X. THE COMING OF GOWF

1

_The Clicking of Cuthbert_

The young man came into the smoking-room of the clubhouse, and flung

his bag with a clatter on the floor. He sank moodily into an arm-chair

and pressed the bell.

"Waiter!"

"Sir?"

The young man pointed at the bag with every evidence of distaste.

"You may have these clubs," he said. "Take them away. If you don't want

them yourself, give them to one of the caddies."

Across the room the Oldest Member gazed at him with a grave sadness

through the smoke of his pipe. His eye was deep and dreamy--the eye of

a man who, as the poet says, has seen Golf steadily and seen it whole.

"You are giving up golf?" he said.

He was not altogether unprepared for such an attitude on the young

man's part: for from his eyrie on the terrace above the ninth green he

had observed him start out on the afternoon's round and had seen him

lose a couple of balls in the lake at the second hole after taking

seven strokes at the first.

"Yes!" cried the young man fiercely. "For ever, dammit! Footling game!

Blanked infernal fat-headed silly ass of a game! Nothing but a waste of

time."

The Sage winced.

"Don't say that, my boy."

"But I do say it. What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life is

earnest. We live in a practical age. All round us we see foreign

competition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playing

golf! What do we get out of it? Is golf any _use_? That's what I'm

asking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to this

pestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?"

The Sage smiled gently.

"I could name a thousand."

"One will do."

"I will select," said the Sage, "from the innumerable memories that

rush to my mind, the story of Cuthbert Banks."

"Never heard of him."

"Be of good cheer," said the Oldest Member. "You are going to hear of

him now."

* * * * *

It was in the picturesque little settlement of Wood Hills (said the

Oldest Member) that the incidents occurred which I am about to relate.

Even if you have never been in Wood Hills, that suburban paradise is

probably familiar to you by name. Situated at a convenient distance

from the city, it combines in a notable manner the advantages of town

life with the pleasant surroundings and healthful air of the country.

Its inhabitants live in commodious houses, standing in their own

grounds, and enjoy so many luxuries--such as gravel soil, main

drainage, electric light, telephone, baths (h. and c.), and company's

own water, that you might be pardoned for imagining life to be so ideal

for them that no possible improvement could be added to their lot. Mrs.

Willoughby Smethurst was under no such delusion. What Wood Hills needed

to make it perfect, she realized, was Culture. Material comforts are

all very well, but, if the _summum bonum_ is to be achieved, the

Soul also demands a look in, and it was Mrs. Smethurst's unfaltering

resolve that never while she had her strength should the Soul be handed

the loser's end. It was her intention to make Wood Hills a centre of

all that was most cultivated and refined, and, golly! how she had

succeeded. Under her presidency the Wood Hills Literary and Debating

Society had tripled its membership.

But there is always a fly in the ointment, a caterpillar in the salad.

The local golf club, an institution to which Mrs. Smethurst strongly

objected, had also tripled its membership; and the division of the

community into two rival camps, the Golfers and the Cultured, had

become more marked than ever. This division, always acute, had attained

now to the dimensions of a Schism. The rival sects treated one another

with a cold hostility.

Unfortunate episodes came to widen the breach. Mrs. Smethurst's house

adjoined the links, standing to the right of the fourth tee: and, as

the Literary Society was in the habit of entertaining visiting

lecturers, many a golfer had foozled his drive owing to sudden loud

outbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not long

before this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window,

had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, the

rising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half)

from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the right

and Raymond must inevitably have handed in his dinner-pail.

To make matters worse, a ring at the front-door bell followed almost

immediately, and the maid ushered in a young man of pleasing appearance

in a sweater and baggy knickerbockers who apologetically but firmly

insisted on playing his ball where it lay, and, what with the shock of

the lecturer's narrow escape and the spectacle of the intruder standing

on the table and working away with a niblick, the afternoon's session

had to be classed as a complete frost. Mr. Devine's determination, from

which no argument could swerve him, to deliver the rest of his lecture

in the coal-cellar gave the meeting a jolt from which it never

recovered.

I have dwelt upon this incident, because it was the means of

introducing Cuthbert Banks to Mrs. Smethurst's niece, Adeline. As

Cuthbert, for it was he who had so nearly reduced the muster-roll of

rising novelists by one, hopped down from the table after his stroke,

he was suddenly aware that a beautiful girl was looking at him

intently. As a matter of fact, everyone in the room was looking at him

intently, none more so than Raymond Parsloe Devine, but none of the

others were beautiful girls. Long as the members of Wood Hills Literary

Society were on brain, they were short on looks, and, to Cuthbert's

excited eye, Adeline Smethurst stood out like a jewel in a pile of

coke.

He had never seen her before, for she had only arrived at her aunt's

house on the previous day, but he was perfectly certain that life, even

when lived in the midst of gravel soil, main drainage, and company's

own water, was going to be a pretty poor affair if he did not see her

again. Yes, Cuthbert was in love: and it is interesting to record, as

showing the effect of the tender emotion on a man's game, that twenty

minutes after he had met Adeline he did the short eleventh in one, and

as near as a toucher got a three on the four-hundred-yard twelfth.

I will skip lightly over the intermediate stages of Cuthbert's

courtship and come to the moment when--at the annual ball in aid of the

local Cottage Hospital, the only occasion during the year on which the

lion, so to speak, lay down with the lamb, and the Golfers and the

Cultured met on terms of easy comradeship, their differences

temporarily laid aside--he proposed to Adeline and was badly stymied.

That fair, soulful girl could not see him with a spy-glass.

"Mr. Banks," she said, "I will speak frankly."

"Charge right ahead," assented Cuthbert.

"Deeply sensible as I am of----"

"I know. Of the honour and the compliment and all that. But, passing

lightly over all that guff, what seems to be the trouble? I love you to

distraction----"

"Love is not everything."

"You're wrong," said Cuthbert, earnestly. "You're right off it.

Love----" And he was about to dilate on the theme when she interrupted

him.

"I am a girl of ambition."

"And very nice, too," said Cuthbert.

"I am a girl of ambition," repeated Adeline, "and I realize that the

fulfilment of my ambitions must come through my husband. I am very

ordinary myself----"

"What!" cried Cuthbert. "You ordinary? Why, you are a pearl among

women, the queen of your sex. You can't have been looking in a glass

lately. You stand alone. Simply alone. You make the rest look like

battered repaints."

"Well," said Adeline, softening a trifle, "I believe I am fairly

good-looking----"

"Anybody who was content to call you fairly good-looking would describe

the Taj Mahal as a pretty nifty tomb."

"But that is not the point. What I mean is, if I marry a nonentity I

shall be a nonentity myself for ever. And I would sooner die than be a

nonentity."

"And, if I follow your reasoning, you think that that lets _me_

out?"

"Well, really, Mr. Banks, _have_ you done anything, or are you

likely ever to do anything worth while?"

Cuthbert hesitated.

"It's true," he said, "I didn't finish in the first ten in the Open,

and I was knocked out in the semi-final of the Amateur, but I won the

French Open last year."

"The--what?"

"The French Open Championship. Golf, you know."

"Golf! You waste all your time playing golf. I admire a man who is more

spiritual, more intellectual."

A pang of jealousy rent Cuthbert's bosom.

"Like What's-his-name Devine?" he said, sullenly.

"Mr. Devine," replied Adeline, blushing faintly, "is going to be a

great man. Already he has achieved much. The critics say that he is

more Russian than any other young English writer."

"And is that good?"

"Of course it's good."

"I should have thought the wheeze would be to be more English than any

other young English writer."

"Nonsense! Who wants an English writer to be English? You've got to be

Russian or Spanish or something to be a real success. The mantle of the

great Russians has descended on Mr. Devine."

"From what I've heard of Russians, I should hate to have that happen to

_me_."

"There is no danger of that," said Adeline scornfully.

"Oh! Well, let me tell you that there is a lot more in me than you

think."

"That might easily be so."

"You think I'm not spiritual and intellectual," said Cuthbert, deeply

moved. "Very well. Tomorrow I join the Literary Society."

Even as he spoke the words his leg was itching to kick himself for

being such a chump, but the sudden expression of pleasure on Adeline's

face soothed him; and he went home that night with the feeling that he

had taken on something rather attractive. It was only in the cold, grey

light of the morning that he realized what he had let himself in for.

I do not know if you have had any experience of suburban literary

societies, but the one that flourished under the eye of Mrs. Willoughby

Smethurst at Wood Hills was rather more so than the average. With my

feeble powers of narrative, I cannot hope to make clear to you all that

Cuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks. And, even if I could, I

doubt if I should do so. It is all very well to excite pity and terror,

as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits. In the ancient Greek

tragedies it was an ironclad rule that all the real rough stuff should

take place off-stage, and I shall follow this admirable principle. It

will suffice if I say merely that J. Cuthbert Banks had a thin time.

