The Clicking of Cuthbert
ed Th
ecant their nearest and dearest upon it in whatever quantity they please. All over the links, in consequence, happy, laughing groups of children had broken out like a rash. A wan-faced adult, who had been held
?" inquire
it on the sixth, but he ducked. These children make me tired. They should be bowling their hoops in the road
is head. He could not sub
t 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 e
lf, 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, g
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
affairs when Eddie Denton a
e 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 w
ed. "Good news! Dea
t friend," she explained to me. "He has told me so much about him. I have
at school and the 'Varsity together. There's nobody like Eddie! He landed yesterday. Just home from Central Africa
ly by themselves. In a large country like Africa, for instance, I should imagine that it was almost impossible for a man not to get somewhere if he goes on long enough. Give me the fellow who can plunge into the bowels of the earth at Piccadilly Circ
d, dear, to you and Eddie meeting. He is just your sort. I know how romantic you are and keen on adventure and all that. Well, you should hear Eddie tell
ble girl these things really are of absorbing interest. For myself, bongos intrigu
lor himself. He told me once that he considered the wisest thing ever said by human tongue was the Swahili proverb-'Whoso taketh a woman into his kraal depositeth himself straightway in the
palmist reading his hand at two guineas a visit. There are other proverbs fully as wise as the one which Mortimer had translated from the Swahili, and one of the wisest is that quaint old East London saying, handed down from one generation of costermongers to another, and whispered at midnight in the wigwams of the whelk-seller! "Never introduce your donah to a pal." In t
*
second evening of the explorer's visit,
jaw without which no explorer is complete, and Mortimer, beside him, seemed but a poor, soft product of our hot-house civilization. Mortimer, I forgot to say, wore glasses; and, if the
have interrupted him in the middle of narrative. He sho
fairly friendly, so I de
rly friendly to an explorer. If you do
ve, were carried down on the longos, or rapids. It was not, however, till the second evening that I managed to catch sight of his ugly snout above the surface. I waited around, and on the third day I saw him suddenly come out of the water and heave his whole length on to a
arply. Mortimer was beaming through his glasses with the air of the ow
hen, Mr. Denton?" aske
u do then, old ch
match and dropped
arelessly, "I swam a
oss and s
m the bank, but the chances were I wouldn't have hit him in a vital place. So I swam across to the sandbank,
readfully
the time when things really did look a little nasty was when the wounded gongo cornered me in a narrow tongo and I only had a pock
got away. From the expression on the girl's face I could see that it was o
*
d on me and told me that the worst had happened. I had known her from
ce," she began. "
hole in four. My friends tell me that there is no finer soporific, and it seemed as though they may be right, for presently, just as I had reached the poin
die Denton
. When did you fe
was just telling me how he had been bitten by a poisonous zongo, when I seemed to go all giddy. Wh
rgl
Walla natives of Eastern Uganda, into which he always drops in moments of great emotion. He soon recovered sufficient
s Mortimer al
oguing his coll
t, who could stay indoors cataloguing vases while his fiancee wandered in the moo
you to
ourse
it might be of
er. So is Eddie. We would both die rather than do anything to hurt him. Ed
going to break of
ill say good-bye to me and creep far, far away to some distant desert, and there, i
hing can be done,' what do
you think it possible that somehow Mortimer might ta
loves you
ropped one of his best vases, and he j
t. This morning Mortimer came to me and as
t he desp
is going to learn
secret
a surprise for your birthday.
thy of him!"
s gave m
"we could convinc
t under
d be made to believe that you w
head. "He know
ha
I sometimes wal
a secret
e me to pretend to
iend?" I sugge
e medi
I said. "A
is t
who stea
hat's
tly ladylike thing to do.
now I do it, how d
your
tell Mortimer I do
omorrow that you called on me this afternoon and stole my
ve that little
I merely say you stol
ll hit you w
t me. What he will do is to insist on confronting m
d t
and release him f
nce. I could see that my wo
new you would suggest something wonderful." She hesitated. "You don't think it would make
, firmly, as I reached for the vinaigr
lance fell on the carpet. That, howeve
od-bye,"
timer at six-thirty tomorrow. You may exp
*
tee he was already there. We exchanged a brief greeting and I handed him a
stance. "You're sure it's fair to have the ball
ectly
t to be coddled beca
teed up for the dr
to me to take all the element of spor
raight
ean, suppose I smash a windo
ou residence some five hund
mes out in his pyjamas and offers you th
began to address the ba
say before you start?" he a
makes you feel any easier
game," said Mortimer, firmly, "I
a mass of shapeless clay. I experience the emotions of a creator. Here, I say to myself, is a semi-sentient being into whose soulle
ll. The club, whizzing down, brushed the surface of the rubber sphere, top
d Mortimer, unra
ything to write to the golfing journals about,
appened
him in
e off the ball, and pressed, and forgot to use your wrists, and swung back too fast, and let the hands get ahead
lent for
ime," he said, "than the ca
line-the Rubicon, as it were-that separates the golfer from the non-golfer. This moment comes immediately after his first good drive. In the ninety minutes in which I instructe
urveyed his blistered ha
Where's the sense in it? Hitting a rotten little ball with a stick! If I want exercise, I'll take a stick and go and rattle
drive, and t
ou like. No sens
the tee, flew a hundred yards in a dead straight line never ten feet above the ground, soared another seventy
did!"
