THE MATTER OF A MASHIE
Cutting had been taken into the firm, to the disgust of the junior partners. They agreed that he would never amount to much, being given over to sports and unprofitable ways of life.
It came about as a result of Cutting getting himself engaged. There was no excuse for his getting himself engaged. He was poor, and She was poor, and they both had rich friends and expensive ideas of life. But, as sometimes happens in such cases, Providence was fairly shocked into making unexpected arrangements.
Cutting’s uncle was the head of the firm. Said he: “I am going to give you six months’ trial. If you are not satisfactory you will have to get out. Good morning.”
The elder Cutting was a great lawyer. As a man he was a gruff-spoken old person, a worshiper of discipline, and continuously ashamed of his kind-hearted impulses. For forty-five years he had reached his office at nine o’clock in the morning, and had remained there till six at night. After that he went to the club and took his exercise at a whist-table. He considered the new out-of-door habits of professional men a scandal.
The junior partners had grown up in this school of thought, and as a matter of course they disapproved of Mr. Richard Cutting. It was unfortunate that Mr. Cutting cared little whether they disapproved or not. It was also imprudent; for the junior partners not unnaturally had it in mind to make his connection with the firm end with his six months’ probation.
The previous week a crisis had been reached. Cutting was away two entire days for a Long Island golf tournament. The junior partners conferred with the senior partner, and there was a very complete unpleasantness.
“I shall be forced to terminate our arrangement unless I hear better reports of you from my associates,” said the elder Cutting, in conclusion. He believed it his duty to say this; he was also honestly irritated.
The junior partners were gratified; they considered that they had settled the younger Cutting.
It was a muggy September morning, and the office force was hot and irritable. Something unusual and disturbing was in the air. The junior partners were consulting anxiously in the big general room where most of the clerks worked, and where the younger Cutting had his desk. The younger Cutting had not yet appeared. He came in as the clock was pointing to twelve minutes past ten. The junior partners glanced up at the clock, and went on again in animated undertones.
Cutting opened his desk, sat down, and unfolded his newspaper. He was a beautiful, clean-looking youth with an air of calm and deliberation. He regarded the junior partners with composure, and began to read.
“No,” Mr. Bruce was saying; “it is too late to do anything about it now. The case is on to-day’s calendar, and will be called the first thing after lunch. Our witnesses haven’t been notified or subpœnaed, and the law hasn’t been looked up.”
Smith shook his head sourly. “The old man is getting more absent-minded every year,” he said. “We can’t trust him to look after his business any longer. The managing clerk gave him a week’s notice, and told him about it again yesterday. You think there is no chance of getting more time?”
Bruce looked at his colleague with contempt. “You might,” he said sarcastically; “I can’t.”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for it,” said Smith. “I don’t want to tackle Heminway.”
Bruce laughed dryly. “The case has been put over for us I don’t know how many times already,” he said. “I don’t blame Heminway. He gave us ample notice that he couldn’t do it again.”
“That’s true,” said Smith.
Reed vs. Hawkins, the case in question, was a litigation of small financial importance, about which the senior Cutting had formed a novel and ingenious theory of defense. Instead of turning it over to the younger men, he kept it as a legal recreation. But he never got to it. It was his Carcassonne.
The day of trial would come, and he would smile blandly, and remark: “True! That has slipped my mind completely. Bruce, kindly send over to Heminway and ask him to put it over the term. I want to try that case myself. A very interesting point of law, Bruce, very interesting.”
The last time this had happened, the great Mr. Heminway observed that professional etiquette had been overtaxed, and that the Reed case must go on. People who knew Mr. Heminway did not waste their breath urging him to change his mind.
Messrs. Bruce and Smith considered the situation for a time in silence.
“Well,” said Smith, at last, “it’s bad for the firm to let a judgment be taken against us by default, but I don’t see anything else to do.”
At this moment the elder Cutting emerged from his private office with his hat on. Obviously he was in a hurry, but he paused as he came through.
“Have you attended to that Reed matter?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to do but let it go by default,” said Bruce.
Mr. Cutting stopped. “Get more time!” he said sharply.
“I can’t,” said Bruce. “Heminway has put his foot down. No one can make him change his mind now.”
“Stuff!” said Mr. Cutting. “Dick, go over and tell Heminway I want that Reed case put over the term.” And he went out.
