 Chapter 7 The Long Hole by P. G. Wodehouse The young man as he sat filling his pipe in the clubhouse smoking room was inclined to be bitter. If there's one thing that gives me a pain squarely in the center of the gizzard he burst out, breaking a silence that had lasted for some minutes, it's a golf lawyer. The odd to be allowed on the links. The oldest member, who had been meditatively putting himself outside a cup of tea and a slice of seed cake, raised his white eyebrows. The law, he said, is an honorable profession. Why should his practitioners be restrained from indulgence in the game of games? I don't mean actual lawyers, said the young man, his acerbity mellowing a trifle under the influence of tobacco. I mean the blighters whose best club is the book of rules. You know the sort of excretances. Every time you think you've won a hole they dig out rule 853 section 2 subsection forward to prove that you've disqualified yourself by having an ingrowing toenail. Well, take my case. The young man's voice was high and plaintive. I go out with that man hemmingway to play an ordinary friendly round, nothing depending on it except a measly ball, and on the 7th he pulls me up and claims the hole simply because I happen to drop my nidlick in the bunker. Oh, well, it ticks a tick and there's nothing more to say, I suppose. The sage shook his head. Rules are rules, my boy, and must be kept. It is odd that you should have brought up this subject for only a moment before you came in. I was thinking of a somewhat curious match, which ultimately turned upon a question of the rule book. It is true that, as far as the actual prize was concerned, it made little difference. But perhaps I'd better tell you the whole story from the beginning. The young man shifted uneasily in his chair. Well, you know, I've had a pretty rotten time this afternoon already. I will call my story, so the sage tranquilly, the long hole, for it involved the playing of what I am inclined to think must be the longest hole in the history of golf. In its beginnings, the story may remind you of one I once told you about Peter Willard and James Todd, but you will find that it develops in quite a different manner. Ralph Bingham, I have promised to go and see a man, but I will begin at the beginning, said the sage, and I see that you are all impatient to hear the full details. Ralph Bingham and Arthur Jukes, said the oldest member, had never been friends. The rivalry was too keen to admit of that. But it was not till a man to trivet came to stay here that a smoldering distaste for each other burst out into the flames of actual enmity. It is ever so. One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage which I am unable at the moment to remember, in which one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off admirably this age old situation. The gist of his remarks is that lovely woman rarely fails to start something. In the weeks that followed her arrival, Bingham in the same room with the two men was like dropping in on a reunion of Capulets and Montague. You see, Ralph and Arthur were so exactly equal in their skill on the links that life for them had for some time past resolved itself into a silent, bitter struggle in which first one and then the other gained some slight advantage. If Ralph won the May Medal by a stroke, Arthur would be one ahead in the June competition, only to be nosed out again in July. It was a state of affairs which, had they been men of a more generous stamp, would have bred a mutual respect, esteem, and even love. But I am sorry to say that apart from their gulf, which was in a class of its own as far as this neighborhood was concerned, Ralph Bingham and Arthur Jukes were a pretty sorry pair. And yet, Mark you, far from lacking in mere superficial good looks. They were handsome fellows, both of them, and well aware of the fact. And when Amanda Trivock came to stay, they simply straightened their ties, twirled their mustaches, and expected her to do the rest. But there they were disappointed. Perfectly friendly though she was to both of them, the love-light was conspicuously absent from her beautiful eyes. And it was not long before each had come independently to a solution of this mystery. It was plain to them that the whole trouble lay in the fact that each neutralized the other's attractions. Arthur felt that if he could only have a clear field all would be over except for the sending out of the wedding invitations. And Ralph was of the opinion that if he could just call on the girl one evening without finding the place all littered up with Arthur, his natural charms would swiftly bring home the bacon. And indeed it was true that they had no rivals except themselves. It happened at the moment that Woodhaven was very short of eligible bachelors. We marry young in this delightful spot, and all the likely men were already paired off. It seemed that if Amanda Trivock intended to get married she would have to select either Ralph Bingham or Arthur Jukes, a dreadful choice. It had not occurred to me at the outset that my position in the affair would be anything closer than that of a detached and mildly interested spectator. Yet it was to me that Ralph came in his hour of need. When I returned home one evening I found that my man had brought him in and laid him on the mat in my sitting room. I offered him a chair and a cigar, and he came to the point with commendable rapidity. "'Lay,' he said, directly he had lighted his cigar, "'is too small for Arthur Jukes and myself.' "'Ah, you've been talking it over and decided to move,' I said, delighted. "'I think you are perfectly right. Lay is overbuilt. Men like you and Jukes need a lot of space. Where do you think of going?' "'I'm not going.' "'But I thought you said, what I meant was that the time has come when one of us must leave. "'Oh, only one of you?' "'It was something, of course, but I confess I was disappointed, and I think my disappointment must have shown in my voice, for he looked at me surprised. "'Surely you wouldn't mind Jukes going,' he said. "'Why, certainly not. He really is going, is he?' The look of Saturday night determination came into Ralph's face. "'He is. He thinks he isn't, but he is.' I failed to understand him and said so. He looked cautiously about the room as if to reassure himself that he could not be overheard. I suppose you've noticed, he said, the disgusting way that man Jukes has been hanging round Miss Trivot, boring her to death. I have seen them together sometimes. "'I love a man to Trivot,' said Ralph. "'Poor girl,' I sighed. I beg your pardon. "'Poor girl,' I said, I mean to have Arthur Jukes hanging round her. "'That's just what I think,' said Ralph Bingham, and that's why we're going to play this match.' "'What match?' "'This match we've decided to play. I want you to act as one of the judges, to go along with Jukes and see that he doesn't play any of his tricks. You know what he is. And in a vital match like this, how much are you playing for? "'The whole world.'" I beg your pardon. "'The whole world,' it amounts to that. The loser is to leave lay for good, and the winner stays on and marries Amanda Trivot. We have arranged all the details. Rupert Bailey will accompany me, acting as the other judge. "'And you want me to go around with Jukes? Not round,' said Ralph Bingham, along. What is the distinction? We are not going to play around, only one hole. Sudden death, eh? Not so very sudden. It's a longish hole. We start on the first tee here and hole out in the town, in the doorway of the majestic hotel in Royal Square. The distance, I imagine, of about 16 miles." I was revolted. About that time, a perfect epidemic of freak matches had broken out in the club, and I had strongly opposed them from the start. George Willis had begun it by playing a metal round with a pro, George's first nine against the pro's complete 18. After that came the contest between Herbert Wigin and Montague Brown, the latter a 24-handicap man being entitled to shout, boo, three times during the round at moments selected by himself. There had been many more of these degrading travesties on the sacred game, and I had writhed to see them. Playing freak golf matches is, to my mind, like regging a great classical melody. But of the whole collection, this one, considering the sentimental interest and the magnitude of the stakes, seemed to me the most terrible. My face, I imagine, betrayed my disgust for being a matempted extenuation. It's the only way, he said. You know how jukes and I are on the links. We are as level as two men can be. This, of course, is due to his extraordinary luck. Everybody knows that he is the world's champion fluker. I, on the other hand, invariably have the worst luck. The consequence is that in an ordinary round it is always a toss-up which of us wins. The test we propose will eliminate luck. After 16 miles of give-and-take play, I am certain, that is to say, the better man is certain to be ahead. That is what I meant when I said that Arthur Jukes would shortly be leaving lay. Well, may I take it that you will consent to act as one of the judges? I considered. After all, the match was likely to be historic, and one always feels tempted to hand one's name down to posterity. Very well, I said. Excellent. You will have to keep a sharp eye on jukes, I need scarcely remind you. You will, of course, carry a book of the rules in your pocket and refer to them when you wish to refresh your memory. We start at daybreak for, if we put it off till later, the course at the other end might be somewhat congested when we reach it. We want to avoid publicity as far as possible. If I took a full iron and hit a policeman, it would excite a remark. It would. I can tell you the exact remark which it would excite. We will take bicycles with us to minimize the fatigue of covering the distance. Well, I am glad we have your cooperation at daybreak tomorrow in the first tea, and don't forget to bring your rule book. The atmosphere brooding over the first tea when I reached it on the following morning somewhat resembled that of a dueling ground in the days when these affairs were sealed with rapiers or pistols. Rupert Bailey, an old friend of mine, was the only cheerful member of the party. I am never at my best in the early morning, and the two rivals glared at each other with silent sneers. I had never as opposed till that moment that men ever really sneered at one another outside the movies, but these two were indisputably doing so. They were in the mood when men say, Pasha! They tossed for the honor, and Arthur Jukes, having won, drove off with a fine ball that landed well down the course. Ralph Bingham, having teed up, turned to Rupert Bailey. Go down on the fairway of the 17th, he said. I want you to mark my ball. Rupert stared. The 17th? I'm going to take that direction, said Ralph, pointing over the trees. But that will land your second or third shot in the lake. I have provided for that. I have a flat bottom boat moored close by the 16th green. I shall use a mashy nibblick and chip my ball aboard, row across to the other side, ship it ashore and carry on. I propose to go across country as far as Woodfield. I think it will save me a stroke or two. I gasped. I had never before realized the man's devilish cunning. His tactics gave him a flying start. Arthur, who had driven straight down the course, had as his objective the high road, which adjoins the waste ground beyond the first green. Once there, he would play the orthodox game by driving his ball along till he reached the bridge. While Arthur was winding along the high road, Ralph would have cut off practically two sides of a triangle. And it was hopeless for Arthur to imitate his enemy's tactics now. From where his ball lay, he would have to cross a wide tract of marsh in order to reach the 17th fairway in impossible feet. And even if it had been feasible, he had no boat to take him across the water. He uttered a violent protest. He was an unpleasant young man, almost, it seems absurd to say so, but almost as unpleasant as Ralph Bingham. Yet at the moment, I am bound to say I sympathized with him. What are you doing, he demanded. You