and must be content with a literal
translation.) “By the bones of my ancestors, it's a little hard! By the beard of the sacred goat, it's tough! What in the name of Belus and Hec do you mean, you yowling misfits, by starting that sort of stuff when a man's swinging? I was just shaping to hit it right that time when you butted in, you⎯”