THE ESSENTIALS OF GOLF.
"Do you know anything about golf?" I asked Pottlebury by way of making conversation with a comparative stranger, and immediately afterwards knew I had made a mistake. I should have inquired, "Do you golf?" or "Are you a golfer?" and no evasion would have been possible.
"I should think I do," he replied. "I suppose there's hardly a course between here and Strathpeffer that I haven't visited. English and Scottish, I know them all."
"And which is your favourite course?"
"That is a difficult question," he remarked judicially. "Only last night I was arguing about the comparative merits of Westward Ho! and St. Andrews. Both are easily accessible from the railway, but if you take your car the latter is to be preferred. You get your life bumped out of you on those North Devon roads."
"I wasn't thinking of the travelling facilities," I observed coldly.
"No, of course. It's what you find at the other end that counts. Well then, travelling aside, there is much to be said for Sandwich. The members' quarters are comfortable—very comfortable."
I must have made a disparaging gesture, for he immediately continued:—
"But, if it's only lunch you want, I advise those Lancashire clubs round Southport. They know how to lunch in those parts—Tweed salmon, Welsh mutton and Whitstable oysters."
"No doubt your judgment is correct," I replied, "but I——"
"And at one of them they keep a real French chef who knows his business. I wouldn't wish for a better cuisine anywhere."
"There are other things," I remarked loftily, "besides those you mention."
"Exactly; that's why I like to see a good bridge-room attached and enough tables to accommodate all comers. They have that at Spotworth. You can often get a game of poker as well."
"But don't you see," I exclaimed, "that all these things, are mere accessories and circumstances?"
"That is true," he murmured; "they are but frames as it were of the human interest. After all there's nothing to equal a crowd of jolly good fellows in the smoking-room. I've had some excellent times down at Bambury—stayed yarning away to all hours. Some of the best fellows I ever met belonged to that club."
"You don't talk at all like a golfer," said I.
Pottlebury laughed. "I was forgetting. If it's whisky you want you can't beat Dornoch and Islay. We've nothing in England to touch them. Why, I've met some of the keenest golfers of the day at Islay—nothing less than a bottle a day apiece."
"Sir," said I severely, "it is clear that you have never struggled like grim death with an opponent who was three up at the turn until you were all square at the seventeenth, and then found yourself after a straight drive with an easy baffy shot to——"
"One moment," said Pottlebury; "what exactly is a baffy?"
Asking For It.
"——'s have dozens of other cars available; £65 to £1,700; call and insult us."
Motoring Paper.
HIS FIRST PATIENT.
Persia. "THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ADVICE."
Dr. Curzon. "NOT AT ALL. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ASKING FOR IT."