"You? For non-payment of rent?" I asked, astonished.
"Not at all," said the Doctor, taking a five-pound note from his pocket and throwing it into the street. "I have more money than I know what to do with. For heresy. My house belongs to a man who does not like the doctrines of my books, and he put us out last Monday. That is why—"
"I understand," I said, pressing his hand sympathetically. "I am so sorry! But cheer up, Doctor," I added. "I have been sent here by an American newspaper that never does anything by halves. I have been told to interview you at home. It must be done. My paper spares no expense. Therefore, when I find you without a home to be interviewed in, I am authorized to provide you with one. Come, let us go and purchase a furnished house somewhere."
He looked at me, astonished.
"Well," he gasped out at length, "I've seen something of American enterprise, but this beats everything."
"I suppose we can get a furnished house for $10,000?" I said.
"You can rent all Liverpool for that," he said. "Suppose, instead of going to that expense, we run over to the Golf Links? I'm very much at home there, though I don't play much of a game."
"Its atmosphere is very Scottish," said I.
"It is indeed," he replied. "Indeed, it's too Scotch for me. I can hold my own with the great bulk of Scotch dialect with ease, but when it comes to golf terms I'm a duffer from Dumfries. There are words like 'foozle' and 'tee-off' and 'schlaff' and 'baffy-iron' and 'Glenlivet.' I've had 'em explained to me many a time and oft, but they go out of one ear just as fast as they go in at the other. That's one reason why I've never written a golf story. The game ought to appeal strongly to me for two reasons—the self-restraint it imposes upon one's vocabulary of profane terms, and the large body of clerical persons who have found it adapted to their requirements. But the idiom of it floors me; and after several ineffectual efforts to master the mysteries of its glossary, I gave it up. I can drive like a professional, and my putting is a dream, but I can't converse intelligently about it, and as I have discovered that half the pleasure of the game lies in talking of it afterwards, I have given it up."