The Clicking of Cuthbert

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.