can't play fast and loose with the rules like that. To what rule do you refer, said Ralph Coldly. Well, that bally boat of yours is a hazard, isn't it? And you can't row a hazard about all over the place. Why not? The simple question seemed to take Arthur Jukes aback. Why not, he repeated. Why not? Well, you can't, that's why. There's nothing in the rules, said Ralph Bingham, against moving a hazard. If a hazard can be moved without disturbing the ball, you are at liberty, I gather, to move it wherever you please. Besides, what is all this about moving hazards? I have a perfect right to go for a morning row, haven't I? If I were to ask my doctor, he would probably actually recommend it. I'm going to row my boat across the sound. If it happens to have my ball on board, that is not my affair. I shall not disturb my ball, and I shall play it from where it lies. Am I right in saying that the rules enact that the ball shall be played from where it lies? We admit it that it was. Very well, then, said Ralph Bingham, don't let us waste any more time. We will wait for you at Woodfield. He addressed his ball and drove a beauty over the trees. It flashed out of sight in the direction of the 17th tee. Arthur and I made our way down the hill to play our second. It is a curious trait of the human mind that, however little personal interest one may have in the result, it is impossible to prevent oneself from taking sides in any event of a competitive nature. I had embarked on this affair in a purely neutral spirit, not carrying which of the two one, and only sorry that both could not lose. Yet, as the morning were on, I found myself almost unconsciously becoming distinctly pro-Jukes. I did not like the man. I objected to his face, his manners, and the color of his tie. Yet, there was something in the dogged way in which he struggled against adversity which touched me and won my grudging support. Many men, I felt, having been so outmaneuvered at the start, would have given up the contest in despair. But Arthur Jukes, for all his defects, had the soul of a true golfer. He declined to give up. In grim silence, he hacked his ball through the rough till he reached the high road. And then, having played 27, set himself resolutely to propel it on its long journey. It was a lovely morning, and as I bicycled along, keeping a fatherly eye on Arthur's activities, I realized for the first time in my life the full meaning of that exquisite phrase of Coleridge. Clothing the palpable and familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn. For in the pollucid air, everything seemed weirdly beautiful, even Arthur Jukes' heather mixture knickerbockers of which hitherto I had never approved. The sun gleamed on their seat as he bent to make his shots in a cheerful and almost poetic way. The birds were singing gaily in the hedge-rose, and such was my uplifted state that I, too, burst into song until Arthur petulantly desired me to refrain, on the plea that, although he yielded to no man in his enjoyment of farmyard imitation in their proper place, I put him off his stroke. And so we passed through Bayside in silence and started to cover that long stretch of road which ends in the railway bridge and the gentle descent into Woodfield. Arthur was not doing badly. He was at least keeping them straight, and in the circumstances, straightness was to be preferred to distance. Soon after leaving Little Hadley, he had become ambitious and had used his brassy with disastrous results, slicing his fifty-third into the rough on the right of the road. It had taken him ten with a niblet to get back to the car tracks, and this had taught him prudence. He was now using his putter for every shot, and except when he got trapped in the cross-lines at the top of the hill just before reaching Bayside, he had been in no serious difficulties. He was playing a nice easy game, getting the full face of the putter onto each shot. At the top of the slope that drops down into Woodfield High Street, he paused. I think I might try my brassy again here, he said. I have a nice lie. Is it wise, I said? He looked down the hill. What I was thinking, he said, was that with it I might wing that man Bingham. I see he is standing right out in the middle of the fairway. I followed his gaze. It was perfectly true. Ralph Bingham was leaning on his bicycle in the roadway smoking a cigarette. Even at this distance, one could detect the man's disgustingly complacent expression. Rupert Bailey was sitting with his back against the door of the Woodfield garage, looking rather used up. He was a man who liked to keep himself clean and tidy, and it was plain that the cross-country trip had done him no good. He seemed to be scraping mud off his face. I learned later that he had had the misfortune to fall into a ditch just beyond Bayside. No, said Arthur, on second thoughts, the safe game is the one to play. I'll stick to the putter. We dropped down the hill and presently came up with the opposition. I had not been mistaken in thinking that Ralph Bingham looked complacent. The man was smirking. Playing 396, he said, as we drew near. How are you? I consulted my scorecard. We have played a snappy 711, I said. Ralph exalted openly. Rupert Bailey made no comment. He was too busy with the alluvial deposits on his person. Perhaps you would like to give up the match, said Ralph to Arthur. Sa, said Arthur. Might just as well. Pa, said Arthur. You can't win now. Pasha, said Arthur. I am aware that Arthur's dialogue might have been brighter, but he had been through a trying time. Rupert Bailey sidled up to me. I'm going home, he said. In nonsense, I replied, you are in an official capacity. You must stick to your post. Besides, what could be nicer than a pleasant morning ramble? Pleasant morning ramble my number nine foot, he replied, peevishly. I want to get back to civilization and set an excavating party with pickaxes to work on me. You take too gloomy a view of the matter. You are a little dusty, nothing more. And it's not only the being buried alive that I mind, I cannot stick Ralph Bingham much longer. Have I found him trying? Trying? Why, after I had fallen into that ditch and was coming up for the third time, all the man did was simply to call to me to admire an infernal iron shot he had just made. No sympathy, mind you, wrapped up in himself. Why don't you make your man give up the match? He can't win. I refuse to admit it. Much may happen between here and Royal Square. I have seldom known a prophecy more swiftly fulfilled. At this moment the doors of the Woodfield Garage opened and a small car rolled out with a grimy young man and a sweater at the wheel. He brought the machine out into the road and alighted and went back into the garage where we heard him shouting unintelligibly to someone in the rear premises. The car remained puffing and panting against the curb. Engaged in conversation with the Rupert Bailey, I was paying little attention to this evidence of an awaking world when suddenly I heard a hoarse triumphant call from Arthur Jukes in turn. I perceived his ball dropping neatly into the car's interior. Arthur himself, brandishing a niblick, was dancing about in the fairway. Now what about your moving hazards, he cried. At this moment the man in the sweater returned, carrying a spanner. Arthur Jukes sprained towards him. I thought he was going to be a good man. I thought he was going to be a good man. I thought he was going to be a good man. I thought he was going to be a good man. I thought he was going to be a good man. I sprained towards him. I'll give you five pounds to drive me to Royal Square, he said. I do not know what the squetter clad young man's engagements for the morning had been originally, but nothing could have been more obliging than the ready way in which he consented to revise them at a moment's notice. I dare say you have noticed that the sturdy peasantry of our beloved land respond to an offer of five pounds as to a bugle call. You're on, said the youth. Good, said Arthur Jukes. You think you're darn clever, said Ralph Bingham. I know it, said Arthur. Well then, said Ralph, perhaps you will tell us how you propose to get the ball out of the car when you reach Royal Square. Certainly, replied Arthur, you will observe on the side of the vehicle a convenient handle which, when turned, opens the door. The door thus opened, I shall chip my ball out. I see, said Ralph. Yes, I never thought of that. There was something in the way the man spoke that I did not like. His mildness seemed to be suspicious. He had the air of a man who has something up his sleeve. I was still musing on this when Arthur called to me impatiently to get in. I did so, and we drove off. Arthur was in great spirits. He had ascertained from the young man at the wheel that there was no chance of the opposition being able to hire another car at the garage. This machine was his own property, and the only other one at present in the shop was suffering from complicated trouble of the oiling system but would not be able to be moved for at least another day. I, however, shook my head when he pointed out the advantages of his position. I was still wondering about Ralph. I don't like it, I said. Don't like what? Ralph Bingham's manner. Of course not, said Arthur. Nobody does. There have been complaints on all sides. I mean, when you told him how you intended to get the ball out of the car. What was the matter with him? He was too… ha. What do you mean he was too… ha? I have it. What? I see the trap he was laying for you. It has just dawned on me. No wonder he didn't object to your opening the door and chipping the ball out. By doing so, you would forfeit the match. Nonsense, why? Because, I said, it is against the rules to tamper with a hazard. If you had got into a sand bunker, would you smooth away the sand? If you had put your shot under a tree, could your caddy hold up the branches to give you a clear shot? Obviously, you would disqualify yourself if you touched that door. Arthur's jaw dropped. What? Then how the deuce am I to get it out? That, I said gravely, is a question between you and your maker. It was here that Arthur Jukes forfeited the sympathy which I had begun to feel for him. A crafty sinister look came into his eyes. Listen, he said. It'll take them about an hour to catch up with us. Suppose, during that time, that door happened to open accidentally, as it were, and close again. You wouldn't think it necessary to mention the fact, eh? You would be a good fellow and keep your mouth shut, yes? You might even see your way to go so far as to back me up in a statement to the effect that I hooked it out with my—I was revolted. I am a golfer, I said coldly, and I obey the rules. Yes, but those rules were drawn up by— I bared my head reverently— by the committee of the Royal and Ancient at St. Andrews. I have always respected them, and I shall not deviate on this occasion from the policy of a lifetime. Arthur Jukes relapsed into a moody silence. He broke at once, crossing the West Street Bridge, to observe that he would like to know, if I called myself a friend of his, the question which I was able to answer with a wholehearted negative. After that, he did not speak till the car drew up in front of the majestic hotel in Royal Square. Early as the hour was, a certain bustle and animation already prevailed in that center of the city, and the spectacle of a man in a golf coat and plus four knickerbockers hacking with a nibble at the floor of a car was not long in collecting a crowd of some dimensions. Three messenger boys, four typists, and a gentleman in full evening dress who obviously possessed or was friendly with someone who possessed a large seller formed a nucleus of it. And they were joined about the time when Arthur addressed the ball in order to play his 915th by six newsboys, eleven charlades and perhaps a dozen assorted loafers, all speculating with a live list interest as to which particular asylum had had the honor of sheltering Arthur before he had contrived to elude the vigilance of his custodians. Arthur had prepared for some such contingency. He suspended his activities with a nibble and drew from his pocket a large poster which he proceeded to hang over the side of the car. It read, Come to Maclurgen, MacDonald, 18 West Street for all golfing supplies. His knowledge of psychology had not misled him. Directly they gathered that he was advertising something, the crowd declined to look at it, they melted away, and Arthur returned to his work in solitude. He was taking a well earned rest after playing his 1105th. A nice nibble shot with lots of wrist behind it went out of Bridal Street, there trickled a weary looking golf ball, followed in the order named by Ralph Bingham, resolute but going a little trifle at the knees, and Rupert Bailey on a bicycle. The latter, on whose face and limbs the mud had dried, made an arresting spectacle. What are you playing, I inquired. 