but I've been thinking it over and I wonder if there isn't something in
it. These things must be sent to us for a purpose.'
'You can't change your grip on the day of an important match.'
'I suppose not. The fact is, I'm a bit jumpy, or I wouldn't have
mentioned it. Oh, well! See you tomorrow at two.'
* * * * *
The day was bright and sunny, but a tricky cross-wind was blowing when
I reached the club-house. Alexander Paterson was there, practising
swings on the first tee; and almost immediately Mitchell Holmes
arrived, accompanied by Millicent.
'Perhaps,' said Alexander, 'we had better be getting under way. Shall I
take the honour?'
'Certainly,' said Mitchell.
Alexander teed up his ball.
Alexander Paterson has always been a careful rather than a dashing
player. It is his custom, a sort of ritual, to take two measured
practice-swings before addressing the ball, even on the putting-green.
When he does address the ball he shuffles his feet for a moment or two,
then pauses, and scans the horizon in a suspicious sort of way, as if
he had been expecting it to play some sort of a trick on him when he
was not looking. A careful inspection seems to convince him of the
horizon's bona fides, and he turns his attention to the ball
again. He shuffles his feet once more, then raises his club. He waggles
the club smartly over the ball three times, then lays it behind the
globule. At this point he suddenly peers at the horizon again, in the
apparent hope of catching it off its guard. This done, he raises his
club very slowly, brings it back very slowly till it almost touches the
ball, raises it again, brings it down again, raises it once more, and
brings it down for the third time. He then stands motionless, wrapped
in thought, like some Indian fakir contemplating the infinite. Then he
raises his club again and replaces it behind the ball. Finally he
quivers all over, swings very slowly back, and drives the ball for
about a hundred and fifty yards in a dead straight line.
It is a method of procedure which proves sometimes a little
exasperating to the highly strung, and I watched Mitchell's face
anxiously to see how he was taking his first introduction to it. The
unhappy lad had blenched visibly. He turned to me with the air of one
in pain.
'Does he always do that?' he whispered.
'Always,' I replied.
'Then I'm done for! No human being could play golf against a one-ring
circus like that without blowing up!'
I said nothing. It was, I feared, only too true. Well-poised as I am, I
had long since been compelled to give up playing with Alexander
Paterson, much as I esteemed him. It was a choice between that and
resigning from the Baptist Church.
At this moment Millicent spoke. There was an open book in her hand. I
recognized it as the life-work of Professor Rollitt.
'Think on this doctrine,' she said, in her soft, modulated voice, 'that
