The Clicking of Cuthbert

to the door. "I knew you would suggest something wonderful." She

hesitated. "You don't think it would make it sound more plausible if I

really took the vinaigrette?" she added, a little wistfully.

"It would spoil everything," I replied, firmly, as I reached for the

vinaigrette and locked it carefully in my desk.

She was silent for a moment, and her glance fell on the carpet. That,

however, did not worry me. It was nailed down.

"Well, good-bye," she said.

"Au revoir," I replied. "I am meeting Mortimer at six-thirty

tomorrow. You may expect us round at your house at about eight."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mortimer was punctual at the tryst next morning. When I reached the

tenth tee he was already there. We exchanged a brief greeting and I

handed him a driver, outlined the essentials of grip and swing, and

bade him go to it.

"It seems a simple game," he said, as he took his stance. "You're sure

it's fair to have the ball sitting up on top of a young sand-hill like

this?"

"Perfectly fair."

"I mean, I don't want to be coddled because I'm a beginner."

"The ball is always teed up for the drive," I assured him.

"Oh, well, if you say so. But it seems to me to take all the element of

sport out of the game. Where do I hit it?"

"Oh, straight ahead."

"But isn't it dangerous? I mean, suppose I smash a window in that house

over there?"

He indicated a charming bijou residence some five hundred yards down

the fairway.

"In that case," I replied, "the owner comes out in his pyjamas and

offers you the choice between some nuts and a cigar."

He seemed reassured, and began to address the ball. Then he paused

again.

"Isn't there something you say before you start?" he asked. "'Five', or

something?"

"You may say 'Fore!' if it makes you feel any easier. But it isn't

necessary."

"If I am going to learn this silly game," said Mortimer, firmly, "I am

going to learn it right. Fore!"

I watched him curiously. I never put a club into the hand of a beginner

without something of the feeling of the sculptor who surveys a mass of

shapeless clay. I experience the emotions of a creator. Here, I say to

myself, is a semi-sentient being into whose soulless carcass I am

breathing life. A moment before, he was, though technically living, a

mere clod. A moment hence he will be a golfer.

While I was still occupied with these meditations Mortimer swung at the

ball. The club, whizzing down, brushed the surface of the rubber

sphere, toppling it off the tee and propelling it six inches with a

slight slice on it.

"Damnation!" said Mortimer, unravelling himself.

I nodded approvingly. His drive had not been anything to write to the

golfing journals about, but he was picking up the technique of the

game.

"What happened then?"

I told him in a word.

"Your stance was wrong, and your grip was wrong, and you moved your

head, and swayed your body, and took your eye off the ball, and

pressed, and forgot to use your wrists, and swung back too fast, and

let the hands get ahead of the club, and lost your balance, and omitted

to pivot on the ball of the left foot, and bent your right knee."

He was silent for a moment.

"There is more in this pastime," he said, "than the casual observer

would suspect."

I have noticed, and I suppose other people have noticed, that in the

golf education of every man there is a definite point at which he may

be said to have crossed the dividing line--the Rubicon, as it

were--that separates the golfer from the non-golfer. This moment comes

immediately after his first good drive. In the ninety minutes in which

I instructed Mortimer Sturgis that morning in the rudiments of the

game, he made every variety of drive known to science; but it was not

till we were about to leave that he made a good one.

A moment before he had surveyed his blistered hands with sombre

disgust.

"It's no good," he said. "I shall never learn this beast of a game. And

I don't want to either. It's only fit for lunatics. Where's the sense

in it? Hitting a rotten little ball with a stick! If I want exercise,

I'll take a stick and go and rattle it along the railings. There's

something in that! Well, let's be getting along. No good wasting

the whole morning out here."

"Try one more drive, and then we'll go."

"All right. If you like. No sense in it, though."

He teed up the ball, took a careless stance, and flicked moodily. There

was a sharp crack, the ball shot off the tee, flew a hundred yards in a

dead straight line never ten feet above the ground, soared another

seventy yards in a graceful arc, struck the turf, rolled, and came to

rest within easy mashie distance of the green.

"Splendid!" I cried.

The man seemed stunned.

"How did that happen?"

I told him very simply.

"Your stance was right, and your grip was right, and you kept your head

still, and didn't sway your body, and never took your eye off the ball,

and slowed back, and let the arms come well through, and rolled the

wrists, and let the club-head lead, and kept your balance, and pivoted

on the ball of the left foot, and didn't duck the right knee."

"I see," he said. "Yes, I thought that must be it."