"Perhaps it will," he said hopefully. "I'm sorry I'm like this, but I've had a cold hanging about for some days, and that on the top of my liver——"
"Quite so," I said.
The climax was reached, at the next hole, when, with several strokes in hand, he topped his approach shot into a bunker. For my sake he tried to look as though he had meant to run it up along the ground, having forgotten about the intervening hazard. It was a brave effort to hide from me the real state of his health, but he soon saw that it was hopeless. He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. Then he held his fingers a foot away from him, and looked at them as if he were trying to count them correctly. His state was pitiable, and I felt that at any cost I must save him.
I did. The corner was turned at the fifth, where I took four putts.
"You aren't going to win all the holes," he said grudgingly, as he ran down his putt.
Convalescence set in at the sixth, when I got into an impossible place and picked up.
"Oh, well, I shall give you a game yet," he said. "Two down."
The need for further bulletins ceased at the seventh hole, which he played really well and won easily.
"A-ha, you won't beat me by much," he said, "in spite of my liver."
"By the way, how is the liver?" I asked.