After attending eleven debates and fourteen lectures on _vers libre_

Poetry, the Seventeenth-Century Essayists, the Neo-Scandinavian

Movement in Portuguese Literature, and other subjects of a similar

nature, he grew so enfeebled that, on the rare occasions when he had

time for a visit to the links, he had to take a full iron for his mashie

shots.

It was not simply the oppressive nature of the debates and lectures

that sapped his vitality. What really got right in amongst him was the

torture of seeing Adeline's adoration of Raymond Parsloe Devine. The

man seemed to have made the deepest possible impression upon her

plastic emotions. When he spoke, she leaned forward with parted lips

and looked at him. When he was not speaking--which was seldom--she

leaned back and looked at him. And when he happened to take the next

seat to her, she leaned sideways and looked at him. One glance at Mr.

Devine would have been more than enough for Cuthbert; but Adeline found

him a spectacle that never palled. She could not have gazed at him with

a more rapturous intensity if she had been a small child and he a

saucer of ice-cream. All this Cuthbert had to witness while still

endeavouring to retain the possession of his faculties sufficiently to

enable him to duck and back away if somebody suddenly asked him what he

thought of the sombre realism of Vladimir Brusiloff. It is little

wonder that he tossed in bed, picking at the coverlet, through

sleepless nights, and had to have all his waistcoats taken in three

inches to keep them from sagging.

This Vladimir Brusiloff to whom I have referred was the famous Russian

novelist, and, owing to the fact of his being in the country on a

lecturing tour at the moment, there had been something of a boom in his

works. The Wood Hills Literary Society had been studying them for

weeks, and never since his first entrance into intellectual circles had

Cuthbert Banks come nearer to throwing in the towel. Vladimir

specialized in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened

till page three hundred and eighty, when the moujik decided to commit

suicide. It was tough going for a man whose deepest reading hitherto

had been Vardon on the Push-Shot, and there can be no greater proof of

the magic of love than the fact that Cuthbert stuck it without a cry.

But the strain was terrible and I am inclined to think that he must

have cracked, had it not been for the daily reports in the papers of

the internecine strife which was proceeding so briskly in Russia.

Cuthbert was an optimist at heart, and it seemed to him that, at the

rate at which the inhabitants of that interesting country were

murdering one another, the supply of Russian novelists must eventually

give out.

One morning, as he tottered down the road for the short walk which was

now almost the only exercise to which he was equal, Cuthbert met

Adeline. A spasm of anguish flitted through all his nerve-centres as he

saw that she was accompanied by Raymond Parsloe Devine.

"Good morning, Mr. Banks," said Adeline.

"Good morning," said Cuthbert hollowly.

"Such good news about Vladimir Brusiloff."

"Dead?" said Cuthbert, with a touch of hope.

"Dead? Of course not. Why should he be? No, Aunt Emily met his manager

after his lecture at Queen's Hall yesterday, and he has promised that

Mr. Brusiloff shall come to her next Wednesday reception."

"Oh, ah!" said Cuthbert, dully.

"I don't know how she managed it. I think she must have told him that

Mr. Devine would be there to meet him."

"But you said he was coming," argued Cuthbert.

"I shall be very glad," said Raymond Devine, "of the opportunity of

meeting Brusiloff."

"I'm sure," said Adeline, "he will be very glad of the opportunity of

meeting you."

"Possibly," said Mr. Devine. "Possibly. Competent critics have said

that my work closely resembles that of the great Russian Masters."

"Your psychology is so deep."

"Yes, yes."

"And your atmosphere."

"Quite."

Cuthbert in a perfect agony of spirit prepared to withdraw from this

love-feast. The sun was shining brightly, but the world was black to

him. Birds sang in the tree-tops, but he did not hear them. He might

have been a moujik for all the pleasure he found in life.

"You will be there, Mr. Banks?" said Adeline, as he turned away.

"Oh, all right," said Cuthbert.

When Cuthbert had entered the drawing-room on the following Wednesday

and had taken his usual place in a distant corner where, while able to

feast his gaze on Adeline, he had a sporting chance of being overlooked

or mistaken for a piece of furniture, he perceived the great Russian

thinker seated in the midst of a circle of admiring females. Raymond

Parsloe Devine had not yet arrived.

His first glance at the novelist surprised Cuthbert. Doubtless with the

best motives, Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to become

almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair, but his eyes

were visible through the undergrowth, and it seemed to Cuthbert that

there was an expression in them not unlike that of a cat in a strange

backyard surrounded by small boys. The man looked forlorn and hopeless,

and Cuthbert wondered whether he had had bad news from home.

This was not the case. The latest news which Vladimir Brusiloff had had

from Russia had been particularly cheering. Three of his principal

creditors had perished in the last massacre of the _bourgeoisie_,

and a man whom he owed for five years for a samovar and a pair of

overshoes had fled the country, and had not been heard of since. It was

not bad news from home that was depressing Vladimir. What was wrong

with him was the fact that this was the eighty-second suburban literary

reception he had been compelled to attend since he had landed in the

country on his lecturing tour, and he was sick to death of it. When his

agent had first suggested the trip, he had signed on the dotted line

without an instant's hesitation. Worked out in roubles, the fees

offered had seemed just about right. But now, as he peered through

the brushwood at the faces round him, and realized that eight out of

ten of those present had manuscripts of some sort concealed on their

persons, and were only waiting for an opportunity to whip them out

and start reading, he wished that he had stayed at his quiet home in

Nijni-Novgorod, where the worst thing that could happen to a fellow

was a brace of bombs coming in through the window and mixing

themselves up with his breakfast egg.

At this point in his meditations he was aware that his hostess was

looming up before him with a pale young man in horn-rimmed spectacles

at her side. There was in Mrs. Smethurst's demeanour something of the

unction of the master-of-ceremonies at the big fight who introduces the

earnest gentleman who wishes to challenge the winner.

"Oh, Mr. Brusiloff," said Mrs. Smethurst, "I do so want you to meet Mr.

Raymond Parsloe Devine, whose work I expect you know. He is one of our

younger novelists."

The distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner through

the shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking how exactly

like Mr. Devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whom

he had been introduced at various hamlets throughout the country.

Raymond Parsloe Devine bowed courteously, while Cuthbert, wedged into

his corner, glowered at him.

"The critics," said Mr. Devine, "have been kind enough to say that my

poor efforts contain a good deal of the Russian spirit. I owe much to

the great Russians. I have been greatly influenced by Sovietski."

Down in the forest something stirred. It was Vladimir Brusiloff's mouth

opening, as he prepared to speak. He was not a man who prattled

readily, especially in a foreign tongue. He gave the impression that

each word was excavated from his interior by some up-to-date process of

mining. He glared bleakly at Mr. Devine, and allowed three words to

drop out of him.

"Sovietski no good!"

He paused for a moment, set the machinery working again, and delivered

five more at the pithead.

"I spit me of Sovietski!"

There was a painful sensation. The lot of a popular idol is in many

ways an enviable one, but it has the drawback of uncertainty. Here

today and gone tomorrow. Until this moment Raymond Parsloe Devine's

stock had stood at something considerably over par in Wood Hills

intellectual circles, but now there was a rapid slump. Hitherto he had

been greatly admired for being influenced by Sovietski, but it appeared

now that this was not a good thing to be. It was evidently a rotten

thing to be. The law could not touch you for being influenced by

Sovietski, but there is an ethical as well as a legal code, and this it

was obvious that Raymond Parsloe Devine had transgressed. Women drew

away from him slightly, holding their skirts. Men looked at him

censoriously. Adeline Smethurst started violently, and dropped a

tea-cup. And Cuthbert Banks, doing his popular imitation of a sardine

in his corner, felt for the first time that life held something of

sunshine.

Raymond Parsloe Devine was plainly shaken, but he made an adroit

attempt to recover his lost prestige.

"When I say I have been influenced by Sovietski, I mean, of course,

that I was once under his spell. A young writer commits many follies. I

have long since passed through that phase. The false glamour of

Sovietski has ceased to dazzle me. I now belong whole-heartedly to the

school of Nastikoff."

There was a reaction. People nodded at one another sympathetically.

After all, we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders, and a lapse

at the outset of one's career should not be held against one who has

eventually seen the light.

"Nastikoff no good," said Vladimir Brusiloff, coldly. He paused,

listening to the machinery.

"Nastikoff worse than Sovietski."

He paused again.

"I spit me of Nastikoff!" he said.