1100 said Rupert, we got into a casual dog. A casual dog? Yes, just before the bridge. We were coming along nicely when a stray dog grabbed our 998th and took it nearly back to Woodfield, and we had to start all over again. How are you getting on? We have just played our 1105th, a nice even game. I looked at Ralph's ball, which was lying close to the curb. You are farther from the hole, I think. You're shot, Bingham. Rupert Bailey suggested breakfast. He was a man who was altogether too fond of creature comforts. He had not the true golfing spirit. Breakfast, I exclaimed. Breakfast, said Rupert firmly. If you don't know what it is, I can teach you in half a minute. You play it with a pot of coffee, a knife and fork, and about a hundred weight of scrambled eggs. Try it. It's a pastime that grows on you. I was surprised when Ralph Bingham supported the suggestion. He was so near holding out that I should have supposed that nothing would have kept him from finishing the match, but he agreed heartily. Breakfast, he said, is an excellent idea. You go along in. I'll follow him in a moment. I want to buy a paper. We went into the hotel, and a few minutes later he joined us. Now that we were actually at the table, I confess that the idea of breakfast was by no means repugnant to me. The keen air and the exercise had given me an appetite, and it was some little time before I was able to assure the waiter definitely that he could cease bringing orders of scrambled eggs. The others, having finished also, I suggested a move. I was anxious to get the match over and be free to go home. We filed out of the hotel, Arthur Duke's leading. When I had passed through the swing doors, I found him gazing perplexedly up and down the street. What is the matter, I asked? It's gone. What has gone? The car. Oh, the car, said Ralph Bingham. That's all right. Didn't I tell you about that? I bought it just now and engaged the driver as my chauffeur. I have been meaning to buy a car for a long time. A man ought to have a car. Where is it? said Arthur Blankley. The man seemed dazed. I couldn't tell you to a mile or two, replied Ralph. I told the man to drive to Glasgow. Why? Had you any message for him? But my ball was inside it. Now that, said Ralph, is really unfortunate. Do you mean to tell me you hadn't managed to get it out yet? Yes, that is a little awkward for you. I'm afraid it means you lose the match. Lose the match? Certainly. The rules are perfectly definite on that point. A period of five minutes is allowed for each stroke. The player who fails to make his stroke within that time loses the whole. Unfortunate, but there it is. Arthur Jukes sank down on the path and buried his face in his hands. He had the appearance of a broken man. Once more I am bound to say I felt a certain pity for him. He had certainly struggled gamely, and it was hard to be beaten like this on the post. Playing eleven hundred and one, said Ralph Bingham, in his odiously self-satisfied voice, as he addressed his ball. He laughed jovially. A messenger boy had paused close by and was watching the proceedings gravely. Ralph Bingham padded him on the head. Well, sunny, he said, what club would you use here? I claimed the match, cried Arthur Jukes, bringing up. Ralph Bingham regarded him coldly. I beg your pardon. I claimed the match, repeated Arthur Jukes. The rules say that a player who asks advice from any person other than his caddy shall lose the whole. This is absurd, said Ralph, but I noticed that he had turned pale. I appealed to the judges. We sustained the appeal, I said, after a brief consultation with Rupert Bailey. The rule is perfectly clear. But you had lost the match already, but not playing within five minutes, said Ralph vehemently. It was not my turn to play. You were farther from the pin. Well, play now. Go on. Let's see you make your shot. There is no necessity, said Arthur frigidly. Why should I play when you have already disqualified yourself? I claim a draw. I deny the claim. I appeal to the judges. Very well, we will leave it to the judges. I consulted with Rupert Bailey. It seemed to me that Arthur Jukes was entitled to the verdict. Rupert, who, though an amiable and delightful companion, had always been one of nature's fat heads, could not see it. We had to go back to our principles and announce that we had been unable to agree. This is ridiculous, said Ralph Bingham. We ought to have a third judge. At that moment, who should come out of the hotel but a man to trivet? A veritable goddess from the machine. It seems to me, I said, that you would both be well advised to leave the decision to mis-trivet. You could have no better referee. I'm game, said Arthur Jukes. Suits me, said Ralph Bingham. Why, whatever are you all doing here with your golf clubs? asked the girl, wonderingly. These two gentlemen, I explained, have been playing a match, and a point has arisen on which the judges do not find themselves in agreement. We need an unbiased, outside opinion, and we should like to put it up to you. The facts are as follows. Amanda Trivet listened attentively, but when I had finished, she shook her head. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the game to be able to decide a question like that, she said. Then we must consult St. Andrews, said Rupert Bailey. I'll tell you who might know, said Amanda Trivet after a moment's thought. Who is that, I asked. My fiance. He has just come back from a golfing holiday. That's why I'm in town this morning. I've been to meet him. He is very good at golf. He won a medal in Little Mudbury in the wool the day before he left. There was a tense silence. I had the delicacy not to look at Ralph or Arthur. But then the silence was broken by a sharp crack. Ralph Bingham had broken his mashy niblick across his knee. From the direction where Arthur Jukes was standing there came a muffled gulp. Shall I ask him? said Amanda Trivet. Don't bother, said Ralph Bingham. It doesn't matter, said Arthur Jukes. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Clicking of Cuthbert This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Wolfe Chapter 8 The Heel of Achilles by P. G. Woodhouse On the young man's face, as he sat sipping his ginger ale in the clubhouse smoking room, there was a look of disillusionment. Never again, he said. The oldest member glanced up from his paper. You are proposing to give up golf once more, he queried. Not golf, betting on golf. The young man frowned. I've just been let down badly. Wouldn't you have thought I had a good thing laying seven to one on MacTavish against Robinson? Undoubtedly, said the sage, the odds, indeed generous as they are, scarcely indicate the former superiority. Do you mean to tell me that the thing came unstitched? Robinson won a walk after being three down at the turn. Strange, what happened? Why, they looked in at the bar to have a refresher before starting for the tenth, said the young man, his voice quivering, and MacTavish suddenly discovered that there was a hole in his trouser pocket and sixpence had dropped out. He worried so frightfully about it that on the second nine he couldn't do a thing right, went completely off his game and didn't win a hole. The sage shook his head gravely. If this is really going to be a lesson to you, my boy, never to bet on the result of a golf match, it will be a blessing in disguise. There is no such thing as a certainty in golf. I wonder if I ever told you a rather curious episode in the career of Vincent Joppe. The Vincent Joppe? The American multi-millionaire? The same. You never knew we once came within an ace of winning the American amateur championship, did you? I never heard of his playing golf. He played for one season. After that he gave it up and has not touched a club since. Ring the bell and get me a small lime juice, and I will tell you all. It was long before your time, said the oldest member, that the events which I am about to relate took place. I had just come down from Cambridge, and was feeling particularly pleased with myself because I had secured the job of private and confidential secretary to Vincent Joppe, then a man in the early 30s, busy in laying the foundations of his present remarkable fortune. He engaged me, and took me with him to Chicago. Joppe was, I think, the most extraordinary personality I have encountered in a long and many-sided life. He was admirably equipped for success and finance, having the steely eye and square jaw without which it is hopeless for a man to enter that line of business. He possessed also an overwhelming confidence in himself, and the ability to switch a cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other without wiggling his ears, which, as you know, is the stamp of the true monarch of the money market. He was the nearest approach to the financier on the films, the fellow who makes his jaw muscles jump when he is telephoning, that I have ever seen. Like all successful men he was a man of method. He kept a pad on his desk, on which he would scribble down his appointments, and it was my duty, on entering the office each morning, to take this pad and type its contents neatly in a loose-leaved ledger. Usually, of course, these entries referred to business appointments and deals which he was contemplating, but one day I was interested to note, against the date May 3, the entry proposed to Amelia. I was interested, as I say, but not surprised, though a man of steel and iron, there was nothing of the celibate about Vincent Joppe. He was one of those men who marry early and often. On three separate occasions, before I joined his service, he had jumped off the dock to scramble back to shore again later by means of the divorce-court life-belt. Scattered here and there about the country, there were three ex-Mrs. Joppes drawing their monthly envelope, and now it seemed he contemplated the addition of a fourth to the platoon. I was not surprised, I say, at this resolve of his. What did seem a little remarkable to me was the thorough weighing which he had thought the thing out. This iron-willed man wrecked nothing of possible obstacles. Under the date of June 1 was the entry Mary Amelia. While in March of the following year, he had arranged to have his first-born christened Thomas Reginald. Later on the short-coating of Thomas Reginald was arranged for, and there was a note about sending him to school. Many hard things have been said of Vincent Joppe, but nobody has ever accused him of not being a man who looked ahead. On the morning of May 4, Joppe came into the office, looking, I fancied, a little thoughtful. He sat for some moment, staring before him with his brow a trifle farrowed. Then he seemed to come to himself. He wrapped his desk. Hi, you! he said. It was thus that he habitually addressed me. Mr. Joppe, I replied. What's golf? I had at that time just succeeded in getting my handicap down into single figures, and I welcomed the opportunity of dilating on the noblest of pastimes, but I had barely begun my eulogy when he stopped me. It's a game, is it? I suppose you could call it that, I said, but it is an off-hand way of describing the holiest. How do you play it? Pretty well, I said. At the beginning of the season I didn't seem able to keep him straight at all, but lately I've been doing fine, getting better every day, whether it was that I was moving my head or gripping too tightly with the right hand. Keep the reminiscences