seemed
d that
him ver
took your eye off the ball, and slowed back, and let the arms come well through, and rolled the wrists, and let th
"Yes, I thought
et's g
you read in the comic papers about people foozling all over the place and breaking clubs and all that. You've only to exercise a little reasonable care. And what a corking game it is! Nothing like it in the world! I wonder if Betty is up yet. I must go
put my hand on his shoul
, I fear I have b
the head-- What's
ut B
her? Don't sway the bod
afternoon Betty called to see me. When she had go
your m
my mat
here were faults on bot
I sway my bo
you realize that Betty, the girl you a
eptom
out to do a little shopping! Think of yourself, left alone at home, watching the clock, saying to yourself, 'Now she is lifting a pa
she d
Or, rather, she could not refrain from
us closer tog
had proved Mortimer Sturgis to be of pure gold. H
any of those sales-those auction-sales, you know, where you're allowed to i
and fell in
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implanted at birth, and suppression causes it to grow and grow till-it may be at forty, fifty, sixty-it suddenly bursts its bonds and sweeps over the victim like a tidal wave. The wise man, who begins to play in childhood, is enabled to let the poison exude gradually from his sy
ed him to open a shop; and he went on buying them at the rate of two and three a day. On Sundays, when it was impossible to buy clubs, he was like a lost spirit. True, he would do his regular four rounds on the day of
putting. He intended in future, he said, to use a croquet mallet, and he wondered that no one had ever thought of it b
a paragraph in a magazine to the effect that Mr. Hutchings, an ex-amateur champion, did not begin to play till he was past forty, and that his opponent in
*
core of a hundred and three minus twenty-four-she could feel nothing warmer than respect. Those were dreary days for Betty. We three-she and I and Eddie Denton-often talked over Mortimer's strange obsession. Denton said that, except that Mortimer had not
or we may plunge into still deeper depths of soul-sickness; but always the crisis comes. I
ninth green, was Mortimer. He was grovelling on the floor, and I confess that, when I caught sight of him, my heart stood still. I feared that his reason, sappe
as he heard
. "Can you see a
matter of fact, this is the club-house. The links are outside there. Why not come away with me very quietly and let us see if we can't find some balls on the links? If you will wai
ng me. "I got on the ninth green in eleven with a nice mashie-niblick, but
e was broken, and my relief was great. I went down on my knees and help
here it lies, or may I tee up and lose a stroke? If I have to
pale, set face told me that there was to be a scene, and I w
waggle of his niblick. "I'm bunkered in the piano. My app
rl, tensely, "I want to
could have seen my drive at the
ked at hi
d," she said,
Why, of course. I tried the o
sed to take me for a ri
were
playin
sick of the
shook
at!" he said. "I somehow felt, the moment I began my u
e. Will you take me for a dri
can
What are y
playin
n, without having him treat her as a mere acquaintance. Her conscience fighting with her love for Eddie Denton had kept her true to Mortimer, and Mortimer accepted t
with me to watch th
u ever take m
n't d
ould l
r a fellow's game. You never hear of any first-
. Mortimer, you must cho
one yesterday. You can't expect a fellow to g
ing more to say. Our en
t in his voice which cut me to the heart. "You'll make me so mise
w herself up. He
!" she said, and s
*
ry still, looking at the glistening circle in his ha
y boy, bear
d at me
d!" he
br
speaking as
ed. "While in the corner, little Harry Vardon Sturgis played with little J. H. Taylor Sturgis. And round the room-reading, busy with their childish tasks-
My boy!
s the
ng yourself rathe
his hea
dully. "I don't kn
was a
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 ag
*
improving all the time. He was not present at the wedding, being unavoidably detained by a medal tournament; but, if you turn up the fi
, J. MO
ing Golf-balls and
sting, Self-Compens