This time there was no doubt about it. The bottom had dropped out of

the market, and Raymond Parsloe Devine Preferred were down in the

cellar with no takers. It was clear to the entire assembled company

that they had been all wrong about Raymond Parsloe Devine. They had

allowed him to play on their innocence and sell them a pup. They had

taken him at his own valuation, and had been cheated into admiring him

as a man who amounted to something, and all the while he had belonged

to the school of Nastikoff. You never can tell. Mrs. Smethurst's guests

were well-bred, and there was consequently no violent demonstration,

but you could see by their faces what they felt. Those nearest Raymond

Parsloe jostled to get further away. Mrs. Smethurst eyed him stonily

through a raised lorgnette. One or two low hisses were heard, and over

at the other end of the room somebody opened the window in a marked

manner.

Raymond Parsloe Devine hesitated for a moment, then, realizing his

situation, turned and slunk to the door. There was an audible sigh of

relief as it closed behind him.

Vladimir Brusiloff proceeded to sum up.

"No novelists any good except me. Sovietski--yah! Nastikoff--bah! I spit

me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G.

Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any

good except me."

And, having uttered this dictum, he removed a slab of cake from a

near-by plate, steered it through the jungle, and began to champ.

It is too much to say that there was a dead silence. There could never

be that in any room in which Vladimir Brusiloff was eating cake. But

certainly what you might call the general chit-chat was pretty well

down and out. Nobody liked to be the first to speak. The members of the

Wood Hills Literary Society looked at one another timidly. Cuthbert,

for his part, gazed at Adeline; and Adeline gazed into space. It was

plain that the girl was deeply stirred. Her eyes were opened wide, a

faint flush crimsoned her cheeks, and her breath was coming quickly.

Adeline's mind was in a whirl. She felt as if she had been walking

gaily along a pleasant path and had stopped suddenly on the very brink

of a precipice. It would be idle to deny that Raymond Parsloe Devine

had attracted her extraordinarily. She had taken him at his own

valuation as an extremely hot potato, and her hero-worship had

gradually been turning into love. And now her hero had been shown to

have feet of clay. It was hard, I consider, on Raymond Parsloe Devine,

but that is how it goes in this world. You get a following as a

celebrity, and then you run up against another bigger celebrity and

your admirers desert you. One could moralize on this at considerable

length, but better not, perhaps. Enough to say that the glamour of

Raymond Devine ceased abruptly in that moment for Adeline, and her most

coherent thought at this juncture was the resolve, as soon as she got

up to her room, to burn the three signed photographs he had sent her

and to give the autographed presentation set of his books to the

grocer's boy.

Mrs. Smethurst, meanwhile, having rallied somewhat, was endeavouring to

set the feast of reason and flow of soul going again.

"And how do you like England, Mr. Brusiloff?" she asked.

The celebrity paused in the act of lowering another segment of cake.

"Dam good," he replied, cordially.

"I suppose you have travelled all over the country by this time?"

"You said it," agreed the Thinker.

"Have you met many of our great public men?"

"Yais--Yais--Quite a few of the nibs--Lloyid Gorge, I meet him. But----"

Beneath the matting a discontented expression came into his face, and

his voice took on a peevish note. "But I not meet your real great

men--your Arbmishel, your Arreevadon--I not meet them. That's what

gives me the pipovitch. Have _you_ ever met Arbmishel and

Arreevadon?"

A strained, anguished look came into Mrs. Smethurst's face and was

reflected in the faces of the other members of the circle. The eminent

Russian had sprung two entirely new ones on them, and they felt that

their ignorance was about to be exposed. What would Vladimir Brusiloff

think of the Wood Hills Literary Society? The reputation of the Wood

Hills Literary Society was at stake, trembling in the balance, and

coming up for the third time. In dumb agony Mrs. Smethurst rolled her

eyes about the room searching for someone capable of coming to the

rescue. She drew blank.

And then, from a distant corner, there sounded a deprecating, cough,

and those nearest Cuthbert Banks saw that he had stopped twisting his

right foot round his left ankle and his left foot round his right ankle

and was sitting up with a light of almost human intelligence in his

eyes.

"Er----" said Cuthbert, blushing as every eye in the room seemed to fix

itself on him, "I think he means Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon."

"Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon?" repeated Mrs. Smethurst, blankly. "I

never heard of----"

"Yais! Yais! Most! Very!" shouted Vladimir Brusiloff, enthusiastically.

"Arbmishel and Arreevadon. You know them, yes, what, no, perhaps?"

"I've played with Abe Mitchell often, and I was partnered with Harry

Vardon in last year's Open."

The great Russian uttered a cry that shook the chandelier.

"You play in ze Open? Why," he demanded reproachfully of Mrs.

Smethurst, "was I not been introducted to this young man who play in

opens?"

"Well, really," faltered Mrs. Smethurst. "Well, the fact is, Mr.

Brusiloff----"

She broke off. She was unequal to the task of explaining, without

hurting anyone's feelings, that she had always regarded Cuthbert as a

piece of cheese and a blot on the landscape.

"Introduct me!" thundered the Celebrity.

"Why, certainly, certainly, of course. This is Mr.----."

She looked appealingly at Cuthbert.

"Banks," prompted Cuthbert.

"Banks!" cried Vladimir Brusiloff. "Not Cootaboot Banks?"

"_Is_ your name Cootaboot?" asked Mrs. Smethurst, faintly.

"Well, it's Cuthbert."

"Yais! Yais! Cootaboot!" There was a rush and swirl, as the

effervescent Muscovite burst his way through the throng and rushed to

where Cuthbert sat. He stood for a moment eyeing him excitedly, then,

stooping swiftly, kissed him on both cheeks before Cuthbert could get

his guard up. "My dear young man, I saw you win ze French Open. Great!

Great! Grand! Superb! Hot stuff, and you can say I said so! Will you

permit one who is but eighteen at Nijni-Novgorod to salute you once

more?"

And he kissed Cuthbert again. Then, brushing aside one or two

intellectuals who were in the way, he dragged up a chair and sat down.

"You are a great man!" he said.

"Oh, no," said Cuthbert modestly.

"Yais! Great. Most! Very! The way you lay your approach-putts dead from

anywhere!"

"Oh, I don't know."

Mr. Brusiloff drew his chair closer.

"Let me tell you one vairy funny story about putting. It was one day I

play at Nijni-Novgorod with the pro. against Lenin and Trotsky, and

Trotsky had a two-inch putt for the hole. But, just as he addresses the

ball, someone in the crowd he tries to assassinate Lenin with a

rewolwer--you know that is our great national sport, trying to

assassinate Lenin with rewolwers--and the bang puts Trotsky off his

stroke and he goes five yards past the hole, and then Lenin, who is

rather shaken, you understand, he misses again himself, and we win the

hole and match and I clean up three hundred and ninety-six thousand

roubles, or fifteen shillings in your money. Some gameovitch! And now

let me tell you one other vairy funny story----"

Desultory conversation had begun in murmurs over the rest of the room,

as the Wood Hills intellectuals politely endeavoured to conceal the

fact that they realized that they were about as much out of it at this

re-union of twin souls as cats at a dog-show. From time to time they

started as Vladimir Brusiloff's laugh boomed out. Perhaps it was a

consolation to them to know that he was enjoying himself.

As for Adeline, how shall I describe her emotions? She was stunned.

Before her very eyes the stone which the builders had rejected had

become the main thing, the hundred-to-one shot had walked away with the

race. A rush of tender admiration for Cuthbert Banks flooded her heart.

She saw that she had been all wrong. Cuthbert, whom she had always

treated with a patronizing superiority, was really a man to be looked

up to and worshipped. A deep, dreamy sigh shook Adeline's fragile form.

Half an hour later Vladimir and Cuthbert Banks rose.

"Goot-a-bye, Mrs. Smet-thirst," said the Celebrity. "Zank you for a

most charming visit. My friend Cootaboot and me we go now to shoot a

few holes. You will lend me clobs, friend Cootaboot?"

"Any you want."

"The niblicksky is what I use most. Goot-a-bye, Mrs. Smet-thirst."

They were moving to the door, when Cuthbert felt a light touch on his

arm. Adeline was looking up at him tenderly.

"May I come, too, and walk round with you?"

Cuthbert's bosom heaved.

"Oh," he said, with a tremor in his voice, "that you would walk round

with me for life!"

Her eyes met his.

"Perhaps," she whispered, softly, "it could be arranged."