for your grandchildren during the long winter evenings. He interrupted abruptly, as was his habit. What I want to know is what a fellow does when he plays golf. Tell me in as few words as you can, just what it's all about. You hit a ball with a stick till it falls into a hole. Easy! he snapped. Take dictation. I produced my pad. May the fifth take up golf. What's an amateur championship? It is the annual competition to decide which is the best player among the amateurs. There is also a professional championship and an open event. Oh, there are golf professionals, are there? What do they do? And they teach golf. Which is the best of them? Sandy McHoots won both British and American open events last year. Wire him to come here at once. But McHoots is an involocty in Scotland. Never mind, get him. Tell him to name his own terms. When is the amateur championship? I think it is on September the 12th this year. All right, take dictation. September 12th win amateur championship. I stared at him in amazement, but he was not looking at me. Got that? He said. September 3rd. Oh, I was forgetting. At September 12th corner wheat. September 13th, marry Amelia. Marry Amelia. I echoed, mosning my pencil. Where do you play this? What's its name? Golf. And there are clubs all over the country. I belong to the Wissahiki Glen. Is that a good place? Very good. Arrange today for my becoming a member. Sandy McHoots arrived in due course, and was shown into the private office. Mr. McHoots, said the Vincent drop. Hmm, said the open champion. I've sent for you, Mr. McHoots, because I hear that you're the greatest living exponent of this game of golf. Hi, said the champion cordially. I am that. I wish you to teach me the game. I'm already somewhat behind schedule owing to the delay incident upon your long journey, so let us start at once. Name a few of the most important points in connection with the game. My secretary will take notes of them, and I will memorize them. In this way, we shall save time. Now, what is the most important thing to remember when playing golf? Keep your head still. A simple task. Nurse, as simple as it seems. Nonsense. Said the Vincent drop, curtling. If I decide to keep my head still, I shall keep it still. What next? Keep your E on the ball. It shall be a ten or two. And the next? Dinner press. I won't. And to resume, Mr. McCooks ran through a dozen of the basic rules, and I took them down in shorthand. Vincent drop-studied the list. Very good. Easier than I'd supposed. On the first day at Wisa Hickey Glen, at eleven sharp tomorrow, Mr. McCooks. Hi, you. Sir, I said. Go out and buy me a set of clubs, a red jacket, a cloth cap, a pair of spiked shoes, and a ball. A one-ball? Certainly. What need is there of more? It sometimes happens, I explained, that a player who was learning the game fails to hit his ball straight, and then he often loses it in the rough at the side of the fairway. Absurd. Said Vincent drop. If I set out to drive my ball straight, I shall drive it straight. A good morning, Mr. McCooks. You will excuse me now. I am busy cornering woven textiles. Golf is, in its essence, a simple game. You laugh in a sharp, bitter barking manner when I say this, but nevertheless it is true. Where the average man goes wrong is in making the game difficult for himself. Observe the non-player. The man walks round with you over the sake of the fresh air. He will haul out with a single, carefree flick of his umbrella, the twenty-foot putt over which you would ponder and hesitate for a full minute before sending it right off the line. Put a driver in his hands, and he pastes the ball into the next county without a thought. It is only when he takes to the game in earnest that he becomes self-conscious and anxious and tops his shots even as you and I. A man who could retain through his golfing career the almost scornful confidence of the non-player would be unbeatable. Unfortunately, such an attitude of mind is beyond the scope of human nature. It was not, however, beyond the scope of Vincent Jop, the Superman. Vincent Jop was, I am inclined to think, the only golfer who ever approached the game in a spirit of pure reason. I have read of men who, never having swum in their lives, studied textbook on their way down to the swimming-bath, mastered its contents, and dived in and won the big race. In just such a spirit did Vincent Jop start to play golf. He committed McHoot's hints to memory, and then went out on the links and put them into practice. He came to the tee with a clear picture in his mind of what he had to do, and he did it. He was not intimidated, like the average novice by the thought that if he pulled in his hands he would slice. Or if he gripped too tightly with the right he would pull. Pulling in the hands was an error, so he did not pull in his hands. Gripping too tightly was a defect, so he did not grip too tightly. With that weird concentration which had served him so well in business, he did precisely what he had set out to do, no less and no more. Golf with Vincent Jop was an exact science. The annals of the game are studded with the names of those who have made rapid progress in their first season. Colonel Quill, we read in our Varden, took up golf at the age of 56, and by devising an ingenious machine consisting of a fishing line and a sawn-down bed-post, was unable to keep his head so still that he became a scratch player before the end of the year. But no one, I imagine except Vincent Jop, has ever achieved scratch on his first morning on the links. The main difference, we are told, between the amateur and the professional golfer is the fact that the latter is always aiming at the pin, while the former has in his mind a vague picture of getting somewhere reasonably near it. Vincent Jop invariably went for the pin. He tried to haul out from anywhere inside 220 yards. The only occasion on which I ever heard him express any chagrin or disappointment was during the afternoon round on his first day out, when, from the tee on the 280-yard seventh, he laid his ball within six inches of the hole. A marvellous shot, I cried, genuinely stirred. Too much to the right, said Vincent Jop frowning. He went on from triumph to triumph. He won the monthly medal in May, June, July, August and September. Towards the end of May was heard to complain that Whistle-hickey Glenn was not a sporting course. The Greens' committee sat up night after night, trying to adjust his handicap so as to give other members an outside chance against him. The golf experts of the Daily Papers wrote columns about his play, and it was pretty generally considered throughout the country that it would be a pure formality for anyone else to enter against him in the amateur championship, an opinion which was born out when he got through into the final without losing a hole. A safe man to have betted on, you would have said. But mark the sequel. The American amateur championship was held that year in Detroit. I had accompanied my employer there. For, though engaged on this nerve-wearing contest, he refused to allow his business to be interfered with. As he had indicated in his schedule, he was busy at the time cornering wheat, and it was my task to combine the duties of Caddy and Secretary. Each day I accompanied him round the links with my notebook and his bag of clubs, and the progress of his various matches was somewhat complicated by the arrival of a stream of telegraph boys bearing important messages. He would read these between the strokes and dictate replies to me, never, however, taking more than the five minutes allowed by the rules for an interval between strokes. I am inclined to think that it was this that put the finishing touch on his opponent's discomforture. It is not soothing for a nervous man to have the game hung up on the green while his adversary dictates to his Caddy a letter beginning yours of the eleventh instant I received and contents noted, in reply would state, This sort of thing puts a man off his game. I was resting in the lobby of our hotel after a strenuous day's work when I found that I was being paged. I answered the summons, and was informed that a lady wished to see me. Her card bore the name Miss Amelia Meridew. Amelia, the name seemed familiar. Then I remembered, Amelia was the name of the girl Vincent Jopp intended to marry the fourth of the long line of Mrs. Jopps. I hurried to present myself and found a tall, slim girl who was plainly laboring under a considerable agitation. I Miss Meridew, I said. Yes, she murmured. My name will be strange to you. Am I right, I queried, insupposing that you are the lady to whom Mr. Jopp— I am, I am, she replied, and oh, what shall I do? Kindly give me particulars, I said, taking out my pad from force of habit. She hesitated a moment as if afraid to speak. You are caddying from Mr. Jopp in the final to-morrow? She said at last. I am. Then could you, would you mind, would it be giving you too much trouble if I asked you to shout boo at him when he's making a stroke if he looks like winning? I was perplexed. I don't understand. I see that I must tell you all. I'm sure you will treat what I say as absolutely confidential. Certain name? I am provisionally engaged to Mr. Jopp. Provisionally? She gulped. Let me tell you my story. Mr. Jopp asked me to marry him, and I would rather do anything on earth than marry him. But how could I say no with those awful eyes of his boring me through? I knew that if I said no, he would argue me out of it in two minutes. I had an idea. I gathered that he had never played golf, so I told him that I would marry him if he won the amateur championship this year. And now I find that he's been a golfer all along, and what's more, a plus man. It isn't fair. He was not a golfer when you made that condition. I said he took up the game on the following day. Impossible! How could he have become as good as he is in this short time? Because he is Vincent Jopp. In his lexagon there is no such word as impossible. She shuddered. What a man. But I can't marry him. She cried. I want to marry somebody else. Oh, won't you help me do shout boo at him when he's starting his downswing? I shook my head. It would take more than a single boo to put Vincent Jopp off a stroke. But won't you try it? I cannot. My duty is to my employer. Oh, do! No, no. Duty is duty and paramount with me, besides I ever bet on him to win. The stricken girl uttered a faint moan and tottered away. I was in our suite shortly after dinner that night, going over some of the notes I'd made that day when the telephone rang. Jopp was out at the time, taking a short stroll with his after-dinner cigar. I unhooked the receiver, and a female voice spoke. Is that Mr. Jopp? Mr. Jopp's secretary is speaking. Mr. Jopp is out. Oh, it's nothing important. Will you say that Mrs. Luella main-price Jopp call him to wish him luck? I shall be in the course tomorrow to see him win the final. I return to my notes. Soon afterwards the telephone rang again. Vincent dear! Mr. Jopp's secretary is speaking. Oh, will you say that Mrs. Jane Duke's job call up to wish him luck? I shall be there tomorrow to see him play. I resumed my work. I had hardly started when the telephone rang for the third time. Mr. Jopp? Mr. Jopp's secretary is speaking. This is Mrs. Agnes Parsons job. I just call up to wish him luck. I shall be looking on to-morrow. I shifted my work nearer to the telephone table, so as to be ready for the next call. I had heard that Vincent Jopp had only been married three times, but you never knew. Presently Jopp came in. Anybody called up? He asked. Nobody on business, an assortment of your wives were on the wire wishing you luck, and they asked me to say that there will be on the course tomorrow. For a moment it seemed to me that the man's iron repose was shaken. Luella? Me asked. She was the first. Jane and Jane. An Agnes? Agnes, I said, is right. Hmm! said Vincent Jopp. And for the first time, since I had known him, I thought that he was ill at ease. The day of the final dawned bright and clear. At least I was not awake at the time to see, but I suppose it did, for at nine o'clock when I came down to breakfast, the sun was shining