such a way as to effect a complete cure. I have not the technical
knowledge to be able to explain it, but the facts were plain.
'Lately, my dear fellow,' I assured him, 'you have dropped into the
habit of talking rather a good deal. Ever since we started out this
afternoon you have kept up an incessant flow of conversation!'
'Me! On the links! It isn't possible.'
'It is only too true, I fear. And that is why this brave girl hit you
with her niblick. You started to tell her a funny story just as she was
making her eleventh shot to get her ball out of this ravine, and she
took what she considered the necessary steps.'
'Can you ever forgive me, George?' cried Celia.
George Mackintosh stared at me. Then a crimson blush mantled his face.
'So I did! It's all beginning to come back to me. Oh, heavens!'
'Can you forgive me, George?' cried Celia again.
He took her hand in his.
'Forgive you?' he muttered. 'Can you forgive me? Me--a
tee-talker, a green-gabbler, a prattler on the links, the lowest form
of life known to science! I am unclean, unclean!'
'It's only a little mud, dearest,' said Celia, looking at the sleeve of
his coat. 'It will brush off when it's dry.'
'How can you link your lot with a man who talks when people are making
their shots?'
'You will never do it again.'
'But I have done it. And you stuck to me all through! Oh, Celia!'
'I loved you, George!'
The man seemed to swell with a sudden emotion. His eye lit up, and he
thrust one hand into the breast of his coat while he raised the other
in a sweeping gesture. For an instant he appeared on the verge of a
flood of eloquence. And then, as if he had been made sharply aware of
what it was that he intended to do, he suddenly sagged. The gleam died
out of his eyes. He lowered his hand.
'Well, I must say that was rather decent of you,' he said.
A lame speech, but one that brought an infinite joy to both his
hearers. For it showed that George Mackintosh was cured beyond
possibility of relapse.
'Yes, I must say you are rather a corker,' he added.
'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
