(_A Lay of the Links_)
They told me he was skilful, and assiduous, and true,
They told me he had "carried" for the bravest and the best.
His hair was soldier-scarlet, and his eyes were saucer blue,
And one seemed looking eastward, whilst the other
fronted west.
His strabismus was a startler, and it shook my nerve at once;
It affected me with dizziness, like gazing from a height.
I straddled like a duffer, and I wavered like a dunce,
And my right hand felt a left one, and my left felt far
from right.
As I watched him place my ball with his visual axes crossed,
The very sunshine glimmered, with a queer confusing glint,
I felt like a sick lubber on Atlantic surges tossed--
Oh! never have a caddie with a squint!
I'm an "irritable duffer"--so my enemies declare,--
That is I'm very sensitive, and play a modest game.
A very little puts me off my stroke, and, standing there,
With his boot-heels at right angles, and his optics much
the same,
He maddened me--no less, and I felt that all success
Against bumptious young McBungo--was impossible that day.
I'd have parted with a fiver to have beaten him. His dress
Was so very very swagger, and his scarlet cap so gay.
He eyed my cross-eyed caddie with a supercilious smirk,
I tried to set my features, and my nerves, like any flint;
But my "knicker'd" knees were knocking as I wildly set to work.
Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint!
[Illustration: Golfer]
I tried to look away from the spoiler of my play,
But for fiendish fascination he was like a squinting snake;
All the muffings man can muff I contrived to muff that day;
My eyes were all askew and my nerves were all ashake.
I seemed to squint myself, and not only with my eyes,
My knees, my hands, my elbows, with obliquity were rife.
McBungo's sleek sham sympathy and sinister surprise
Made almost insupportable the burden of my life.
He _was_ so beastly friendly, and he _was_ so blazing fair,
So fulsomely effusive with suggestion, tip, and hint!
And all the while that caddie stood serenely cock-eyed there.
Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint!
Miss Binks was looking on! On that maiden I was gone,
Just as she was gone on golf, in perfervid Scottish style.
On my merits with McBungo I should just about have won,
But my shots to-day were such as made even Effie smile;
Oh, the lumps of turf I lifted! Oh, the easy balls I missed!
Oh, the bunkers I got bogged in! And at last a gentle scorn
Curled the lips I would have given my pet "Putter" to have kissed.
Such a bungler as myself her loved links had never borne;
And all the while McBungo--the young crocodile!--bewailed
What he called my "beastly luck," though his joy was plain as
print,
Whilst that squint grew worse and worse at each shot of mine
which failed.
Oh! never have a caddie with a squint!
[Illustration: Lady Golfer]
In "playing through the green" with my "brassie" I was seen
At most dismal disadvantage on that miserable day;
_He_ pointed through the rushes with cock-eyed, sardonic spleen,--
I followed his squint guidance, and I struck a yard away;
But, oh! 'twas worst of all, when I tried to hole the ball.
Oh, the ogre! _How_ he squinted at that crisis of the game!
His hideous strabismus held me helpless, a blind thrall
Shattered my nerves completely, put my skill to open shame.
That squint would, I am sure, have upset the solar system--
Oho! the impish impudence, the gruesome goggle-glint!
The low, malicious chuckle, as he softly muttered, "Missed 'im!"
No, _never_ have a caddie with a squint!
Yet all the same McBungo did _not_ get that rich Miss Binks,
Who was so sweet in every way, especially on golf.
He fancied he had cut me out that day upon those links,
But although he won the game--at golf, his love-game came
not off.
He and that demon caddie tried between them very hard
To shame me in the eyes of that dear enthusiast,
But--well, my clubs she carries, whilst McBungo, evil-starred,
Was caught by a Scotch vixen with an obvious optic cast!
_That's_ Nemesis, I say! And she will not let him play
At the game he so adores. True she's wealthy as the Mint.
At golf, with Effie, I have passed many a happy day,
But--we never have a caddie with a squint!
A caddie who's a duffer, or a caddie who gets drunk;
A caddie who regards all other caddies as his foes;
A caddie who will snigger when you fumble, fail or funk;
A caddie who will whistle, or seems ever on the doze;
A caddie who's too tiny, or too big and broad of bulk;
A caddie who gets playing with your clubs upon the sly;
A caddie who will chatter, or a caddie who will sulk;
All these are calculated a golf devotee to try;
All these are most vexatious to a golfer of repute;
And still more so to a novice. But just take a friendly hint!
Take a caddie who's a duffer, or a drunkard, or a brute,
_But never try a caddie with a squint!!!_
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