It has been said elsewhere, yet may not therefore be wholly lacking in
elemental veracity, that putting is the devil. Systems more numerous than
dactyls and spondees in Classic verse, patent putters outnumbered only by
howlers in Oxford responsions, bear witness to this graceless statement.
Quite lately in these columns have I confessed--_pulvere cineribusque_--
that our side had twice failed at the inconsiderable distance of two yards,
even after discarding the small thirty-two. But that further confession
will be forthcoming is now wildly and preposterously problematical. For I
have discovered the true exorcism for demoniac influence in putting. It is
this: First catch your putter. Put the whole length of the shaft up your
sleeve. Then--but I must retain something for next Saturday's notes, and,
besides, I fancy the secretary of the Club where I am inditing these words
has his frugal eye on the consumption of the note-paper. But what I have
written I have written. _Litera scripta manet._
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[Illustration: _Eminent London Architect_ (_submitting his designs to our
Village Victory Memorial Committee and warming to his work_). "...AND,
SURMOUNTING THE WHOLE, A GRACEFUL FIGURE OF VICTORY, WITH WREATH--SO."]
* * * * *