The Clicking of Cuthbert

boy, take another bite. Take several. Enjoy yourself! Never mind if it

seems to cause me a fleeting annoyance. Go on with your lunch! You

probably had a light breakfast, eh, and are feeling a little peckish,

yes? If you will wait here, I will run to the clubhouse and get you a

sandwich and a bottle of ginger-ale. Make yourself quite at home, you

lovable little fellow! Sit down and have a good time!"

I turned the pages of Professor Rollitt's book feverishly. I could not

find a passage that had been marked in blue pencil to meet this

emergency. I selected one at random.

"Mitchell," I said, "one moment. How much time he gains who does not

look to see what his neighbour says or does, but only at what he does

himself, to make it just and holy."

"Well, look what I've done myself! I'm somewhere down at the bottom of

that dashed ravine, and it'll take me a dozen strokes to get out. Do

you call that just and holy? Here, give me that book for a moment!"

He snatched the little volume out of my hands. For an instant he looked

at it with a curious expression of loathing, then he placed it gently

on the ground and jumped on it a few times. Then he hit it with his

driver. Finally, as if feeling that the time for half measures had

passed, he took a little run and kicked it strongly into the long

grass.

He turned to Alexander, who had been an impassive spectator of the

scene.

"I'm through!" he said. "I concede the match. Good-bye. You'll find me

in the bay!"

"Going swimming?"

"No. Drowning myself."

A gentle smile broke out over my old friend's usually grave face. He

patted Mitchell's shoulder affectionately.

"Don't do that, my boy," he said. "I was hoping you would stick around

the office awhile as treasurer of the company."

Mitchell tottered. He grasped my arm for support. Everything was very

still. Nothing broke the stillness but the humming of the bees, the

murmur of the distant wavelets, and the sound of Mitchell's caddie

going on with his apple.

"What!" cried Mitchell.

"The position," said Alexander, "will be falling vacant very shortly,

as no doubt you know. It is yours, if you care to accept it."

"You mean--you mean--you're going to give me the job?"

"You have interpreted me exactly."

Mitchell gulped. So did his caddie. One from a spiritual, the other

from a physical cause.

"If you don't mind excusing me," said Mitchell, huskily, "I think I'll

be popping back to the club-house. Someone I want to see."

He disappeared through the trees, running strongly. I turned to

Alexander.

"What does this mean?" I asked. "I am delighted, but what becomes of

the test?"

My old friend smiled gently.

"The test," he replied, "has been eminently satisfactory.

Circumstances, perhaps, have compelled me to modify the original idea

of it, but nevertheless it has been a completely successful test. Since

we started out, I have been doing a good deal of thinking, and I have

come to the conclusion that what the Paterson Dyeing and Refining

Company really needs is a treasurer whom I can beat at golf. And I have

discovered the ideal man. Why," he went on, a look of holy enthusiasm

on his fine old face, "do you realize that I can always lick the

stuffing out of that boy, good player as he is, simply by taking a

little trouble? I can make him get the wind up every time, simply by

taking one or two extra practice-swings! That is the sort of man I need

for a responsible post in my office."

"But what about Rupert Dixon?" I asked.

He gave a gesture of distaste.

"I wouldn't trust that man. Why, when I played with him, everything

went wrong, and he just smiled and didn't say a word. A man who can do

that is not the man to trust with the control of large sums of money.

It wouldn't be safe. Why, the fellow isn't honest! He can't be." He

paused for a moment. "Besides," he added, thoughtfully, "he beat me by

six and five. What's the good of a treasurer who beats the boss by six

and five?"

7

 The Long Hole

The young man, as he sat filling his pipe in the club-house

smoking-room, was inclined to be bitter.

"If there's one thing that gives me a pain squarely in the centre of

the gizzard," he burst out, breaking a silence that had lasted for some

minutes, "it's a golf-lawyer. They oughtn't to be allowed on the

links."

The Oldest Member, who had been meditatively putting himself outside a

cup of tea and a slice of seed-cake, raised his white eyebrows.

"The Law," he said, "is an honourable profession. Why should its

practitioners be restrained from indulgence in the game of games?"

"I don't mean actual lawyers," said the young man, his acerbity

mellowing a trifle under the influence of tobacco. "I mean the

blighters whose best club is the book of rules. You know the sort of

excrescences. Every time you think you've won a hole, they dig out Rule

eight hundred and fifty-three, section two, sub-section four, to prove

that you've disqualified yourself by having an ingrowing toe-nail.

Well, take my case." The young man's voice was high and plaintive. "I

go out with that man Hemmingway to play an ordinary friendly