brightly. The first eighteen holes were to be played before lunch, starting at eleven. Until twenty minutes before the hour, Vincent Jopp kept me busy taking dictation, partly on matters connected with his wheat deal, and partly on assigned article dealing with the final, entitled How I Won. At eleven sharp we were out on the first tee. Jopp's opponent was a nice-looking young man, but obviously nervous. He giggled in a distraught sort of way as he shook hands with my employer. Well made the best man win, he said. I've arranged to do so, replied Jopp curtly, and started to address his ball. There was a large crowd at the tee, and as Jopp started his downswing, from somewhere on the outskirts of this crowd, there came suddenly a musical boo. It rang out in the clear morning air like a bugle. I had been right in my estimate of Vincent Jopp, his forceful stroke never wavered. The head of his club struck the ball, dispatching it a good two hundred yards down the middle of the fairway. As we left the tee, I saw Amelia Meridew being led away with bowed head by two members of the Greens Committee. Poor girl, my heart bled for her, and yet, after all, fate had been kind in removing her from the scene, even in custody, for she could hardly have borne to watch the proceedings. Vincent Jopp made rings round his antagonist. Whole after whole he won in his remorseless machine-like way, until, when lunchtime came at the end of the eighteenth, he was ten up. All the other holes had been halved. It was after lunch, as we made our way to the first tee, that the advance guard of the Mrs. Jopps appeared in the person of Luella Mainprice Jopp, a kittenish little woman with blond hair and a picking-y's dog. I remembered reading in the papers that she had divorced my employer for persistent and aggravated mental cruelty, calling witnesses to bear out her statement, that he had said he did not like her in pink, and that on two separate occasions had insisted on her dog eating the leg of a chicken instead of the breast. But time, the great healer seemed to have removed all bitterness, and she greeted him affectionately. Wasm's going to win great big championship against nasty, rough, strong man, she said. Search, said Vincent Jopp, is my intention. It was kind of Luella to trouble to come and watch me. I wonder if you know Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp. He said, courteously, indicating a kind-looking motherly woman who had just come up. How are you, Agnes? If you had asked me that question this morning, Vincent, replied Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp, I should have been obliged to say that I felt far from well. I had an odd throbbing feeling in the left elbow, and I am sure my temperature was above the normal. But this afternoon I'm a little better. How are you, Vincent? Although she had, as I recall from the reports of the case, been compelled some years earlier to request the court to sever her marital relations with Vincent Jopp on the ground of calculated and inhuman brutality, in that he had callously refused, in spite of her pleadings, to take old Dr. Bennet's tonic swamp juice three times a day, her voice as she spoke was kind and even anxious. Badly, as this man had treated her, and I remember hearing that several of the jury had been unable to restrain their tears when she was in the witness-box giving her evidence, there still seemed to linger some remnants of the old affection. I'm quite well, thank you, Agnes, said Vincent Jopp. Are you wearing your liver-pad? A frown flittered across my employer's strong face. I am not wearing my liver-pad," he replied, brusquely. Oh, Vincent, how rash of you! He was about to speak when a sudden exclamation from his rear checked him, a genial-looking woman and a sports-coat for standing there, eyeing him with a sort of humorous horror. Well, Jane, he said. I gathered that this was Mrs. Jane Duke's job. The wife would divorce him for systematic and ingrowing fiendishness on the ground that he'd repeatedly outraged her feelings by wearing a white wiscuit with a dinner-jacket. She continued to look at him dumbly, and then uttered a sort of strangled hysterical laugh. Those legs! she cried, those legs! Vincent Jopp flushed darkly. Even the strongest and most silent of us have our weaknesses, and my employer's, was the rooted idea that he looked well in knicker-bockers. It was not my place to try to dissuade him, but there was no doubt that they did not suit him. Nature, and bestowing upon him a massive head and a chatting chin, had forgotten to finish him off at the other end. Vincent Jopp's legs were skinny. You poor dear man! went on Mrs. Jane Duke's job. What practical joker have lured you into appearing in public in knicker-bockers? I don't object to the knicker-bockers, said Mrs. Agnes Parsons' job. But when he foolishly comes out in quite a strong east wind without his liver-pad, little tinky-ting don't need no liver-pad, you don't, said Mrs. Lowella main price job, dressing the animal in her arms. Because he was his mother's pet, he was. I was standing quite near to Vincent Jopp, and at this moment I saw a bead of perspiration spring out on his forehead, and into his steely eyes there came a positively hunted look. I could understand and sympathise. Napoleon himself would have wilted if he had found himself in the midst of a trio of females, one talking baby-talk, another fussing about his health, and the third making derogatory observations on his lower limbs. Vincent Jopp was becoming unstrung. May his well be starting, shall we? It was Jopp's opponent who spoke. There was a strange set look on his face, the look of a man whose back is against the war. Ten down on the morning's round, he had drawn on his reserves of courage and was determined to meet the inevitable bravely. Vincent Jopp nodded absently, then turned to me. Keep those women away from me, he whispered tensely. They'll put me off my stroke. Put you off your stroke, I exclaimed incredulously. Yes, me. How the deuce can I concentrate with people babbling about liver-pads, and knicker-bockers all around me? Keep them away. He started to address his ball, and there was a weak uncertainty in the way he did it that prepared me for what was to come. His club rose, wavered, fell, and the ball badly topped trickled two feet and sank into a cuppy-lie. Is that good or bad? inquired Mrs. Luella main-price Jopp, a sort of desperate hope gleamed in the eye of the other competitor in the final. He swung with renewed vigor. His ball sang through the air and lay within chip-shot distance of the green. At the very least, said Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp, I hope, Vincent, that you are wearing flannel next to your skin. I heard Jopp give a stifled groan as he took his spoon from the bag. He made a gallant effort to retrieve the lost ground, but the ball struck a stone and bounded away into the long grass to the side of the green. His opponent won the hole. We moved to the second tee. Now that young man, said Mrs. Jane Duke's Jopp, indicating her late husband's blushing antagonist, is quite right to wear knicker-bockers. He can carry them off, but a glance in the mirror must have shown you that you— I'm sure you're feverish, Vincent, said Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp, solicitously. You're quite flushed. There is a wild gleam in your eyes. Mother's pit got little buttons of eyes that don't never have no wild gleam in them, because he's Mother's own darling he was, said Mrs. Luella main-price Jopp. A hollow groan, skipped Vincent Jopp's ashen lips. I need not recount the play, whole by whole, I think. There are some subjects that are too painful. It was pitiful to watch Vincent Jopp in his downfall. By the end of the first nine, his lead had been reduced to one, and his antagonist, rendered a new man by success, was playing magnificent golf. On the next hall he drew level, then, with a superhuman effort, Jopp contrived to halve the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. It seemed as though his eye and will might still assert itself, but on the fourteenth the end came. He had driven a superb ball, out-distancing his opponent by a full fifty yards. The latter played a good second, within a few feet of the groan. And then, as Vincent Jopp was shaping for a stroke, Luella main-price gave tongue. Vincent—well— Vincent, other man, bad man, not playing fair. When your back was turned just now, he gave his ball a great bang. I was watching him. At any rate, said Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp, I do hope when the game is over, Vincent, that you will remember to cool slowly. Flesh-o! cried Mrs. Jane Duke's Jopp triumphantly. I've been trying to remember the name all the afternoon. I saw about it in one of the papers. The advertisements speak most highly of it. You take it before breakfast and again before retiring, and they guarantee it to produce firm, healthy flesh on the most sparsely covered limbs in next to no time. Now, will you remember to get a bottle to-night? It comes in two sizes, the five shilling, or large size, and the smaller at half a crown. G.K. chested and writes that he used it regularly for years. Vincent Jopp uttered a quavering moan, and his hand, as he took the mashy from his bag, was trembling like an aspen. Ten minutes later, he was on his way back to the club-house, a beaten man. And so, concluded the oldest member, you see that in golf there is no such thing as a soft snap. You can never be certain of the finest player. Anything may happen to the greatest expert at any stage of the game. In a recent competition, George Duncan took eleven shots over a hole which eighteen handicapped men generally do in five. No, back horses, or go down to Throgmorton Street and try to take it away from the Rothschilds, and I will applaud you as a shrewd and cautious financier. But to bet at golf is pure gambling. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Into the basking warm for the day, there at crept with the approach of evening that heartening crispness which heralds the advent of autumn. Already in the valley by the ninth tee, some of the trees had begun to try on strange colors, in tentative experiment against the coming of nature's annual fancy-dress ball, when the sobriest tree casts off its work at a suit of green and plunges into a riot of reds and yellows. On the terrace in front of the clubhouse, an occasional withered leaf fluttered down on the table where the oldest member sat, sipping a thoughtful seltzer and lemon, and listening with courteous gravity to a young man in a sweater and golf-britches who occupied the neighbouring chair. She's a dear girl, said the young man a little moodily, a dear girl in every respect, but somehow, I don't know, when I see her playing golf, I can't help thinking that woman's place is in the home. The oldest member inclined as frosted head. You think, he said, that lovely woman loses in quinly dignity when she fails to slam the ball squarely on the meat. I don't mind her missing the pill, said the young man, but I think her attitude towards the game is too light-hearted. Perhaps it cloaks a deeper feeling, or one of the noblest women I ever knew used to laugh merrily when she foosled a short putt. It was only later when I learned that in the privacy of her home she would weep bitterly and bite holes in the sofa cushions that I realised that she did but wear the mask. Continue to encourage your fiancé to play the game, my boy, much happiness will reward you. I could tell you a story. A young woman of singular beauty and rather statuesque appearance came out of the clubhouse, carrying a baby, swaddled and flannel. As she drew near the table, she said to the baby, chickety-wickety-wickety-wickety-pop. In other respects her intelligence appeared to be above the ordinary. Isn't here, darling? she said, addressing the oldest member. The sage cast a meditative eye upon the infant, except that the eye of love had looked like a skinned poached egg. Unquestionably so, he replied. Don't you think he looks more like his father every day? For a brief instant the oldest members seemed to