* * * * *

"And so," (concluded the Oldest Member), "you see that golf can be of

the greatest practical assistance to a man in Life's struggle. Raymond

Parsloe Devine, who was no player, had to move out of the neighbourhood

immediately, and is now, I believe, writing scenarios out in California

for the Flicker Film Company. Adeline is married to Cuthbert, and it

was only his earnest pleading which prevented her from having their

eldest son christened Abe Mitchell Ribbed-Faced Mashie Banks, for she

is now as keen a devotee of the great game as her husband. Those who

know them say that theirs is a union so devoted, so----"

* * * * *

The Sage broke off abruptly, for the young man had rushed to the door

and out into the passage. Through the open door he could hear him

crying passionately to the waiter to bring back his clubs.

2

_A Woman is only a Woman_

On a fine day in the spring, summer, or early autumn, there are few

spots more delightful than the terrace in front of our Golf Club. It is

a vantage-point peculiarly fitted to the man of philosophic mind: for

from it may be seen that varied, never-ending pageant, which men call

Golf, in a number of its aspects. To your right, on the first tee,

stand the cheery optimists who are about to make their opening drive,

happily conscious that even a topped shot will trickle a measurable

distance down the steep hill. Away in the valley, directly in front of

you, is the lake hole, where these same optimists will be converted to

pessimism by the wet splash of a new ball. At your side is the ninth

green, with its sinuous undulations which have so often wrecked the

returning traveller in sight of home. And at various points within your

line of vision are the third tee, the sixth tee, and the sinister

bunkers about the eighth green--none of them lacking in food for the

reflective mind.

It is on this terrace that the Oldest Member sits, watching the younger

generation knocking at the divot. His gaze wanders from Jimmy

Fothergill's two-hundred-and-twenty-yard drive down the hill to the

silver drops that flash up in the sun, as young Freddie Woosley's

mashie-shot drops weakly into the waters of the lake. Returning, it

rests upon Peter Willard, large and tall, and James Todd, small and

slender, as they struggle up the fair-way of the ninth.

* * * * *

Love (says the Oldest Member) is an emotion which your true golfer

should always treat with suspicion. Do not misunderstand me. I am not

saying that love is a bad thing, only that it is an unknown quantity. I

have known cases where marriage improved a man's game, and other cases

where it seemed to put him right off his stroke. There seems to be no

fixed rule. But what I do say is that a golfer should be cautious. He

should not be led away by the first pretty face. I will tell you a

story that illustrates the point. It is the story of those two men who

have just got on to the ninth green--Peter Willard and James Todd.

There is about great friendships between man and man (said the Oldest

Member) a certain inevitability that can only be compared with the

age-old association of ham and eggs. No one can say when it was that

these two wholesome and palatable food-stuffs first came together, nor

what was the mutual magnetism that brought their deathless partnership

about. One simply feels that it is one of the things that must be so.

Similarly with men. Who can trace to its first beginnings the love of

Damon for Pythias, of David for Jonathan, of Swan for Edgar? Who can

explain what it was about Crosse that first attracted Blackwell? We

simply say, "These men are friends," and leave it at that.

In the case of Peter Willard and James Todd, one may hazard the guess

that the first link in the chain that bound them together was the fact

that they took up golf within a few days of each other, and contrived,

as time went on, to develop such equal form at the game that the most

expert critics are still baffled in their efforts to decide which is

the worse player. I have heard the point argued a hundred times without

any conclusion being reached. Supporters of Peter claim that his

driving off the tee entitles him to an unchallenged pre-eminence among

the world's most hopeless foozlers--only to be discomfited later when

the advocates of James show, by means of diagrams, that no one has ever

surpassed their man in absolute incompetence with the spoon. It is one

of those problems where debate is futile.

Few things draw two men together more surely than a mutual inability to

master golf, coupled with an intense and ever-increasing love for the

game. At the end of the first few months, when a series of costly

experiments had convinced both Peter and James that there was not a

tottering grey-beard nor a toddling infant in the neighbourhood whose

downfall they could encompass, the two became inseparable. It was

pleasanter, they found, to play together, and go neck and neck round

the eighteen holes, than to take on some lissome youngster who could

spatter them all over the course with one old ball and a cut-down cleek

stolen from his father; or some spavined elder who not only rubbed it

into them, but was apt, between strokes, to bore them with personal

reminiscences of the Crimean War. So they began to play together early

and late. In the small hours before breakfast, long ere the first faint

piping of the waking caddie made itself heard from the caddie-shed,

they were half-way through their opening round. And at close of day,

when bats wheeled against the steely sky and the "pro's" had stolen

home to rest, you might see them in the deepening dusk, going through

the concluding exercises of their final spasm. After dark, they visited

each other's houses and read golf books.

If you have gathered from what I have said that Peter Willard and James

Todd were fond of golf, I am satisfied. That is the impression I

intended to convey. They were real golfers, for real golf is a thing of

the spirit, not of mere mechanical excellence of stroke.

It must not be thought, however, that they devoted too much of their

time and their thoughts to golf--assuming, indeed, that such a thing is

possible. Each was connected with a business in the metropolis; and

often, before he left for the links, Peter would go to the trouble and

expense of ringing up the office to say he would not be coming in that

day; while I myself have heard James--and this not once, but

frequently--say, while lunching in the club-house, that he had half a

mind to get Gracechurch Street on the 'phone and ask how things were

going. They were, in fact, the type of men of whom England is

proudest--the back-bone of a great country, toilers in the mart,

untired businessmen, keen red-blooded men of affairs. If they played a

little golf besides, who shall blame them?

So they went on, day by day, happy and contented. And then the Woman

came into their lives, like the Serpent in the Links of Eden, and

perhaps for the first time they realized that they were not one

entity--not one single, indivisible Something that made for topped

drives and short putts--but two individuals, in whose breasts Nature

had implanted other desires than the simple ambition some day to do the

dog-leg hole on the second nine in under double figures. My friends

tell me that, when I am relating a story, my language is inclined at

times a little to obscure my meaning; but, if you understand from what

I have been saying that James Todd and Peter Willard both fell in love

with the same woman--all right, let us carry on. That is precisely what

I was driving at.

I have not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Grace

Forrester. I have seen her in the distance, watering the flowers in her

garden, and on these occasions her stance struck me as graceful. And

once, at a picnic, I observed her killing wasps with a teaspoon, and

was impressed by the freedom of the wrist-action of her back-swing.

Beyond this, I can say little. But she must have been attractive, for

there can be no doubt of the earnestness with which both Peter and

James fell in love with her. I doubt if either slept a wink the night

of the dance at which it was their privilege first to meet her.

The next afternoon, happening to encounter Peter in the bunker near the

eleventh green, James said:

"That was a nice girl, that Miss What's-her-name."

And Peter, pausing for a moment from his trench-digging, replied:

"Yes."

And then James, with a pang, knew that he had a rival, for he had not

mentioned Miss Forrester's name, and yet Peter had divined that it was

to her that he had referred.

Love is a fever which, so to speak, drives off without wasting time on

the address. On the very next morning after the conversation which I

have related, James Todd rang Peter Willard up on the 'phone and

cancelled their golf engagements for the day, on the plea of a sprained

wrist. Peter, acknowledging the cancellation, stated that he himself

had been on the point of ringing James up to say that he would be

unable to play owing to a slight headache. They met at tea-time at Miss

Forrester's house. James asked how Peter's headache was, and Peter said

it was a little better. Peter inquired after James's sprained wrist,

and was told it seemed on the mend. Miss Forrester dispensed tea and

conversation to both impartially.

They walked home together. After an awkward silence of twenty minutes,

James said:

"There is something about the atmosphere--the aura, shall I say?--that

emanates from a good woman that makes a man feel that life has a new, a

different meaning."

Peter replied:

"Yes."

When they reached James's door, James said:

"I won't ask you in tonight, old man. You want to go home and rest and

cure that headache."

"Yes," said Peter.

There was another silence. Peter was thinking that, only a couple of

days before, James had told him that he had a copy of Sandy MacBean's

"How to Become a Scratch Man Your First Season by Studying Photographs"

coming by parcel-post from town, and they had arranged to read it aloud

together. By now, thought Peter, it must be lying on his friend's

table. The thought saddened him. And James, guessing what was in

Peter's mind, was saddened too. But he did not waver. He was in no mood

to read MacBean's masterpiece that night. In the twenty minutes of

silence after leaving Miss Forrester he had realized that "Grace"

rhymes with "face", and he wanted to sit alone in his study and write

poetry. The two men parted with a distant nod. I beg your pardon? Yes,

you are right. Two distant nods. It was always a failing of mine to

count the score erroneously.

It is not my purpose to weary you by a minute recital of the happenings

of each day that went by. On the surface, the lives of these two men

seemed unchanged. They still played golf together, and during the round

achieved towards each other a manner that, superficially, retained all

its ancient cheeriness and affection. If--I should say--when, James

topped his drive, Peter never failed to say "Hard luck!" And when--or,

rather, if Peter managed not to top his, James invariably said "Great!"