Cutting finished the Gravesend races, laid the paper on his desk, scribbled a stipulation, and leisurely departed.
As the door closed, the junior partners looked at each other and smiled. Then said Smith, “I wish I could be there and see it.”
Bruce chuckled. He could imagine the scene tolerably well. “It will do him a lot of good,” he said. Then he added: “Don’t you think I had better write personally to Hawkins and explain matters? Of course we shall have to pay the costs.”
“Yes,” said Smith; “it’s better to explain at once. It’s a piece of bad business.”
The younger Cutting announced himself as Mr. Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce & Smith. That was a name which carried weight, and the office boy jumped up and looked at him curiously, for he took him for the Mr. Cutting. Then he led him down a private passage into the inner and holy place of the great Mr. Heminway.
“He’ll be back in a moment, sir,” said the boy. “He’s stepped into Mr. Anson’s office.” Mr. Anson was the junior partner.
The door into the waiting-room was ajar about an inch. Cutting peeped through it, and saw the people who wished to consult the great lawyer. He knew some of them. There was a banker who had recently thrown Wall street into confusion by buying two railroads in one day. There were others equally well known, and a woman whose income was a theme for the Sunday newspapers. Cutting watched them stewing and fidgeting with an unlovely satisfaction. It was unusual for such persons to wait for anybody.
He discovered that by walking briskly toward the door he could make them start and eye one another suspiciously, like men in a barber-shop at the call of “Next!” When this entertainment palled, he played with his hat. Still the great man did not come, and presently Cutting took a tour of inspection about the room. As he reached the lawyer’s desk, a golf-club caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a strangely weighted, mammoth mashie. He picked it up and swung it.
“What an extraordinary thing!” he muttered. “It weighs a pound.” He looked for the maker’s name, but the steel head had not been stamped.
He put it back on the desk-top, and was turning away when a row of books caught his eye. Half concealed by a pile of papers was the Badminton golf-book, an American book of rules, a score-book, a work entitled “Hints for Beginners,” and a pamphlet of “Golf Don’ts.” In the pigeonhole above lay several deeply scarred balls. Cutting laughed.
Just then he heard a step, and turned hastily around. A tall, imposing figure stood in the private doorway—a man of sixty, with a grim, clean-cut face.
“Well?” said Mr. Heminway, questioningly. He had a blunt, aggressive manner that made Cutting feel as if he were about to ask a great favor.
“Well?” he repeated. “I’m very busy. Please tell me what I can do for you.”
“My name’s Cutting,” the young man began—“Richard Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce & Smith.”
The great lawyer’s face softened, and a friendly light came into his eyes.
“I am glad to know you,” he said. “I knew your father. Your uncle and I were classmates. That was a long time ago. Are you the ‘R.’ Cutting who won the golf tournament down on Long Island last week?”
Cutting nodded.
“Well, well,” he exclaimed, “what a remarkable young man you must be! You see,” he added, “I’ve taken it up in a mild way myself. I’m afraid I shall never be able to get really interested, but it’s an excuse for keeping out of doors. I wish I had begun it at your age. Every afternoon on the links is so much health stored up for after life. Remember that!”
“They say it is wholesome,” said Cutting. “I gathered that you played. I saw a mashie on your desk. If you don’t think me rude, would you tell me where you got that thing? Or is it some sort of advertisement?”
Mr. Heminway looked surprised. “Advertisement?” he repeated. “Oh, no. That’s an idea of my own. You see, I need a heavy club to get distance. I had this made. It weighs fourteen ounces,” he went on. “What do you think of it?” He handed the thing over, and watched Cutting’s face.
“Do you want my honest opinion?” said Cutting.
The lawyer nodded.
“Then give it away, Mr. Heminway,” said the young man, respectfully, “or melt it into rails. You know you can’t play golf with that.”
The lawyer looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Why, distance isn’t a question of weight!” said Cutting. “It’s a fact that you get the best distance with the lightest clubs. Most professionals use ladies’ cleeks.”
The great lawyer looked thoughtful. “Is that so?” he asked. He was trying to account for this doctrine out of his experience. “It seems absurd,” he added.
“It’s so, though,” said Cutting. He heard the banker in the next room cough ominously. He took up his hat.
“Sit down, sit down!” exclaimed the lawyer. “I want to find out about this. I’ve been doing pretty well, except at the quarry-hole. That beats me. It’s only one hundred and twenty-five yards, so that I’m ashamed to use a driver; and with an iron I go in—I go in too often.”