hesitate. Assuredly, he said, is your husband out on the links today? Not today. He had to see Wilberforce off on the train to Scotland. Your brother was going to Scotland? Yes. Ramston has such a high opinion of the schools up there. I did say that Scotland was a long way off, and he said, yes, that had occurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willy's good. He was very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There's quite a nip in the air, and Ramickens will get a nasty call, and his precious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say bye-bye to the gentleman, Rammy. The oldest member watched her go thoughtfully. There's a nip in the air, he said, and unlike our late Quintens and the Flannel, I am not my first youth. Come with me, I want to show you something. He led the way into the clubhouse and paused before the wall of the smoking-room. This was decorated from top to bottom with bold caricatures of members of the club. These, he said, are the work of a young newspaper artist who belongs here. Clever fellow! He has caught the expressions of these men wonderfully. His only failure, indeed, is that picture of myself. He regarded it with distaste and a touch of asperity crept into his manner. I don't know why the committee lets it stay there, he said, irritably. It isn't a bit like. He recovered himself. But all the others are excellent, excellent, though I believe many of the subjects are under the erroneous impression that they bear no resemblance to the originals. Here's the picture I wished to show you. That is Ramsden Waters. The husband of the lady was just left us. The portrait which he indicated was that of a man in the early thirties. Pale, saffron hair surmounted a receding forehead. Pale blue eyes looked out over a mouth which wore a pale, weak smile, from the centre of which protruded two teeth of a rabbit-like character. Golly, what a map! exclaimed the young man at his side. Precisely, said the oldest member, you now understand my momentary hesitation in agreeing with Mrs. Waters that the baby was like its father. I was torn by conflicting emotions. On the one hand, politeness demanded that I confirm any statement made by a lady. Common humanity, on the other hand, made it repugnant to me to knock an innocent child. Yes, that is Ramsden Waters. Sit down and take the weight off your feet, and I will tell you about him. The story illustrates a favourite theory of mine, that it is an excellent thing that women should be encouraged to take up golf. There are, I admit, certain drawbacks attendant on their presence on the links. I shall not readily forget the occasion, on which a low, raking drive of mine of the eleventh struck the lady's tea-box squarely, and came back and stunned my caddy, causing me to lose stroke and distance. Nevertheless, I hold that the advantages outnumber the drawbacks. Golf humanises women, humbles their haughty natures, tends in short to knock out of their systems a certain modicum of that superciliousness, that swank which makes wooing a tough proposition for the diffident male. You may have found this yourself? Will, as a matter of fact, admitted the young man, now I come to think of it. I have noticed that Genevieve has shown me a bit more respect than she took up the game. When I drive two hundred and thirty yards after she had taken six sloshes to cover fifty, I sometimes think that a new light comes into our eyes. Exactly, said the sage. From earliest youth, said the oldest member, Ramsden Waters had always been of a shrinking nature. He seemed permanently scared. Possibly, his nurse had frightened him with tales of horror and his babyhood. If so, she must have been the Edgar Allan Poe of our sex, for by the time he reached men's estate, Ramsden Waters had about as much ferocity and self-assession as a blamange. Even with other men, he was noticeably timid, and with women, he comported himself in a manner that aroused their immediate scorn and antagonism. He was one of those men who fall over their feet and start apologising for themselves the moment they see a woman. His idea of conversing with a girl was to perspire and tie himself into knots, making the while a strange gurgling sound like the language of some primitive tribe. If ever a remark of any coherence emerged from his tangled vocal cords, it dealt with the weather, and he immediately apologised and qualified it. To such a man, women are merciless, and it speedily became an article of faith but the feminine population of this locality that Ramsden Waters was an unfortunate incident and did not belong. Finally, after struggling for a time to keep up a connection in social circles, he gave it up and became a sort of hermit. I think that caricature I just showed you weighed rather heavily on the poor fellow. Just as he was nerving himself to make another attempt to enter society, he would catch sight of it and say to himself what hope was there for a man with a face like that. These caricaturists are too ready to wound people simply in order to raise a laugh. Personally, I am broad-minded enough to smile at that portrait of myself. It has given me great enjoyment, though why the committee permits it to—but then, of course, it isn't a bit like, whereas that of Ramsden Waters not only gave the man's exact appearance, very little exaggerated, but laid bare is very soul. That portrait is the portrait of a chump and such Ramsden Waters undeniably was. By the end of the first year in the neighbourhood, Ramsden, as I say, had become practically a hermit. He lived all by himself in a house near the fifteenth green, seeing nobody going nowhere. His only solace was golf. His late father had given him an excellent education, and even as early as his seventeenth year, I believe, he was going round difficult courses in par. Yet even this admirable gift, which might have done him social service, was rendered negligible by the fact that he was too shy and shrinking to play often with other men. As a rule, he confined himself to golfing by himself in the mornings and late evenings when the links were more or less deserted. Yes, in his twenty-ninth year, Ramsden Waters had sunk to the depth of becoming a secret golfer. One lovely morning in summer, a scented morning of green and blue and gold when the birds sang in the trees, and the air had that limpid cleanness which makes the first hole look about a hundred yards long instead of three hundred and forty-five, Ramsden Waters, alone as ever, stood on the first tee addressing his ball. For a space he waggled masterfully. Then, drawing his club back with the crisp swish brought it down, and as he did so, a voice behind him cried, Ramsden's driver wobbled at the last moment. The ball flopped weekly among the trees on the right of the course. Ramsden turned to perceive, standing close beside him, a small fat boy in a sailor suit. That was a pause. Rotten! said the boy austerely. Ramsden gulped, and then suddenly saw that the boy was not alone. About a medium approach-pucked distance, moving gracefully and languidly towards him, was a girl of such pronounced beauty that Ramsden Waters' heart looped the loop twice in rapid succession. It was the first time that he had seen Eunice Bray, and like most men who saw her for the first time, he experienced the sensations of one in an express lift at the tenth floor going down, was left the majority of his internal organs up on the twenty-second. He felt a dazed emptiness, the world swam before his eyes. You yourself saw Eunice just now, and though you are in a sense immune, being engaged to a charming girl of your own, I noticed that you unconsciously braced yourself up, and tried to look twice as handsome as nature ever intended you to. You smirked, and if you had a moustache you would have twiddled it. You can imagine, in the effect which this vision of loveliness had on lonely, different to Ramsden Waters. It got right in amongst him. I'm afraid my little brother spoiled your stroke, said Eunice. She did not speak at all, apologetically, but rather as a goddess might have spoken to a swine-herd. Ramsden yammered noiselessly. As always, in the presence of the opposite sex, and more than ever now, his vocal cords appear to have tied themselves in a knot which would have baffled a sailor, and might have perplexed Houdini. He could not even gargle. He's very fond of watching golf, said the girl. She took the boy by the hand, and was about to lead him off, when Ramsden miraculously recovered speech. Would he like to come round with me? he croaked. How he had managed to acquire the nerve to make the suggestion he could never understand. I suppose that in certain supreme moments a sort of desperate recklessness descends on nervous men. Oh, very kind of you, said the girl, indifferently. But I'm afraid— I want to go! shrilt the boy. I want to go! Oh! fond, as Eunice Bray was of her little brother, I imagine that the prospect of having him taken off her hands on a fine summer morning, when all nature urged her to sit in the shade on the terrace and read a book, was not unwelcome. It would be very kind of you if you would let him, said Eunice. He wasn't able to go to the circus last week, and it was a great disappointment. This will do instead. She turned toward the terrace, and Ramsden, his head buzzing, tottered into the jungle to find his ball, followed by the boy. I have never been able to extract full particulars of that morning's round from Ramsden. If you speak of it to him, he will wince and change the subject. Yet he seems to have had the presence of mind to pump will beforece, as to the details of his home life, and by the end of the round, he had learned that Eunice and her brother had just come to visit an aunt who lived in the neighborhood. Their house was not far from the lynx, Eunice was not engaged to be married, and the aunt made a hobby of collecting dry seaweed, which she pressed and pasted in an album. One sometimes thinks that aunts live entirely for pleasure. At the end of the round, Ramsden staggered on to the terrace, tripping over his feet, and handed will beforece back in good condition. Eunice, who had just reached the chapter where the hero decides to give up all for love, thanked him perfecturally without looking up from a book, and so ended the first spasm of Ramsden Waters' life-romance. There are few things more tragic than the desire of the moth for the star, and it is a curious fact that the spectacle of a star almost invariably fills the most sensible moth with thoughts above his station. No doubt, if Ramsden Waters had stuck around and waited long enough, there might have come his way in the formless of time some nice, homely girl with a squint and a good disposition who would have been about his form. In his modest daydreams he had aspired to nothing higher, but the sight of Eunice Bray seemed to have knocked all the sense out of the man. He must have known that he stood no chance of becoming anything to her, other than a handy means of getting rid of little will beforece now and again. Why, the very instant that Eunice appeared in the place, every eligible bachelor for miles round her tossed his head with a loud snorting sound and galloped madly in her direction. Dashing young devils they were, handsome, well-knit fellows with the figures of Greek gods and the faces of movie-heroes. Any one of them could have named his own price from the advertisers of collars. They were the sort of young men you see standing grandly beside the full-page picture of the seven-seater magnifico car and the magazines. And it was against this field that Ramsden Waters, the man with the unshuffled face, dared to pit his feeble personality. A one weeps. Something of the magnitude of the task undertaken must have come home to Ramsden at a very early point in the proceedings. At Eunice's home, at the hour when women receive callers, he was from the start a mere unconsidered unit in the mob scene. While his rivals clustered thickly about the girl, he was invariably somewhere in the outskirts listening limply to the art. I imagine that Selden has any young man had such golden opportunities of learning all about dried