"I understand, sir, that you are fatally bitten with golf?" began the squatter in his airiest manner. The other lit a cigarette with insolent deliberation before replying.
"I'm fond of the game," he said at length, "if that's what you mean."
"That was precisely what I did mean. Pardon me if I used an unparliamentary expression. I have read a great deal in your English papers—with which I never permit myself to lose touch—of the far-reaching ravages of the game. Certainly the disease must be widespread when one finds a Cabinet Minister down with the—golf!"
"We don't pronounce the l," Mr. Sellwood observed. "We call it goff." For though in political life an imperturbable temper was one of his most salient virtues, the Home Secretary was notoriously touchy on the subject of his only game.
Dalrymple laughed outright.
"A sure symptom, my dear sir, of a thoroughly dangerous case! But pray excuse my levity; I fear we become a little too addicted to chaff in the uncivilised wilds. I am honestly most curious about the game. I'm an old fogey myself, and I might like to take it up if it really has any merits——"
"It has many," put in Claude cheerily, to divert an attack which Mr. Sell wood was quite certain to resent.
"Has it?" said the squatter incredulously. "For the life of one I can't see where those merits come in. To lay yourself out to hit a sitting ball! I'd as soon shoot a roosting hen!"
"Hear, hear!" cried Jack. "That's exactly what I say, Mr. Dalrymple."
The discussion had in fact assumed the constituent elements of a "foursome," which may have been the reason why the Home Secretary was unable any longer to maintain the silence of dignified disdain.