“Everybody goes in at times,” Cutting remarked encouragingly; “it’s a sort of nerve hazard, you know.”
“I go in more than ‘at times,’” said the lawyer. “Last Saturday I lost sixteen balls there—and my self-respect. That’s too much, isn’t it?”
Cutting looked severely away at the portrait of Chief Justice Marshall. “Yes,” he said; “that is rather often.” The idea of Mr. Heminway profanely filling up the hill quarry with golf-balls appealed to him. “Still,” he went on, “you must pardon me, but I don’t think it could have been because your clubs were too light.”
“Well,” demanded the lawyer, “what do I do that’s wrong?”
Cutting looked him over critically. “Of course I’ve never seen you play,” he said. “I should judge, though, that you hit too hard, for one thing.”
“I suppose I do,” said the lawyer. “I get irritated. It appears so simple.”
“You see,” Cutting continued, “there are three things that you ought always to keep in mind—”
There was a rap on the door, and a clerk put his head in.
“Mr. Pendleton,” he began, mentioning the banker’s name.
The lawyer waved him out. “I’m busy,” he said; “tell him I’ll see him directly. Three things?” he repeated, turning to Cutting. “What are they?”
“In the first place,” said the young man, “when you swing, you must keep your arms away, and you mustn’t draw back with your body. Your head mustn’t move from side to side.”
The lawyer looked puzzled.
“Fancy a rod running down your head and spine into the ground. Now that makes your neck a sort of pivot to turn on when you swing. It’s like this.” He took the club and illustrated his idea. “A good way to practise,” he added, “is to stand with your back to the sun and watch your shadow. You can tell then if your head moves.”
“That’s ingenious,” observed Mr. Heminway. He looked about the room as if he expected to find the sun in one of the corners. The awnings were down, and only a subdued light filtered in.
“We might manage with an electric light,” he suggested. He turned on his desk-lamp, and arranged it on the top of the desk so that it cast its glare on the floor. Then he pulled down the window-shade.
“That’s good,” said Cutting, “only it’s rather weak. Watch the shadow of my head.” He began swinging with the mashie.
“I see,” said Mr. Heminway; “that’s very ingenious.”
“It insures an even swing,” said Cutting. “Now, the next thing,” he went on, “is to come back slowly and not too far. That’s the great trick about iron shots especially. You can hardly come back too slowly at first. All the golf-books will tell you that. It’s put very well in McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons.’”
Mr. Heminway looked over the books on his desk. “I know I bought McPherson,” he said. “I think I lent it to Anson. He’s insane about the game.” He rang his bell, and a boy appeared.
“Tell Mr. Anson that I want McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons,’” he said.
“You see,” Cutting went on, “you get just as much power and more accuracy.” He illustrated the half-swing several times. “A stroke like that, well carried through, will give you a hundred and twenty-five yards. I have a mashie with which I sometimes get a hundred and fifty.”
The lawyer stretched out his hand for the club. “That looks simple,” he said; “let me try it.”
Just then the boy came back with the book and a note. The note was from the banker. “He told me to be sure and have you read it right off,” said the boy.
“All right,” said Mr. Heminway. He put the note on his desk. “Tell him that I shall be at liberty in a minute.”
“I really ought to be going,” said Cutting; “you are very busy.”
“Sit down,” said the lawyer. “I want to get the hang of this swing. That was a pretty good one,” he said, after a pause. “Did I do anything wrong?”
“No,” said Cutting; “only you came back too fast, and pumped up and down instead of taking it smoothly; and you moved your head. Keep your eyes on your shadow as if it were the golf-ball. That’s better,” he added.
The next instant there was a heavy chug, and the fourteen-ounce mashie bit the nap off a patch of carpet.
There was a commotion in the anteroom, but Mr. Heminway seemed not to hear it.
“I was keeping my eyes on the shadow that time,” he said.
Cutting laughed sympathetically. “I know it’s pretty hard. You have to remember about seven different things at once. It’s bad for the carpet, though. You ought to have a door-mat. A door-mat is a good thing to practise on. The fiber gives very much the same surface as turf.”
Mr. Heminway rang his bell again. “Joseph,” he said, “bring the door-mat here. Tell Mr. Lansing to get a new one for the outer office, and leave this one.” The boy came back with the mat. The lawyer kicked it into position, and began again. “This is better,” he observed. “I’ll keep it here till I learn.”