But things were not the same, and they knew it.

It so happened, as it sometimes will on these occasions, for Fate is a

dramatist who gets his best effects with a small cast, that Peter

Willard and James Todd were the only visible aspirants for the hand of

Miss Forrester. Right at the beginning young Freddie Woosley had seemed

attracted by the girl, and had called once or twice with flowers and

chocolates, but Freddie's affections never centred themselves on one

object for more than a few days, and he had dropped out after the first

week. From that time on it became clear to all of us that, if Grace

Forrester intended to marry anyone in the place, it would be either

James or Peter; and a good deal of interest was taken in the matter by

the local sportsmen. So little was known of the form of the two men,

neither having figured as principal in a love-affair before, that even

money was the best you could get, and the market was sluggish. I think

my own flutter of twelve golf-balls, taken up by Percival Brown, was

the most substantial of any of the wagers. I selected James as the

winner. Why, I can hardly say, unless that he had an aunt who

contributed occasional stories to the "Woman's Sphere". These things

sometimes weigh with a girl. On the other hand, George Lucas, who had

half-a-dozen of ginger-ale on Peter, based his calculations on the fact

that James wore knickerbockers on the links, and that no girl could

possibly love a man with calves like that. In short, you see, we really

had nothing to go on.

Nor had James and Peter. The girl seemed to like them both equally.

They never saw her except in each other's company. And it was not until

one day when Grace Forrester was knitting a sweater that there seemed a

chance of getting a clue to her hidden feelings.

When the news began to spread through the place that Grace was knitting

this sweater there was a big sensation. The thing seemed to us

practically to amount to a declaration.

That was the view that James Todd and Peter Willard took of it, and

they used to call on Grace, watch her knitting, and come away with

their heads full of complicated calculations. The whole thing hung on

one point--to wit, what size the sweater was going to be. If it was

large, then it must be for Peter; if small, then James was the lucky

man. Neither dared to make open inquiries, but it began to seem almost

impossible to find out the truth without them. No masculine eye can

reckon up purls and plains and estimate the size of chest which the

garment is destined to cover. Moreover, with amateur knitters there

must always be allowed a margin for involuntary error. There were many

cases during the war where our girls sent sweaters to their sweethearts

which would have induced strangulation in their young brothers. The

amateur sweater of those days was, in fact, practically tantamount to

German propaganda.

Peter and James were accordingly baffled. One evening the sweater would

look small, and James would come away jubilant; the next it would have

swollen over a vast area, and Peter would walk home singing. The

suspense of the two men can readily be imagined. On the one hand, they

wanted to know their fate; on the other, they fully realized that

whoever the sweater was for would have to wear it. And, as it was a

vivid pink and would probably not fit by a mile, their hearts quailed

at the prospect.

In all affairs of human tension there must come a breaking point. It

came one night as the two men were walking home.

"Peter," said James, stopping in mid-stride. He mopped his forehead.

His manner had been feverish all the evening.

"Yes?" said Peter.

"I can't stand this any longer. I haven't had a good night's rest for

weeks. We must find out definitely which of us is to have that

sweater."

"Let's go back and ask her," said Peter.

So they turned back and rang the bell and went into the house and

presented themselves before Miss Forrester.

"Lovely evening," said James, to break the ice.

"Superb," said Peter.

"Delightful," said Miss Forrester, looking a little surprised at

finding the troupe playing a return date without having booked it in

advance.

"To settle a bet," said James, "will you please tell us who--I should

say, whom--you are knitting that sweater for?"

"It is not a sweater," replied Miss Forrester, with a womanly candour

that well became her. "It is a sock. And it is for my cousin Juliet's

youngest son, Willie."

"Good night," said James.

"Good night," said Peter.

"Good night," said Grace Forrester.

It was during the long hours of the night, when ideas so often come to

wakeful men, that James was struck by an admirable solution of his and

Peter's difficulty. It seemed to him that, were one or the other to

leave Woodhaven, the survivor would find himself in a position to

conduct his wooing as wooing should be conducted. Hitherto, as I have

indicated, neither had allowed the other to be more than a few minutes

alone with the girl. They watched each other like hawks. When James

called, Peter called. When Peter dropped in, James invariably popped

round. The thing had resolved itself into a stalemate.

The idea which now came to James was that he and Peter should settle

their rivalry by an eighteen-hole match on the links. He thought very

highly of the idea before he finally went to sleep, and in the morning

the scheme looked just as good to him as it had done overnight.

James was breakfasting next morning, preparatory to going round to

disclose his plan to Peter, when Peter walked in, looking happier than

he had done for days.

"'Morning," said James.

"'Morning," said Peter.

Peter sat down and toyed absently with a slice of bacon.

"I've got an idea," he said.

"One isn't many," said James, bringing his knife down with a jerk-shot

on a fried egg. "What is your idea?"

"Got it last night as I was lying awake. It struck me that, if either

of us was to clear out of this place, the other would have a fair

chance. You know what I mean--with Her. At present we've got each other

stymied. Now, how would it be," said Peter, abstractedly spreading

marmalade on his bacon, "if we were to play an eighteen-hole match, the

loser to leg out of the neighbourhood and stay away long enough to give

the winner the chance to find out exactly how things stood?"

James started so violently that he struck himself in the left eye with

his fork.

"That's exactly the idea I got last night, too."

"Then it's a go?"

"It's the only thing to do."

There was silence for a moment. Both men were thinking. Remember, they

were friends. For years they had shared each other's sorrows, joys, and

golf-balls, and sliced into the same bunkers.

Presently Peter said:

"I shall miss you."

"What do you mean, miss me?"

"When you're gone. Woodhaven won't seem the same place. But of course

you'll soon be able to come back. I sha'n't waste any time proposing."

"Leave me your address," said James, "and I'll send you a wire when you

can return. You won't be offended if I don't ask you to be best man at

the wedding? In the circumstances it might be painful to you."

Peter sighed dreamily.

"We'll have the sitting-room done in blue. Her eyes are blue."

"Remember," said James, "there will always be a knife and fork for you

at our little nest. Grace is not the woman to want me to drop my

bachelor friends."

"Touching this match," said Peter. "Strict Royal and Ancient rules, of

course?"

"Certainly."

"I mean to say--no offence, old man--but no grounding niblicks in

bunkers."

"Precisely. And, without hinting at anything personal, the ball shall

be considered holed-out only when it is in the hole, not when it stops

on the edge."

"Undoubtedly. And--you know I don't want to hurt your feelings--missing

the ball counts as a stroke, not as a practice-swing."

"Exactly. And--you'll forgive me if I mention it--a player whose ball

has fallen in the rough, may not pull up all the bushes within a radius

of three feet."

"In fact, strict rules."

"Strict rules."

They shook hands without more words. And presently Peter walked out,

and James, with a guilty look over his shoulder, took down Sandy

MacBean's great work from the bookshelf and began to study the

photograph of the short approach-shot showing Mr. MacBean swinging from

Point A, through dotted line B-C, to Point D, his head the while

remaining rigid at the spot marked with a cross. He felt a little

guiltily that he had stolen a march on his friend, and that the contest

was as good as over.

* * * * *

I cannot recall a lovelier summer day than that on which the great

Todd-Willard eighteen-hole match took place. It had rained during the

night, and now the sun shone down from a clear blue sky on to turf that

glistened more greenly than the young grass of early spring.

Butterflies flitted to and fro; birds sang merrily. In short, all

Nature smiled. And it is to be doubted if Nature ever had a better

excuse for smiling--or even laughing outright; for matches like that

between James Todd and Peter Willard do not occur every day.

Whether it was that love had keyed them up, or whether hours of study

of Braid's "Advanced Golf" and the Badminton Book had produced a

belated effect, I cannot say; but both started off quite reasonably

well. Our first hole, as you can see, is a bogey four, and James was

dead on the pin in seven, leaving Peter, who had twice hit the United

Kingdom with his mashie in mistake for the ball, a difficult putt for

the half. Only one thing could happen when you left Peter a difficult

putt; and James advanced to the lake hole one up, Peter, as he

followed, trying to console himself with the thought that many of the

best golfers prefer to lose the first hole and save themselves for a

strong finish.

Peter and James had played over the lake hole so often that they had

become accustomed to it, and had grown into the habit of sinking a ball

or two as a preliminary formality with much the same stoicism displayed

by those kings in ancient and superstitious times who used to fling

jewellery into the sea to propitiate it before they took a voyage. But

today, by one of those miracles without which golf would not be golf,

each of them got over with his first shot--and not only over, but dead

on the pin. Our "pro." himself could not have done better.

I think it was at this point that the two men began to go to pieces.

