And the winner was to be he who travelled farthest around the links in the number of strokes allotted to him.
Old Major Jennings did not understand, and Jimmy Traquair, the professional, explained.
"Do you know what the bogey for the course is?" said he. "It's seventy-eight. Do you know what your handicap is? It's twenty."
Old Major Jennings winced slightly. His handicap had never seemed quite adequate to him.
"Well?" he said.
"Well," said Jimmie, who ever tempered his speech to his hearer's understanding, "what's twenty added to seventy-eight?"
"Eighty-eight—ninety-eight," said old Major Jennings (but not conceitedly).
"Right," said Jimmie. "Well, you start at the first tee and play ninety-eight strokes. Where the ball lies after the ninety-eighth, you plant the card with your name on it. And that's all."
"Suppose after my ninety-eighth stroke that my ball lies in the pond?" said old Major Jennings with a certain timid conviction. The pond hole is only the twelfth, and Jimmie wanted to laugh, but did not.