“That’s the only way to do,” said Cutting. “Go in to win. If you practise every day with a proper club, you’ll get the hang of it in a month or two. But you must use a light club.”
Mr. Heminway stopped. “A month or two?” he asked.
“Why, yes,” said Cutting. “For a large and rather stout man, you are very active. I’ve no doubt, if you give your mind to it, you can show pretty decent form in a couple of months. You ought to practise with your coat off, though; it binds you.”
The lawyer’s mouth became grim, but he took off his coat. There was an office rule against shirt-sleeves.
The lawyer’s mouth became grim
Here the office boy appeared again, and the great man glared at him.
“Mrs. Carrington,” said Joseph. “She says she’s got to see you about important business, and she can’t wait, and she’s going to sail for Europe to-morrow morning.”
“Tell Mrs. Carrington,” said Mr. Heminway, “that I shall see her as soon as I am at leisure.”
The boy withdrew hastily.
The lawyer took his stance by the door-mat again, and began to swing.
Cutting now settled himself in a chair, and lighted a cigarette.
“That’s better,” he said presently, “much better. You’re getting the trick.”
Mr. Heminway stopped for a minute, and straightened up. He was beginning to puff. “I think I begin to see how that’s done,” he said. “It’s simple when you get the knack of it. Cutting, come down and stop next Sunday with me in the country, and we’ll go over the course. I sha’n’t be able to give you much of a game, but there are some fellows down there who can; and I want you to show me how to get over that quarry-hole.”
“I should like to very much,” said Cutting. He meant this. The girl who was going to be Mrs. Cutting was stopping at the other Heminways’, who had the place next.
“The last time I played that quarry-hole,” the lawyer went on, “I took twenty-seven for it. And it’s all in that swing,” he muttered. He crossed over to the rug, and went to work again. “Criticize me now,” he said. “How’s this?”
Cutting leaned back in his chair.
“Oh, you must carry it through better,” he said. “Let your left arm take it right out. You’re cramped. You’re gripping too tightly. Try it without gripping with your right hand at all. You’ll get the idea of the finish. That’s better. Now right through with it! Oh, Lord!” he gasped.
There was a crash of glass, then a great thump, and a hubbub of screams and masculine exclamations. The heavy club had slipped from the lawyer’s hand and had sailed through the glass door into the middle of the waiting-room.
There was a crash of glass
The great lawyer hurriedly put on his coat. “I suppose I’ll have to straighten things out in there,” he observed. “But that was the idea, wasn’t it—right out!” There was a twinkle in his eye.
He opened the door. In a circle around the fourteen-ounce mashie stood his clients.
“Oh, just a moment,” broke in Cutting. “Can’t that Reed case go over the term? My uncle wanted me to ask for a postponement.”
“Certainly,” said the lawyer. “Tell the managing clerk to sign the stipulation. I’ll meet you Saturday at the three-ten train.” Then he put on his cross-questioning expression. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said calmly, “whom have I the honor of seeing first?”
Who that person was Cutting never knew, because he at once slipped out through the private way, and got his paper signed. Then he went back to his office, crossed over to his desk, and took up the newspaper again. There were the scores of the medal play at Shinnecock, in which he was interested.
Presently Mr. Bruce happened out of his private room, and Mr. Smith coincidently happened out of his.
“By the way, Mr. Cutting,” said Bruce, amiably, “how about that Reed matter?”
“It’s put over the term,” said Cutting, without looking up. “Here’s the stipulation. Hello!” he added, half aloud, “here’s Broadhead winning at Newport, four up and three to play. That’s funny. Did you see that, Bruce? He’s been all off his form, too.”
“No,” said Mr. Bruce.
The junior partners retired with the stipulation, and were closeted together for a long time. It puzzled them. They were impressed, and to each other they admitted it.
Finally Mr. Smith rose and said that he had to go. “Perhaps we have made a mistake,” he observed. “There must be something to this boy. He got this.” He waved the stipulation.
“We had better give him more of a chance,” said Bruce.
And they did. Gradually they began to comprehend him, and then to like him.
As for Cutting, he unbent himself, and got interested in his work. At the end of the six months they spoke well of him, so that he continued on in the firm; and when he was married they sent him a very beautiful etching of “The Angelus.”