They were in an excited frame of mind, and this thing unmanned them.

You will no doubt recall Keats's poem about stout Cortez staring with

eagle eyes at the Pacific while all his men gazed at each other with a

wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien. Precisely so did Peter

Willard and James Todd stare with eagle eyes at the second lake hole,

and gaze at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a tee in

Woodhaven. They had dreamed of such a happening so often and woke to

find the vision false, that at first they could not believe that the

thing had actually occurred.

"I got over!" whispered James, in an awed voice.

"So did I!" muttered Peter.

"In one!"

"With my very first!"

They walked in silence round the edge of the lake, and holed out. One

putt was enough for each, and they halved the hole with a two. Peter's

previous record was eight, and James had once done a seven. There are

times when strong men lose their self-control, and this was one of

them. They reached the third tee in a daze, and it was here that

mortification began to set in.

The third hole is another bogey four, up the hill and past the tree

that serves as a direction-post, the hole itself being out of sight. On

his day, James had often done it in ten and Peter in nine; but now they

were unnerved. James, who had the honour, shook visibly as he addressed

his ball. Three times he swung and only connected with the ozone; the

fourth time he topped badly. The discs had been set back a little way,

and James had the mournful distinction of breaking a record for the

course by playing his fifth shot from the tee. It was a low, raking

brassey-shot, which carried a heap of stones twenty feet to the right

and finished in a furrow. Peter, meanwhile, had popped up a lofty ball

which came to rest behind a stone.

It was now that the rigid rules governing this contest began to take

their toll. Had they been playing an ordinary friendly round, each

would have teed up on some convenient hillock and probably been past

the tree with their second, for James would, in ordinary circumstances,

have taken his drive back and regarded the strokes he had made as a

little preliminary practice to get him into midseason form. But today

it was war to the niblick, and neither man asked nor expected quarter.

Peter's seventh shot dislodged the stone, leaving him a clear field,

and James, with his eleventh, extricated himself from the furrow. Fifty

feet from the tree James was eighteen, Peter twelve; but then the

latter, as every golfer does at times, suddenly went right off his

game. He hit the tree four times, then hooked into the sand-bunkers to

the left of the hole. James, who had been playing a game that was

steady without being brilliant, was on the green in twenty-six, Peter

taking twenty-seven. Poor putting lost James the hole. Peter was down

in thirty-three, but the pace was too hot for James. He missed a

two-foot putt for the half, and they went to the fourth tee all square.

The fourth hole follows the curve of the road, on the other side of

which are picturesque woods. It presents no difficulties to the expert,

but it has pitfalls for the novice. The dashing player stands for a

slice, while the more cautious are satisfied if they can clear the

bunker that spans the fairway and lay their ball well out to the left,

whence an iron shot will take them to the green. Peter and James

combined the two policies. Peter aimed to the left and got a slice, and

James, also aiming to the left, topped into the bunker. Peter,

realizing from experience the futility of searching for his ball in the

woods, drove a second, which also disappeared into the jungle, as did

his third. By the time he had joined James in the bunker he had played

his sixth.

It is the glorious uncertainty of golf that makes it the game it is.

The fact that James and Peter, lying side by side in the same bunker,

had played respectively one and six shots, might have induced an

unthinking observer to fancy the chances of the former. And no doubt,

had he not taken seven strokes to extricate himself from the pit, while

his opponent, by some act of God, contrived to get out in two, James's

chances might have been extremely rosy. As it was, the two men

staggered out on to the fairway again with a score of eight apiece.

Once past the bunker and round the bend of the road, the hole becomes

simple. A judicious use of the cleek put Peter on the green in

fourteen, while James, with a Braid iron, reached it in twelve. Peter

was down in seventeen, and James contrived to halve. It was only as he

was leaving the hole that the latter discovered that he had been

putting with his niblick, which cannot have failed to exercise a

prejudicial effect on his game. These little incidents are bound to

happen when one is in a nervous and highly-strung condition.

The fifth and sixth holes produced no unusual features. Peter won the

fifth in eleven, and James the sixth in ten. The short seventh they

halved in nine. The eighth, always a tricky hole, they took no

liberties with, James, sinking a long putt with his twenty-third, just

managing to halve. A ding-dong race up the hill for the ninth found

James first at the pin, and they finished the first nine with James one

up.

As they left the green James looked a little furtively at his

companion.

"You might be strolling on to the tenth," he said. "I want to get a few

balls at the shop. And my mashie wants fixing up. I sha'n't be long."

"I'll come with you," said Peter.

"Don't bother," said James. "You go on and hold our place at the tee."

I regret to say that James was lying. His mashie was in excellent

repair, and he still had a dozen balls in his bag, it being his prudent

practice always to start out with eighteen. No! What he had said was

mere subterfuge. He wanted to go to his locker and snatch a few minutes

with Sandy MacBean's "How to Become a Scratch Man". He felt sure that

one more glance at the photograph of Mr. MacBean driving would give him

the mastery of the stroke and so enable him to win the match. In this I

think he was a little sanguine. The difficulty about Sandy MacBean's

method of tuition was that he laid great stress on the fact that the

ball should be directly in a line with a point exactly in the centre of

the back of the player's neck; and so far James's efforts to keep his

eye on the ball and on the back of his neck simultaneously had produced

no satisfactory results.

* * * * *

It seemed to James, when he joined Peter on the tenth tee, that the

latter's manner was strange. He was pale. There was a curious look in

his eye.

"James, old man," he said.

"Yes?" said James.

"While you were away I have been thinking. James, old man, do you

really love this girl?"

James stared. A spasm of pain twisted Peter's face.

"Suppose," he said in a low voice, "she were not all you--we--think she

is!"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Miss Forrester is an angel."

"Yes, yes. Quite so."

"I know what it is," said James, passionately. "You're trying to put me

off my stroke. You know that the least thing makes me lose my form."

"No, no!"

"You hope that you can take my mind off the game and make me go to

pieces, and then you'll win the match."

"On the contrary," said Peter. "I intend to forfeit the match."

James reeled.

"What!"

"I give up."

"But--but----" James shook with emotion. His voice quavered. "Ah!" he

cried. "I see now: I understand! You are doing this for me because I am

your pal. Peter, this is noble! This is the sort of thing you read

about in books. I've seen it in the movies. But I can't accept the

sacrifice."

"You must!"

"No, no!"

"I insist!"

"Do you mean this?"

"I give her up, James, old man. I--I hope you will be happy."

"But I don't know what to say. How can I thank you?"

"Don't thank me."

"But, Peter, do you fully realize what you are doing? True, I am one

up, but there are nine holes to go, and I am not right on my game

today. You might easily beat me. Have you forgotten that I once took

forty-seven at the dog-leg hole? This may be one of my bad days. Do you

understand that if you insist on giving up I shall go to Miss Forrester

tonight and propose to her?"

"I understand."

"And yet you stick to it that you are through?"

"I do. And, by the way, there's no need for you to wait till tonight.

I saw Miss Forrester just now outside the tennis court. She's alone."

James turned crimson.

"Then I think perhaps----"

"You'd better go to her at once."

"I will." James extended his hand. "Peter, old man, I shall never

forget this."

"That's all right."

"What are you going to do?"

"Now, do you mean? Oh, I shall potter round the second nine. If you

want me, you'll find me somewhere about."

"You'll come to the wedding, Peter?" said James, wistfully.

"Of course," said Peter. "Good luck."

He spoke cheerily, but, when the other had turned to go, he stood

looking after him thoughtfully. Then he sighed a heavy sigh.

* * * * *

James approached Miss Forrester with a beating heart. She made a

charming picture as she stood there in the sunlight, one hand on her

hip, the other swaying a tennis racket.

"How do you do?" said James.

"How are you, Mr. Todd? Have you been playing golf?"

"Yes."

"With Mr. Willard?"

"Yes. We were having a match."

"Golf," said Grace Forrester, "seems to make men very rude. Mr. Willard

left me without a word in the middle of our conversation."

James was astonished.

"Were you talking to Peter?"

"Yes. Just now. I can't understand what was the matter with him. He

just turned on his heel and swung off."

"You oughtn't to turn on your heel when you swing," said James; "only

on the ball of the foot."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing. I wasn't thinking. The fact is, I've something on my

mind. So has Peter. You mustn't think too hardly of him. We have been

playing an important match, and it must have got on his nerves. You

didn't happen by any chance to be watching us?"

"No."

"Ah! I wish you had seen me at the lake-hole. I did it one under par."

"Was your father playing?"

