"I am not phoning Justin," he replied at last. "If you want to, Lowry, that is your affair."
Consequently, at Tryston, a caddie summoned Jay from the fairway because of a long distance call from Chicago. His father was on the wire, he supposed, as he went to the telephone, and he was rather glad of it. He hated the idea of telegraphing for money; abominated it. Better make a clean breast of the whole business by phone and put it off no longer, for Lida and he must be leaving. The Mettens were about Lida every minute they could manage it, and Lida was tiring of her game with them. Not merely a game she played; something else, too, but she had had enough of that. Better be off to-night.
"Hello, Jay; this is Bob Lowry," hailed the salesmanager's cheery voice, and congratulated him upon his marriage. "And great work with Phil Metten! In fact, wonderful! Keep him happy. . . . Anything I can do for you?"
Thus Jay obtained, without any embarrassment whatever, the difference between the amount he possessed and the sum he required to pay his hotel bill and his railroad fare home; and Lida's.
Home, he discovered, took an amazingly different aspect to a married man. The house on Astor Street, whatever had been its deficiencies, at least had been an establishment in which one could sleep, eat, have linen laundered and clothes pressed without any one presenting a bill. It was a place where you went when you had no money. Likely enough, its advantages and accommodations would be extended gratuitously, for a time at least,
