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.'