"You don't understand. I mean I did it in one better than even the

finest player is supposed to do it. It's a mashie-shot, you know. You

mustn't play too light, or you fall in the lake; and you mustn't play

it too hard, or you go past the hole into the woods. It requires the

nicest delicacy and judgment, such as I gave it. You might have to wait

a year before seeing anyone do it in two again. I doubt if the 'pro.'

often does it in two. Now, directly we came to this hole today, I made

up my mind that there was going to be no mistake. The great secret of

any shot at golf is ease, elegance, and the ability to relax. The

majority of men, you will find, think it important that their address

should be good."

"How snobbish! What does it matter where a man lives?"

"You don't absolutely follow me. I refer to the waggle and the stance

before you make the stroke. Most players seem to fix in their minds the

appearance of the angles which are presented by the position of the

arms, legs, and club shaft, and it is largely the desire to retain

these angles which results in their moving their heads and stiffening

their muscles so that there is no freedom in the swing. There is only

one point which vitally affects the stroke, and the only reason why

that should be kept constant is that you are enabled to see your ball

clearly. That is the pivotal point marked at the base of the neck, and

a line drawn from this point to the ball should be at right angles to

the line of flight."

James paused for a moment for air, and as he paused Miss Forrester

spoke.

"This is all gibberish to me," she said.

"Gibberish!" gasped James. "I am quoting verbatim from one of the best

authorities on golf."

Miss Forrester swung her tennis racket irritably.

"Golf," she said, "bores me pallid. I think it is the silliest game

ever invented!"

The trouble about telling a story is that words are so feeble a means

of depicting the supreme moments of life. That is where the artist has

the advantage over the historian. Were I an artist, I should show James

at this point falling backwards with his feet together and his eyes

shut, with a semi-circular dotted line marking the progress of his

flight and a few stars above his head to indicate moral collapse. There

are no words that can adequately describe the sheer, black horror that

froze the blood in his veins as this frightful speech smote his ears.

He had never inquired into Miss Forrester's religious views before, but

he had always assumed that they were sound. And now here she was

polluting the golden summer air with the most hideous blasphemy. It

would be incorrect to say that James's love was turned to hate. He did

not hate Grace. The repulsion he felt was deeper than mere hate. What

he felt was not altogether loathing and not wholly pity. It was a blend

of the two.

There was a tense silence. The listening world stood still. Then,

without a word, James Todd turned and tottered away.

* * * * *

Peter was working moodily in the twelfth bunker when his friend

arrived. He looked up with a start. Then, seeing that the other was

alone, he came forward hesitatingly.

"Am I to congratulate you?"

James breathed a deep breath.

"You are!" he said. "On an escape!"

"She refused you?"

"She didn't get the chance. Old man, have you ever sent one right up

the edge of that bunker in front of the seventh and just not gone in?"

"Very rarely."

"I did once. It was my second shot, from a good lie, with the light

iron, and I followed well through and thought I had gone just too far,

and, when I walked up, there was my ball on the edge of the bunker,

nicely teed up on a chunk of grass, so that I was able to lay it dead

with my mashie-niblick, holing out in six. Well, what I mean to say is,

I feel now as I felt then--as if some unseen power had withheld me in

time from some frightful disaster."

"I know just how you feel," said Peter, gravely.

"Peter, old man, that girl said golf bored her pallid. She said she

thought it was the silliest game ever invented." He paused to mark the

effect of his words. Peter merely smiled a faint, wan smile. "You don't

seem revolted," said James.

"I am revolted, but not surprised. You see, she said the same thing to

me only a few minutes before."

"She did!"

"It amounted to the same thing. I had just been telling her how I did

the lake-hole today in two, and she said that in her opinion golf was a

game for children with water on the brain who weren't athletic enough

to play Animal Grab."

The two men shivered in sympathy.

"There must be insanity in the family," said James at last.

"That," said Peter, "is the charitable explanation."

"We were fortunate to find it out in time."

"We were!"

"We mustn't run a risk like that again."

"Never again!"

"I think we had better take up golf really seriously. It will keep us

out of mischief."

"You're quite right. We ought to do our four rounds a day regularly."

"In spring, summer, and autumn. And in winter it would be rash not to

practise most of the day at one of those indoor schools."

"We ought to be safe that way."

"Peter, old man," said James, "I've been meaning to speak to you about

it for some time. I've got Sandy MacBean's new book, and I think you

ought to read it. It is full of helpful hints."

"James!"

"Peter!"

Silently the two men clasped hands. James Todd and Peter Willard were

themselves again.

* * * * *

And so (said the Oldest Member) we come back to our original

starting-point--to wit, that, while there is nothing to be said

definitely against love, your golfer should be extremely careful how he

indulges in it. It may improve his game or it may not. But, if he finds

that there is any danger that it may not--if the object of his

affections is not the kind of girl who will listen to him with cheerful

sympathy through the long evenings, while he tells her, illustrating

stance and grip and swing with the kitchen poker, each detail of the

day's round--then, I say unhesitatingly, he had better leave it alone.

Love has had a lot of press-agenting from the oldest times; but there

are higher, nobler things than love. A woman is only a woman, but a

hefty drive is a slosh.

3

_A Mixed Threesome_

It was the holiday season, and during the holidays the Greens

Committees have decided that the payment of twenty guineas shall

entitle fathers of families not only to infest the course themselves,

but also to decant their nearest and dearest upon it in whatever

quantity they please. All over the links, in consequence, happy,

laughing groups of children had broken out like a rash. A wan-faced

adult, who had been held up for ten minutes while a drove of issue

quarrelled over whether little Claude had taken two hundred or two

hundred and twenty approach shots to reach the ninth green sank into a

seat beside the Oldest Member.

"What luck?" inquired the Sage.

"None to speak of," returned the other, moodily. "I thought I had

bagged a small boy in a Lord Fauntleroy suit on the sixth, but he

ducked. These children make me tired. They should be bowling their

hoops in the road. Golf is a game for grownups. How can a fellow play,

with a platoon of progeny blocking him at every hole?"

The Oldest Member shook his head. He could not subscribe to these

sentiments.

No doubt (said the Oldest Member) the summer golf-child is, from the

point of view of the player who likes to get round the course in a

single afternoon, something of a trial; but, personally, I confess, it

pleases me to see my fellow human beings--and into this category

golf-children, though at the moment you may not be broad-minded enough

to admit it, undoubtedly fall--taking to the noblest of games at an

early age. Golf, like measles, should be caught young, for, if

postponed to riper years, the results may be serious. Let me tell you

the story of Mortimer Sturgis, which illustrates what I mean rather

aptly.

Mortimer Sturgis, when I first knew him, was a care-free man of

thirty-eight, of amiable character and independent means, which he

increased from time to time by judicious ventures on the Stock

Exchange. Although he had never played golf, his had not been

altogether an ill-spent life. He swung a creditable racket at tennis,

was always ready to contribute a baritone solo to charity concerts, and

gave freely to the poor. He was what you might call a golden-mean man,

good-hearted rather than magnetic, with no serious vices and no heroic

virtues. For a hobby, he had taken up the collecting of porcelain

vases, and he was engaged to Betty Weston, a charming girl of

twenty-five, a lifelong friend of mine.

I like Mortimer. Everybody liked him. But, at the same time, I was a

little surprised that a girl like Betty should have become engaged to

him. As I said before, he was not magnetic; and magnetism, I thought,

was the chief quality she would have demanded in a man. Betty was one

of those ardent, vivid girls, with an intense capacity for

hero-worship, and I would have supposed that something more in the

nature of a plumed knight or a corsair of the deep would have been her

ideal. But, of course, if there is a branch of modern industry where

the demand is greater than the supply, it is the manufacture of knights

and corsairs; and nowadays a girl, however flaming her aspirations, has

to take the best she can get. I must admit that Betty seemed perfectly

content with Mortimer.

Such, then, was the state of affairs when Eddie Denton arrived, and the

trouble began.

I was escorting Betty home one evening after a tea-party at which we

had been fellow-guests, when, walking down the road, we happened to

espy Mortimer. He broke into a run when he saw us, and galloped up,

waving a piece of paper in his hand. He was plainly excited, a thing

which was unusual in this well-balanced man. His broad, good-humoured

face was working violently.

"Good news!" he cried. "Good news! Dear old Eddie's back!"

"Oh, how nice for you, dear!" said Betty. "Eddie Denton is Mortimer's

best friend," she explained to me. "He has told me so much about him. I

have been looking forward to his coming home. Mortie thinks the world

of him."

"So will you, when you know him," cried Mortimer. "Dear old Eddie! He's

a wonder! The best fellow on earth! We were at school and the 'Varsity

together. There's nobody like Eddie! He landed yesterday. Just home

from Central Africa. He's an explorer, you know," he said to me.

"Spends all his time in places where it's death for a white man to go."