seaweed. Indeed, by the end of the month Ramsden Waters could not have known more about seaweed if he had been a deep-sea fish. And yet he was not happy. He was in a position, if he had been, at a dinner-party, and things had got a bit slow, to have held the table spellbound with the first-hand information about dried seaweed straight from the stable, yet nevertheless he chafed. His soul writhed and sickened within him. He lost weight and went right off his approach shots. I confess that my heart bled for the man. His only consolation was that nobody else, not even the fellows who worked their way right through the jam, and got seats in the front row where they could glare into her eyes and hang on her lips and all that sort of thing, seemed to be making any better progress. And so, matters went on till one day, Eunice decided to take up golf. Her motive for doing this was, I believe, simply because Kitty Mandoes, who had won a small silver cup at a monthly handicap receiving thirty-six, was always dragging the conversation round to this trophy. And, if there was one firm article in Eunice Bray's simple creed, it was that she would be hanged if she let Kitty—or was by way of being a rival and a small scale—but anything over on her. I do not defend Eunice, but women are women, and I doubt if any of them really take up golf and that holy quest of the grail spirit which animates men. I have known girls to become golfers as an excuse for wearing pink jumpers, and one, at least, who did it because she had read in the beauty hints in the evening paper that it made you listen. Girls will be girls. Her first lessons Eunice received from the professional, but after that she saved money by distributing herself among her hordes of admirers, who were only too willing to give up good matches to devote themselves to her tuition. By degrees she acquired a fair skill and a confidence in her game which was not altogether borne out by results. From Ramston Waters she did not demand a lesson. For one thing it never occurred to her that so's poor spirited a man could be of any use at the game, and for another Ramston was always busy tooling round with little will-be-force. Yet it was with Ramston that she was paired in the first competition for which she entered, the annual mixed-forcems. And it was on the same evening that the list of the draw went up on the notice-board that Ramston proposed. The mind of a man in love works in strange ways. To you and to me there would seem to be no reason why the fact that Eunice's name and his own had been drawn out of a hat together should so impress Ramston, but he looked on it as an act of God. It seemed to him to draw them close together and to set up a sort of spiritual affinity. In a word it acted on the poor fellow like a tonic, and that very night he went around to a house, and, having, after a long and extremely interesting conversation with her aunt, contrived to get her alone, coughed eleven times in a strangled sort of way, and suggested that the winning bell should ring out. Eunice was more startled than angry. Of course I'm tremendously complimented, Mr— she had to pause to recall the name. Mr— Water's, said Ramston humbly. Of course, yes, Mr. Water's. As I say, it's a great compliment, not at all. A great compliment, no, no, murmured Ramston obsequiously. I wish you wouldn't interrupt, snapped Eunice with irritation. No girl likes to have to keep going back and trying over her speeches. It's a great compliment, but it is quite impossible. Just as you say, of course, agree, Ramston. What, demanded Eunice, have you to offer me? I don't mean money. I mean something more spiritual. What is there in you, Mr. Water's? Water's. Mr. Water's. What is there in you that would repay a girl for giving up the priceless boon of freedom? I know a lot about dried seaweed, suggested Ramston, hopefully. Eunice shook her head. No, she said. It is quite impossible. You have paid me the greatest compliment a man can pay, woman, Mr. Waterson. Water's, said Ramston. I'll write it down for you. Please don't trouble. I'm afraid we shall never meet again. But we are partners in the mixed foursome's tomorrow. Oh, yes, so we are, said Eunice. Well, mind you, play up. I want to win a cup more than anything on earth. Ah, said Ramston, if only I could win what I want to win more than anything else on earth. You, I mean, he added, to make his meaning clear. If I could win you. His tongue tied itself in a bone-art round his uvula, and he could say no more. He moved slowly to the door, paused with his fingers on the handle, for one last look over his shoulder, and walked silently into the cupboard where Eunice's aunt kept her collection of dried seaweed. His second start was favoured with greater luck, and he found himself out in the hall, and presently in the cool air of the night, with the star shining down on him. Had those silent stars ever shone down on a more broken hearted man, had the cool air of the night ever fanned a more fevered brow? Ah, yes, or rather, ah, no. There was not a very large entry for the mixed foursome's competition, in my experience their seldom ears. Men are as a rural idealists, and wish to keep their illusions regarding women intact, and it is difficult for the most broad-minded man to preserve a chivalrous veneration for the sex after a woman has repeatedly sliced into the rough and left him a difficult recovery. Women, too—I am not speaking of the occasional champions, but of the average woman, the one at the handicap of thirty-three who plays in high-heeled shoes—are apt to giggle when they fuzzle out to the perfect lie, and this makes for misogyny. Only eight couples assembled on the tenth tea, where our foursome matches start, on the morning after Ramsdon Waters had proposed to Eunice. Six of these were negligible, consisting of males of average skill and young women who played golf because it kept them out in the fresh air. Looking over the field, Ramsdon felt that the only serious rivalry was to be feared from Marcella Bingley and her colleague, a sixteen handicap youth named George Perkins, with whom they were paired for the opening round. George was a pretty indifferent performer, but Marcella, a weather-beaten female with bobbed hair and the wrists of a welterweight pugilist, had once appeared on the women's open championship, and swung a nasty iron. Ramsdon watched her drive a nice clean shot down the middle of the fairway, and spoke earnestly to Eunice. His heart was in this competition, for though the first prize in the mixed foursome's does not perhaps entitle the winners to a place in the Hall of Fame, Ramsdon had the soul of the true golfer, and the true golfer wants to win whenever he starts, whether he's playing in a friendly round, or in the open championship. What we've got to do is to play steadily, he said. Don't try any fancy shots, go for safety. Miss Bingley is a tough proposition, but George Perkins is sure to fuzzle a few, and if he plays safe, we've got him cold. The others don't count. You notice something odd about this speech. Something in it strikes you as curious? Precisely. It affected Eunice Bray in the same fashion. In the first place, it contains forty-four words, some of them of two syllables, others of even greater length. In the second place, it was spoken crisply, almost commandingly without any of that hesitation and stammering which usually characterised Ramsdon Waters' utterances. Eunice was puzzled. She was also faintly resentful. True, there was not a word in what he had said. That was calculated to bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. Nevertheless, she felt vaguely that Ramsdon Waters had exceeded the limits. She had been prepared for a gurgling Ramsdon Waters, a Ramsdon Waters who fell over his large feet and perspired. But here was a Ramsdon Waters who had dressed her not merely as an equal, but with more than a touch of superiority. She eyed him coldly, but he had turned to speak to a little Wilberforce, who was to accompany them on the round. And you, my lad, said Ramsdon Curtley, you kindly remember that this is a competition, and keep your merry flow of conversation as much as possible to yourself. You've got a bad habit of breaking into small talk when a man's addressing the ball. If you think that my brother will be in the way, began Eunice coldly. Oh, I don't mind him coming round, said Ramsdon, if he keeps quiet. Eunice gasped. She had not played enough golf to understand how that noblest of games changes a man's whole nature when on the links. She was thinking of something crushing to say to him, when he advanced to the tee to drive off. He drove a perfect ball, hard and low, with a lot of roll. Even Eunice was impressed. Good shot, partner, she said. Ramsdon was apparently unaware that she'd spoken. He was gazing down the fairway with his club over his left shoulder, and an attitude almost identical were that of Sandy McBean and the plate labelled the drive correct finish to face page 24 of his monumental work, How to Become a Scratch Player Your First Season, by Studying Photographs Eunice bit her lip. She was peaked. She felt as if she had patted the head of a pet lamb, and the lamb had turned and bitten her in the finger. I said, Good shot, partner, and she repeated, coldly. Yes, said Ramsdon, but don't talk, it prevents one concentrating. He turned to well beforece. And don't let me have to tell you that again, he said. Winter Force has been like a mouse. That is what I complain of, said Ramsdon. Mice make a beastly scratching sound, and that's what he was doing when I drove that ball. He was only playing with the sand and the tea-box. Well, if he does it again, I shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps. They walked in silence to where the ball had stopped. It was nicely perched up on the grass, and to have plunked it on the green with an iron should have been for any reasonable golfer the work of a moment. Eunice, however, only succeeded in slicing it feebly into the rough. Ramsdon reached for as nibblic and plunged into the bushes, and presently, as if it had been shot up by some convulsion of nature, the ball, accompanied on the early stages of its journey by about a pound of mixed mud, grass, and pebbles, soared through the air and fell on the green. But the mischief had been done. Miss Bingley, putting forcefully, put the opposition ball down for a fall and won the hole. Eunice now began to play better, and as Ramsdon was on the top of his game, a ding-dong race ensued for the remainder of the first nine holes. The Bingley-Perkins' combination, owing to some inspired work by the female of the species, managed to keep their lead up to the tricky ravine hole, but there George Perkins, as might have been expected of him, deposited the ball right in among the rocks, and Ramsdon and Eunice drew level. The next four holes were halved, and they reached the clubhouse with no advantage to either side. Here there was a pause, while Miss Bingley went to the professional shop to have a tack put into the ladder of a machine which had worked loose. George Perkins, a little well before, so believed in keeping up their strength, melted silently away in the direction of the refreshment-bar, and Ramsdon and Eunice were alone. The peak which Eunice had felt at the beginning of the game had vanished by now. She was feeling extremely pleased with her performance in the last few holes, and would have been glad to go into the matter fully. Also she was conscious of a feeling not perhaps of respect so much as condescending tolerance towards Ramsdon. He might be a pretty minus quantity in a drawing-room or at a dance, but in a bunker or out in the open with a clique. Eunice felt you'd be surprised. She was just about to address him in a spirit of kindliness when he spoke. Better keep your brassie in the bag on the next nine, he said. Stick to the iron. The great thing is to keep him straight. Eunice gasped. Indeed, had she been of a less remarkable beauty, one would have said that she snorted. The sky turned black, and all her amiability was swept away in a flood of fury, and the blood left her face and surged back in a rush of