bright look had come into his eyes. He seemed suddenly to be himself
again, the old, happy Mortimer Sturgis I had known so well. 'And yet,'
he said, 'who knows? Perhaps it is all for the best. They might all
have turned out tennis-players!' He raised his niblick again, his face
aglow. 'Playing thirteen!' he said. 'I think the game here would be to
chip out through the door and work round the club-house to the green,
don't you?'
* * * * *
Little remains to be told. Betty and Eddie have been happily married
for years. Mortimer's handicap is now down to eighteen, and he is
improving all the time. He was not present at the wedding, being
unavoidably detained by a medal tournament; but, if you turn up the
files and look at the list of presents, which were both numerous and
costly, you will see--somewhere in the middle of the column, the words:
STURGIS, J. MORTIMER.
Two dozen Silver King Golf-balls and one patent Sturgis
Aluminium Self-Adjusting, Self-Compensating Putting-Cleek.
4
Sundered Hearts
In the smoking-room of the club-house a cheerful fire was burning, and
the Oldest Member glanced from time to time out of the window into the
gathering dusk. Snow was falling lightly on the links. From where he
sat, the Oldest Member had a good view of the ninth green; and
presently, out of the greyness of the December evening, there appeared
over the brow of the hill a golf-ball. It trickled across the green,
and stopped within a yard of the hole. The Oldest Member nodded
approvingly. A good approach-shot.
A young man in a tweed suit clambered on to the green, holed out with
easy confidence, and, shouldering his bag, made his way to the
club-house. A few moments later he entered the smoking-room, and
uttered an exclamation of rapture at the sight of the fire.
'I'm frozen stiff!'
He rang for a waiter and ordered a hot drink. The Oldest Member gave a
gracious assent to the suggestion that he should join him.
'I like playing in winter,' said the young man. 'You get the course to
yourself, for the world is full of slackers who only turn out when the
weather suits them. I cannot understand where they get the nerve to
call themselves golfers.'
'Not everyone is as keen as you are, my boy,' said the Sage, dipping
gratefully into his hot drink. 'If they were, the world would be a
better place, and we should hear less of all this modern unrest.'
'I am pretty keen,' admitted the young man.
'I have only encountered one man whom I could describe as keener. I
allude to Mortimer Sturgis.'
'The fellow who took up golf at thirty-eight and let the girl he was
engaged to marry go off with someone else because he hadn't the time to
combine golf with courtship? I remember. You were telling me about him
the other day.'
'There is a sequel to that story, if you would care to hear it,' said
the Oldest Member.
'You have the honour,' said the young man. 'Go ahead!'
