The Unforgiving Offender

The grill-room of the Otranto Country Club was filled with the usual Saturday afternoon throng—the card players, the tennis players, the golf players, and those who chose to do nothing.

Around a large circular table in the centre of the room were gathered a crowd of the younger members, who had sufficient youth in them to ignore rheumatism and neuralgia and the other penalties bred by damp flannels and wet shoes. They had come in from court or course, and not stopping for a bath and a rub and fresh garments had plunked themselves down in vacant chairs, and joined in throwing once around for the drinks. In an hour or so they would get the belated hot shower and the change of clothes, and be none the worse for the delay. Happy youth!

A little way off, around another table similar in size, were those who dressed first and drank afterward. They were not so noisy—their spirits did not bubble forth. Other tables were scattered through the room for such as wished a quiet chat with a friend or two—or a game of cards; though there were not many who could play amid such confusion.

The ninth and eighteenth holes were directly in view from the south windows and a foursome was on the former green. A caddy came scurrying across toward the Club-house; a moment later one of the servants hurried out with a pitcher of water. He poured four glasses and offered them to the players. The last to be handed the tray was a tall, heavy, elderly man with a jowly face and coarse features.

"If you've all got as much as you want," he said, "I'll take the rest," and ignoring the glass he grasped the pitcher, and burying his beefy nose in its depth, drained it of the last drop.

"A-h!" he ended, wiping his expansive mouth with the back of his hand. "I have never got over my boyhood liking to drink out of the pitcher. It tastes different. Don't you think so?"

"Why not have a pitcher served at your table instead of a glass, Emerson?" one of the players asked.

"I'd like to but mother won't let me!" Emerson laughed. "She says it's not au fait, or savoir faire, or on dit, or something or other."

"It's not 'deshabille,' you mean?" some one suggested.

"Damn if I know what it is, but you understand!" Emerson laughed again. "My wife is a climber and she lugs me up with her, but I'm a powerful drag at times, I fear—especially in manners. However, I tell her that I put up the money and she and Marcia can supply the rest what's necessary."

They went down to the locker rooms, nodding to three men in the grill-room window as they passed.

"Poor old Emerson," said Pendleton, looking after them. "He is all right at heart but such a blundering bounder. Among the men he can get along, but the women are a bit trying to him, I fancy."

"The Emersons must have climbed over the bars while I was away—how did they arrange it?" asked Sheldon Burgoyne, who had been abroad for the last three years.

"Easy. They have a very good looking daughter who went to Dobbs Ferry—she got to know the nice girls there and made good with them. Her mother has the social bee and is a schemer. Emerson has the requisite collateral and—attention to this part, please—he owned a bit of ground which the Country Club simply had to have, and he consented to sell it—if, and when, we would elect him to membership. Naturally, we elected."