crimson. You are engaged to be married, and I take it that there exists between you and your fiancé the utmost love and trust and understanding. But would you have the nerve—could you summon up the cold, callous god, tell your Genevieve that she wasn't capable of using her wooden clubs? I think not. Yet this was what Ramsdon Waters had told Eunice, and the delicately nurtured girls staggered before the coarse insult. Her refined, sensitive nature was all churned up. Ever since she had made her first drive at golf, she had prided herself on her use of the wood. Her brother and her brassie were the only things she loved. And here was this man deliberately— Eunice choked. Mr. Waters! Before they could have further speech, George Perkins and little Wilberforce ambled in a bloated way out of the clubhouse. I've had three ginger rails! observed the boy. Where do we go from here? Our honour! said Ramsdon. Shoot! Eunice took out her driver without a word. Her little figure was tense with emotion. She swung vigorously and pulled the ball far out onto the fairway of the ninth hall. Even off the tee, said Ramsdon, you'd better use an iron. You must keep him straight. Their eyes met. Hers were glittering with a fury of a woman scorned. Hers were cold and hard. And suddenly, as she looked at his awful pale set-golf face, something seemed to snap in Eunice. A strange sensation of weakness, and humility swept over her. So might the cavewoman have felt when, with her back against a cliff and unable to dodge, she watched her suitor take his club in the interlocking grip, and after a preliminary waggle, start his backswing. The fact was, that all her life, Eunice had been accustomed to the homage of men. From the time she had put her hair up, every man she had met had groveled before her, and she had acquired a mental attitude towards the other sex which was a blend of indifference and contempt. For the cringing specimens who curled up and died all over the hearth-rug, if she spoke a cold word to them, she had nothing but scorn. She dreamed wistfully of those brusque cavemen of whom she raided the novels, which she took out of the village-circulating library. A female novelist, who was at that time her favourite, always supplied with each chunk of wholesome and invigorating fiction one beetle-browed hero with a grouch and a scowl, who rode wild horses over the countryside till they foamed at the mouth and treated women like dirt. That, Eunice had thought yearningly, as she talked to youths who spines turned to gelatin at one glance from her bright eyes, or as the sort of man she wanted to meet, and never seemed to come across. Of all the men whose acquaintance she had made recently, she had despised rams and waters most, where others had groveled, he had tied himself into knots, where others had gazed at her like sheep, he had goggled at her like a kicked spaniel, she had only permitted him to hang round, because he seemed so fond of little Wilberforce, and here he was, ordering her about and piercing her with the gimlet eyes, for all the world as if he were Claude de la Mer, and a thirty-second chapter of the Man of Chilled Steel, the one where Claude drags Lady Matilda round the smoking-room by her hair, because she gave the rose from her bouquet to the Italian Count. She was half cowed, half resentful. Mr. Winklethorpe told me I was very good with the wooden clubs, she said defiantly. He was a great kidder, said Ramsdon. He went down the hill to where his ball lay. Eunice proceeded direct for the green, much as she told herself that she hated this man, she never questioned his ability to get there with his next shot. George Perkins would long since forfeited any confidence which his partner might have reposed on him, at top of his drive, leaving Miss Bingley a difficult second out of a sandy ditch. The hole was halved. The match went on. Ramsdon won the short hole, laying his ball dead with a perfect iron shot, but at the next, the long dog-leg hole, Miss Bingley regained the honour. They came to the last all-square. As the match had started on the tenth team, the last hole to be negotiated was, of course, what in the ordinary run of human affairs is the ninth, possibly the trickiest on the course. As you know, it is necessary to carry with one's initial wallop that combination of stream and lake into which so many well-meant drives have flopped. This done, the player proceeds up the face of a steep slope to find himself ultimately on a green which looks like the sea in the storm-scene of a melodrama. It heaves and undulates, and is altogether a nasty thing to have happened to one at the end of a gruelling match, but it is the first shot, the drive which is the real test, for the water and the trees form a mental hazard of unquestionable toughness. George Perkins, as he addressed his ball for the vital stroke, manifestly wobbled. He was scared to the depths of his craven soul. He tried to pray, but all he could remember was the hymn for those in peril on the deep one to which category he feared his ball would shortly fall. A-breathing a few bars of this, he swung. There was a musical click and the ball singing over the water like a bird, breasted the hill like a homing aeroplane, and fell in the centre of the fairway, with an easy distance of the plateau-green. Like's work, partner, said Miss Bingley, speaking for the first and last time in the course of the proceedings. George unraveled himself with a modest simper. It felt like a gambler was placed his all on a number at roulette, and sees the white ball tumble into the correct compartment. Eunice moved to the tea. In the course of the last eight holes, the girl's haughty soul had been rudely harrowed. She had foosled two drives, and three approach shots, and had missed a short putt in the last green but three. She had that consciousness of sin which afflicts the golfer of his game, that curious self-loathing which humbles the proudest. Her knees felt weak, and all nature seemed to bellow at her that this was where she was going to blow up for the loud report. Even as her driver rose above her shoulder, she was acutely aware that she was making eighteen out of the twenty-three errors which complicate the drive at golf. She knew that her head swayed like some beautiful flower in a stiff breeze. The heel of her left foot was pointing down the course. Her grip had shifted, and her wrists felt like sticks of boiled asparagus. As the club began to descend, she perceived that she had underestimated the total of her errors, and when the ball, badly topped, bounded under slope and entered the muddy water like a timid diver on a cold morning, she realised that she had a full hand. There are twenty-three things which it is possible to do wrong with the drive, and she had done them all. Signantly, Ramsd and Waters made a tee, and placed thereon a new ball. It was a golfer who rarely dispelled, but he was playing three, and his opponent's ball would undoubtedly be on the green, possibly even dead, in two. Nevertheless, perhaps by supreme drive, and one or two miracles, later on, the game might be saved. He concentrated his whole soul on the ball. I need scarcely tell you that Ramsd and Waters pressed. Swish came the driver. The ball, fanned by the wind, rocked a little on the tee, then settled down in its original position. Ramsd and Waters, usually the most careful of players, had missed the globe. For a moment there was a silence, a silence which Ramsd and had to strive with an effort almost physically painful not to break. Rich oaths surged to his lips, and blistering maledictions crashed against the back of his clenched teeth. The silence was broken by a little Wilberforce. One can only gather that their lurks, and a supposedly innocuous amber of dinde rail, and elevating something which the temperance performers have overlooked. Wilberforce Bray had, if you remember, tucked away no fewer than three in the spot where they would do most good. One presumes that the child, with all that stuff surging about inside him, had become thoroughly above himself. He uttered a merry laugh. Never hit it! said little Wilberforce. He was kneeling beside the tee-box as he spoke, and now, as one has seen all that there is to be seen, and turns, sated to other amusements, he moved round and began to play with the sand. The spectacle of his alluring trouser-seat was one which a stronger man would have found it hard to resist. To Ramsden Waters it had the aspect of a formal invitation. For one moment his number two golf-shoe, as supplied to all the leading professionals, wavered in mid-air. Then crashed home. Eunice screamed, How dare you kick my brother! Ramsden faced a stern and pale. Madam, he said, in similar circumstances I would have kicked the archangel Gabriel. Then, stooping to his ball, he picked it up. The match is yours. He said to Miss Bingley, who, having paid no attention at all to the drama which had just concluded, was practising short chip-shots with her mashy niblick. He bowed coldly to Eunice, cast one look of sombre satisfaction at little Wilberforce, who was painfully extricating himself from a bed of nettles into which she had rolled and strode off. He crossed the bridge over the water and stalked up the hill. Eunice watched him go, spellbound. Her momentary spurt of wrath at the kicking of her brother had died away, and she wished she had thought of doing it herself. How splendidly looked she felt, as she watched Ramsden striding up to the clubhouse, just like her other small dike after he'd flung a ermine-trued vanstone from him in Chapter 41 of Grey Eyes at Glean. Her whole soul went out to him. This was the sort of man she wanted as a partner in life. How grandly he would teach her to play golf! It had sickened her, when her former instructors, prefacing their criticism with glutinous praise, had mildly suggested some people found it a good thing to keep the head still and driving, and that though her methods were splendid, it might be worth trying. They had spoken of her keeping her eye on the ball, as if she were doing the ball of favour. What she wanted was a great, strong, rough brute for fellow, who would tell her not to move her damned head. A rugged viking of a chap who, if she did not keep her eye on the ball, would black it for her. And Ramsden Waters was such a one. He might not look like a viking, but after all, it is the soul that counts. And as this afternoon's experience had taught her, Ramsden Waters had a soul that seemed to combine in equal proportions the outstanding characteristics of Nero, a wild cat, and the second mate of a tramp steamer. That night Ramsden Waters sat in his study, a prey to the gloomiest emotions. The gold had eyed out of him by now, and he was reproaching himself bitterly for having ruined forever his chance of winning the only girl he'd ever loved. How could she forgive him for his brutality? How could she overlook treatment which would have caused comment in the stoke-hold of a cattle-ship? He groaned and tried to forget his sorrows by forcing himself to read. But the choicest thoughts of the greatest writers had no power to grip him. He tried Vardan on the swing, and the words swam before his eyes. He turned to Taylor on the chip-shot, and the master's pure style seemed laboured and involved. He found Solace neither in braid on the pivot nor in Duncan on the divot. He was just about to give it up and go to bed, though it was only nine o'clock, when the telephone bell rang. Hello? Is that you, Mr. Waters? This is Eunice Bray. The receiver shook in Ramsden's hand. I've just remembered. When were we talking about something last night? Didn't you ask me to marry you or something? I know it was something. Ramsden gulped three times. I did, he replied hollowly. We didn't settle anything, did we? Eh? I say we sort of left it kind of open. Yuck! Well, would it bore you awfully, said Eunice's soft voice, to come round now and go on talking it over? Ramsden tottered. We should be quite alone, said Eunice. Little Wilberforce has gone to bed with a headache. Ramsden paused a moment to disentangle his tongue from the back of his neck. I'll be right over, he said, Haskellim.