The Moon Maker

I

"Now," said Bentham T. Tassifer, with an air of defiance, "we’ll see!" He was a bandy-legged little man, whose abdominal structure suggested a concealed melon.

Red-faced and perspiring, he arose from where he had been teeing up his ball for the fifth hole, flourished his driver aggressively, and, adjusting his knobby calves at a carefully calculated angle, went through a variety of extraordinary contortions with his wrists and forearms. Outwardly, he was the personification of pugnacious assurance. He had every appearance of being absolutely certain of his ability to swat that small white sphere to a distance of not less than three hundred yards and plumb onto the next green. Inwardly, however, Bentham had no confidence in himself at all. He knew that the chances were just nineteen out of twenty that he would slice into the bushes at about sixty yards and lose a brand new "baby bramble."

But, as befitted a deputy assistant solicitor at the Department of Justice, he allowed no hint of nervousness to betray itself, looked sternly at Judson, his lank opponent, and remarked again, "Now we’ll see!"

Nobody but Mrs. Tassifer knew what a sucking dove Bentham really was in his inmost soul. The world at large regarded him as a rather terrible squatty person who had a chip on each shoulder, for he made almost as much noise insisting on his rights as a native Briton. In point of fact, he thought he looked like Stephen A. Douglas or, in lieu of that, like Robert G. Ingersoll possibly. But that was all on the exterior. And now, as he addressed the ball, he kept inwardly repeating to himself: "Eye on the ball - head steady - follow through. Eye on the ball -head steady - follow through." Then, summoning all his resources, he swung his driver over his shoulder and was about to bring it down with the impetus of a Travis, when he thought he saw a black gnat dancing in front of his eyes.

"Tush!” he exclaimed, waving with his left hand. "These flies!”

"Aren't any flies,” retorted his friend Judson, from the Department of Agriculture, "in October.”

"Well, I thought there was," said Bentham, dressing at the ball once more. "There it is again!” he added, suddenly striking at something. Then he fastened his eyes on the horizon. "You're right! It isn't here - it’s there! See it?” And he pointed out into the blue of space with his driver.

"Flying machine,” announced Judson. "Watch it go!” The black speck was coming swiftly toward them and growing larger every instant.

"It’s like a doughnut - round with a hole in the middle!” cried Bentham. "I believe that fellow intends to land here. What impudence!”

By this time, both of them could see plainly the details of the machine which, constructed apparently of polished steel, flashed dizzily in the sunlight as it shot over the golf-course. It was evidently a hollow cylinder shaped like an anchor-ring or life-preserver, about seventy-five feet in diameter, with a tripod superstructure carrying, at its apex, a thimble-shaped device,

the open mouth of which pointed downward through the middle of the machine. A faint yellow glare - a sort of luminous vapor -hovered below this gigantic car, which sailed through the air with a deep humming sound.

"It’s coming down!” shouted Bentham indignantly. "We’d better beat it! This is an outrage!”

From overhead came a series of crackling vibrations, accompanied by a muffled roar like escaping steam. The car had ceased to move forward and was slowly descending. Strange creakings and snappings echoed like rifle-shots all about them, and a Niagara of what looked like hot steam shot through with a pale-yellow, phosphorescent light, drove down through the cen-

ter of the ring and tore away the surface of the fair green, fill-ing the air with a geyser of earth and grass. The two men, al-most blinded by the rain of mud, sand, and small stones, ran like rabbits to the shelter of the nearest bunker.

"Outrageous! Inexcusable!" sputtered Mr. Tassifer, as he cowered on the other side of it. "Fellow must be simply mad! Private property!"

Then, after a couple of minutes, hearing no further sounds and the sand-storm having subsided, they raised their heads and peeked over the top of the bunker. Between the fourth and fifth holes, the turf on the fair green had been torn up in a circular patch of about a hundred feet in diameter, and in the shallow crater thus excavated, and surrounded by an irregular ring of divots, sand, and debris, rested a gigantic flying machine surmounted by a superstructure not unlike the fighting-mast of a battle-ship. The whole affair, embedded thus in the golf-course, had an air of permanency that irritated Mr. Tassifer, and, even as he gazed at the trespasser, a circular manhole opened in the side, a jointed steel ladder was lowered to the ground, and a short man in a strange kind of helmet climbed out and began to descend.

Then it was that Mr. Tassifer rose to the occasion.

"Here, you," he shouted, hurrying threateningly toward the newcomer; "this is private property! You can't land here! Take yourself off!"

The man from the machine leaped to earth and turned a circular glass face, like a small aquarium, to the enraged golfer. From outside, his countenance had a horrible grotesque appearance, like that of a man-eating shark. Lowering his head, he charged like an infuriated bull at Mr. Tassifer, who ignomin-iously took to his heels and did not look round until he had gained the shelter of the clubhouse piazza, Mr. Judson had arrived there before him.

"I’m going to telephone this minute and get a warrant for that fellow - trespass and assault - we'll see!” The little man was shaking with baffled rage and humiliated dignity. "Right in the middle of the fair green, too! How can we play that fifth hole, I’d like to know?”

"I say, play it as 'ground under repair,'" panted Mr. Judson, who was just getting his breath.

" 'Ground under repair!’ " echoed Mr. Tassifer scornfully. "There isn’t any ground under repair. It’s got to be played as 'a rub of the green!' ” He glared furiously at Judson.

"Ground under repair!” repeated the other stubbornly.

"Rub of the green!” shouted Mr. Tassifer,

A sound of heavy footfalls came from behind them, and they turned to see the man from the flying machine coming up the steps. He had taken off his helmet and looked very pale and tired and quite tame.

"Excuse me,” he said huskily. "Can I telephone to the ob-servatory from here? My name’s Hooker and we’ve just come down from Ungava - five hours. Simply had to land on your course - nowhere else! You couldn’t let me have a cigarette, could you?”