The Clicking of Cuthbert

"George!" cried Celia.

I said nothing, but I clasped his hand; and then, taking my clubs, I

retired. When I looked round she was still in his arms. I left them

there, alone together in the great silence.

       *       *       *       *       *

And so (concluded the Oldest Member) you see that a cure is possible,

though it needs a woman's gentle hand to bring it about. And how few

women are capable of doing what Celia Tennant did. Apart from the

difficulty of summoning up the necessary resolution, an act like hers

requires a straight eye and a pair of strong and supple wrists. It

seems to me that for the ordinary talking golfer there is no hope. And

the race seems to be getting more numerous every day. Yet the finest

golfers are always the least loquacious. It is related of the

illustrious Sandy McHoots that when, on the occasion of his winning the

British Open Championship, he was interviewed by reporters from the

leading daily papers as to his views on Tariff Reform, Bimetallism, the

Trial by Jury System, and the Modern Craze for Dancing, all they could

extract from him was the single word "Mphm!" Having uttered which, he

shouldered his bag and went home to tea. A great man. I wish there were

more like him.

6

 Ordeal By Golf

A pleasant breeze played among the trees on the terrace outside the

MarvisBay Golf and Country Club. It ruffled the leaves and cooled the

forehead of the Oldest Member, who, as was his custom of a Saturday

afternoon, sat in the shade on a rocking-chair, observing the younger

generation as it hooked and sliced in the valley below. The eye of the

Oldest Member was thoughtful and reflective. When it looked into yours

you saw in it that perfect peace, that peace beyond understanding,

which comes at its maximum only to the man who has given up golf.

The Oldest Member has not played golf since the rubber-cored ball

superseded the old dignified gutty. But as a spectator and philosopher

he still finds pleasure in the pastime. He is watching it now with keen

interest. His gaze, passing from the lemonade which he is sucking

through a straw, rests upon the Saturday foursome which is struggling

raggedly up the hill to the ninth green. Like all Saturday foursomes,

it is in difficulties. One of the patients is zigzagging about the

fairway like a liner pursued by submarines. Two others seem to be

digging for buried treasure, unless--it is too far off to be

certain--they are killing snakes. The remaining cripple, who has just

foozled a mashie-shot, is blaming his caddie. His voice, as he upbraids

the innocent child for breathing during his up-swing, comes clearly up

the hill.

The Oldest Member sighs. His lemonade gives a sympathetic gurgle. He

puts it down on the table.

       *       *       *       *       *

How few men, says the Oldest Member, possess the proper golfing

temperament! How few indeed, judging by the sights I see here on

Saturday afternoons, possess any qualification at all for golf except a

pair of baggy knickerbockers and enough money to enable them to pay for

the drinks at the end of the round. The ideal golfer never loses his

temper. When I played, I never lost my temper. Sometimes, it is true, I

may, after missing a shot, have broken my club across my knees; but I

did it in a calm and judicial spirit, because the club was obviously no

good and I was going to get another one anyway. To lose one's temper at

golf is foolish. It gets you nothing, not even relief. Imitate the

spirit of Marcus Aurelius. "Whatever may befall thee," says that great

man in his "Meditations", "it was preordained for thee from

everlasting. Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by

nature to bear." I like to think that this noble thought came to him

after he had sliced a couple of new balls into the woods, and that he

jotted it down on the back of his score-card. For there can be no doubt

that the man was a golfer, and a bad golfer at that. Nobody who had not

had a short putt stop on the edge of the hole could possibly have

written the words: "That which makes the man no worse than he was makes

life no worse. It has no power to harm, without or within." Yes, Marcus

Aurelius undoubtedly played golf, and all the evidence seems to

indicate that he rarely went round in under a hundred and twenty. The

niblick was his club.

Speaking of Marcus Aurelius and the golfing temperament recalls to my

mind the case of young Mitchell Holmes. Mitchell, when I knew him

first, was a promising young man with a future before him in the

Paterson Dyeing and Refining Company, of which my old friend, Alexander

Paterson, was the president. He had many engaging qualities--among them

an unquestioned ability to imitate a bulldog quarrelling with a

Pekingese in a way which had to be heard to be believed. It was a gift

which made him much in demand at social gatherings in the

neighbourhood, marking him off from other young men who could only

almost play the mandolin or recite bits of Gunga Din; and no doubt it

was this talent of his which first sowed the seeds of love in the heart