girl, wonderingly.
'These two gentlemen,' I explained, 'have been playing a match, and a
point has arisen on which the judges do not find themselves in
agreement. We need an unbiased outside opinion, and we should like to
put it up to you. The facts are as follows:...'
Amanda Trivett listened attentively, but, when I had finished, she
shook her head.
'I'm afraid I don't know enough about the game to be able to decide a
question like that,' she said.
'Then we must consult St. Andrews,' said Rupert Bailey.
'I'll tell you who might know,' said Amanda Trivett, after a moment's
thought.
'Who is that?' I asked.
'My fiance. He has just come back from a golfing holiday. That's
why I'm in town this morning. I've been to meet him. He is very good at
golf. He won a medal at Little-Mudbury-in-the-Wold the day before he
left.'
There was a tense silence. I had the delicacy not to look at Ralph or
Arthur. Then the silence was broken by a sharp crack. Ralph Bingham had
broken his mashie-niblick across his knee. From the direction where
Arthur Jukes was standing there came a muffled gulp.
'Shall I ask him?' said Amanda Trivett.
'Don't bother,' said Ralph Bingham.
'It doesn't matter,' said Arthur Jukes.
8
The Heel of Achilles
On the young man's face, as he sat sipping his ginger-ale in the
club-house smoking-room, there was a look of disillusionment. 'Never
again!' he said.
The Oldest Member glanced up from his paper.
'You are proposing to give up golf once more?' he queried.
'Not golf. Betting on golf.' The Young Man frowned. 'I've just been let
down badly. Wouldn't you have thought I had a good thing, laying seven
to one on McTavish against Robinson?'
'Undoubtedly,' said the Sage. 'The odds, indeed, generous as they are,
scarcely indicate the former's superiority. Do you mean to tell me that
the thing came unstitched?'
'Robinson won in a walk, after being three down at the turn.
'Strange! What happened?'
'Why, they looked in at the bar to have a refresher before starting for
the tenth,' said the young man, his voice quivering, 'and McTavish
suddenly discovered that there was a hole in his trouser-pocket and
sixpence had dropped out. He worried so frightfully about it that on
the second nine he couldn't do a thing right. Went completely off his
game and didn't win a hole.'
The Sage shook his head gravely.
'If this is really going to be a lesson to you, my boy, never to bet on
the result of a golf-match, it will be a blessing in disguise. There is
no such thing as a certainty in golf. I wonder if I ever told you a
rather curious episode in the career of Vincent Jopp?'
