"Very even indeed, Sire!" said the Marshal curtly, and turned aside to curse under his breath.
However, after they had played the fourth and fifth holes with precisely the same result, King Sidney became suspicious. "Clarence, my boy," he said, taking him aside. "It strikes me there's something rather odd about his play. I can't understand it!"
"I can," said Clarence; "it's plain enough. Haven't you noticed he's been using a mashie—the same mashie every time? Well, he's bribed or bullied that pop-eyed little swine of an Astrologer to enchant it for him—that's what he's done!"
"What a confounded low, ungentlemanly trick!" spluttered King Sidney in high indignation. "Just when I was beginning to find my form at last, too! I shall decline to go on with the match. And what's more, when we do get a Golf Club started, I'll have him blackballed for it!"
"I wouldn't make a row about it if I were you," advised Clarence.
"Not make a row? When he's taking an unfair advantage of me by using this infernal Magic?—which is unlawful, by Gad, don't you forget that! Why shouldn't I denounce such trickery?"
"Because," said the Crown Prince, "he might say something disagreeable about it being a case of Pot and Kettle, don't you know."
"Let him!" cried the King. "Let him! I defy him to prove that I've had anything done to my clubs!"
"Not the clubs," said Clarence; "it's those balls I gave you. I hadn't meant to tell you, but p'raps I'd better now. I paid that little sweep to put a spell on 'em. Of course I'd no idea he'd go and overdo it like this. If he'd been anything of a Golfer he'd have known most of these holes couldn't be done under three or four. And now he's given you both away, blast him!"
"It—it's most unfortunate!" said King Sidney. "I—I don't quite see what to do about it."