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162 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
Foster did as he was told, never suspecting that his leg (to say nothing about mine) was being pulled. "I've just found this new ball, 'Any," he said. "Is it worth a shilling to you?" I took the ball, examined it, and decided that it was worth all of that amount. Foster took his shilling and fell back to join Masters and Tom. A few holes later Harry Masters came to me with another new ball, said he had found it on the course, and asked me what I would give him for it. "The same as George got !" I replied, forking out another shilling and congratulating both silk-hatted gentlemen on their ball-finding proclivities. "In fact," I added, "I think I'll stop playing and have a look round myself for balls; the Formby golfers seem to lose a lot!" At this stage Tom, as he told me afterwards, was on the point of explaining the "joke" when another ball trickled between Foster's legs. It had been driven by one of the plus-2 men of the club playing a game behind us. Foster instantly stooped down, picked up the ball and promptly offered it to me for another shilling. As I had not seen the ball coming, being too intent on my own game, I took it from him and was examining it with a view to purchase when loud yells from the rear caused us to look round. One of the Formby members was waving his driver in the air and saying words which sounded to me tolerably like an outburst of general cursing. As I pocketed the "found" ball and was dipping into my trouser-pocket for still another shilling to pass over to Foster the player behind came dashing up with wild oaths directed not to any one of us but to, as he phrased it, "the whole damned thieving bunch of you!"
Tom, the scoundrel, turned away choking with laughter. Foster, rather a dignified person at all times, turned upon
the stranger with a speech beginning "How dare you ?"
But he got no further for the Formby member — one of the most fluent and original specialists in swearing I have come across in a long life-time — denounced us singly, and as %.