"An explorer!" I heard Betty breathe, as if to herself. I was not so

impressed, I fear, as she was. Explorers, as a matter of fact, leave me

a trifle cold. It has always seemed to me that the difficulties of

their life are greatly exaggerated--generally by themselves. In a large

country like Africa, for instance, I should imagine that it was almost

impossible for a man not to get somewhere if he goes on long enough.

Give _me_ the fellow who can plunge into the bowels of the earth

at Piccadilly Circus and find the right Tube train with nothing but a

lot of misleading signs to guide him. However, we are not all

constituted alike in this world, and it was apparent from the flush on

her cheek and the light in her eyes that Betty admired explorers.

"I wired to him at once," went on Mortimer, "and insisted on his coming

down here. It's two years since I saw him. You don't know how I have

looked forward, dear, to you and Eddie meeting. He is just your sort. I

know how romantic you are and keen on adventure and all that. Well,

you should hear Eddie tell the story of how he brought down the

bull _bongo_ with his last cartridge after all the _pongos_, or

native bearers, had fled into the _dongo_, or undergrowth."

"I should love to!" whispered Betty, her eyes glowing. I suppose to an

impressionable girl these things really are of absorbing interest. For

myself, _bongos_ intrigue me even less than _pongos_, while

_dongos_ frankly bore me. "When do you expect him?"

"He will get my wire tonight. I'm hoping we shall see the dear old

fellow tomorrow afternoon some time. How surprised old Eddie will be to

hear that I'm engaged. He's such a confirmed bachelor himself. He told

me once that he considered the wisest thing ever said by human tongue

was the Swahili proverb--'Whoso taketh a woman into his kraal

depositeth himself straightway in the _wongo_.' _Wongo_, he

tells me, is a sort of broth composed of herbs and meat-bones,

corresponding to our soup. You must get Eddie to give it you in the

original Swahili. It sounds even better."

I saw the girl's eyes flash, and there came into her face that peculiar

set expression which married men know. It passed in an instant, but not

before it had given me material for thought which lasted me all the way

to my house and into the silent watches of the night. I was fond of

Mortimer Sturgis, and I could see trouble ahead for him as plainly as

though I had been a palmist reading his hand at two guineas a visit.

There are other proverbs fully as wise as the one which Mortimer had

translated from the Swahili, and one of the wisest is that quaint old

East London saying, handed down from one generation of costermongers to

another, and whispered at midnight in the wigwams of the whelk-seller!

"Never introduce your donah to a pal." In those seven words is

contained the wisdom of the ages. I could read the future so plainly.

What but one thing could happen after Mortimer had influenced Betty's

imagination with his stories of his friend's romantic career, and added

the finishing touch by advertising him as a woman-hater? He might just

as well have asked for his ring back at once. My heart bled for

Mortimer.

* * * *

I happened to call at his house on the second evening of the explorer's

visit, and already the mischief had been done.

Denton was one of those lean, hard-bitten men with smouldering eyes and

a brick-red complexion. He looked what he was, the man of action and

enterprise. He had the wiry frame and strong jaw without which no

explorer is complete, and Mortimer, beside him, seemed but a poor, soft

product of our hot-house civilization. Mortimer, I forgot to say, wore

glasses; and, if there is one time more than another when a man should

not wear glasses, it is while a strong-faced, keen-eyed wanderer in the

wilds is telling a beautiful girl the story of his adventures.

For this was what Denton was doing. My arrival seemed to have

interrupted him in the middle of narrative. He shook my hand in a

strong, silent sort of way, and resumed:

"Well, the natives seemed fairly friendly, so I decided to stay the

night."

I made a mental note never to seem fairly friendly to an explorer. If

you do, he always decides to stay the night.

"In the morning they took me down to the river. At this point it widens

into a _kongo_, or pool, and it was here, they told me, that the

crocodile mostly lived, subsisting on the native oxen--the short-horned

_jongos_--which, swept away by the current while crossing the ford

above, were carried down on the _longos_, or rapids. It was not,

however, till the second evening that I managed to catch sight of his

ugly snout above the surface. I waited around, and on the third day I

saw him suddenly come out of the water and heave his whole length on to

a sandbank in mid-stream and go to sleep in the sun. He was certainly a

monster--fully thirty--you have never been in Central Africa, have you,

Miss Weston? No? You ought to go there!--fully fifty feet from tip to

tail. There he lay, glistening. I shall never forget the sight."

He broke off to light a cigarette. I heard Betty draw in her breath

sharply. Mortimer was beaming through his glasses with the air of the

owner of a dog which is astonishing a drawing-room with its clever

tricks.

"And what did you do then, Mr. Denton?" asked Betty, breathlessly.

"Yes, what did you do then, old chap?" said Mortimer.

Denton blew out the match and dropped it on the ash-tray.

"Eh? Oh," he said, carelessly, "I swam across and shot him."

"Swam across and shot him!"

"Yes. It seemed to me that the chance was too good to be missed. Of

course, I might have had a pot at him from the bank, but the chances

were I wouldn't have hit him in a vital place. So I swam across to the

sandbank, put the muzzle of my gun in his mouth, and pulled the

trigger. I have rarely seen a crocodile so taken aback."

"But how dreadfully dangerous!"

"Oh, danger!" Eddie Denton laughed lightly. "One drops into the habit

of taking a few risks out there, you know. Talking of _danger_,

the time when things really did look a little nasty was when the

wounded _gongo_ cornered me in a narrow _tongo_ and I only had

a pocket-knife with everything in it broken except the corkscrew

and the thing for taking stones out of horses' hoofs. It was like

this----"

I could bear no more. I am a tender-hearted man, and I made some excuse

and got away. From the expression on the girl's face I could see that

it was only a question of days before she gave her heart to this

romantic newcomer.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact, it was on the following afternoon that she called

on me and told me that the worst had happened. I had known her from a

child, you understand, and she always confided her troubles to me.

"I want your advice," she began. "I'm so wretched!"

She burst into tears. I could see the poor girl was in a highly nervous

condition, so I did my best to calm her by describing how I had once

done the long hole in four. My friends tell me that there is no finer

soporific, and it seemed as though they may be right, for presently,

just as I had reached the point where I laid my approach-putt dead from

a distance of fifteen feet, she became quieter. She dried her eyes,

yawned once or twice, and looked at me bravely.

"I love Eddie Denton!" she said.

"I feared as much. When did you feel this coming on?"

"It crashed on me like a thunderbolt last night after dinner. We were

walking in the garden, and he was just telling me how he had been

bitten by a poisonous _zongo_, when I seemed to go all giddy. When

I came to myself I was in Eddie's arms. His face was pressed against

mine, and he was gargling."

"Gargling?"

"I thought so at first. But he reassured me. He was merely speaking in

one of the lesser-known dialects of the Walla-Walla natives of Eastern

Uganda, into which he always drops in moments of great emotion. He soon

recovered sufficiently to give me a rough translation, and then I knew

that he loved me. He kissed me. I kissed him. We kissed each other."

"And where was Mortimer all this while?"

"Indoors, cataloguing his collection of vases."

For a moment, I confess, I was inclined to abandon Mortimer's cause. A

man, I felt, who could stay indoors cataloguing vases while his

_fiancee_ wandered in the moonlight with explorers deserved all

that was coming to him. I overcame the feeling.

"Have you told him?"

"Of course not."

"You don't think it might be of interest to him?"

"How can I tell him? It would break his heart. I am awfully fond of

Mortimer. So is Eddie. We would both die rather than do anything to

hurt him. Eddie is the soul of honour. He agrees with me that Mortimer

must never know."

"Then you aren't going to break off your engagement?"

"I couldn't. Eddie feels the same. He says that, unless something can

be done, he will say good-bye to me and creep far, far away to some

distant desert, and there, in the great stillness, broken only by the

cry of the prowling _yongo_, try to forget."

"When you say 'unless something can be done,' what do you mean? What

can be done?"

"I thought you might have something to suggest. Don't you think it

possible that somehow Mortimer might take it into his head to break the

engagement himself?"

"Absurd! He loves you devotedly."

"I'm afraid so. Only the other day I dropped one of his best vases, and

he just smiled and said it didn't matter."

"I can give you even better proof than that. This morning Mortimer came

to me and asked me to give him secret lessons in golf."

"Golf! But he despises golf."

"Exactly. But he is going to learn it for your sake."

"But why secret lessons?"

"Because he wants to keep it a surprise for your birthday. Now can you

doubt his love?"

"I am not worthy of him!" she whispered.

The words gave me an idea.

"Suppose," I said, "we could convince Mortimer of that!"

"I don't understand."

"Suppose, for instance, he could be made to believe that you were, let

us say, a dipsomaniac."