“Dr. Johnson be it, I was about to say,” clicked the type-writer, suavely; but the ink was thick and inclined to spread. “Munchausen felt that Bogey was encroaching on his preserve as a man with an imagination.”
“I have always considered Colonel Bogey a liar,” said I. “He joins all the clubs and puts up an ideal score before he has played over the links.”
“That isn't the point at all,” said Boswell. “Golfers don't lie. Realists don't lie. Nobody in polite—or say, rather, accepted—society lies. They all imagine. Munchausen realizes that he has only one claim to recognition, and that is based entirely upon his imagination. So when the imaginary Colonel Bogey sent him an imaginary challenge to play him forty-seven holes at golf—”
“Why forty-seven?” I asked.
“An imaginary number,” explained Boswell. “Don't interrupt. As I say, when the imaginary colonel—”
“I must interrupt,” said I. “What was he colonel of?”
“A regiment of perfect caddies,” said Boswell.
“Ah, I see,” I replied. “Imaginary in his command. There isn't one perfect caddy, much less a regiment of the little reprobates.”
“You are wrong there,” said Boswell. “You don't know how to produce a good caddy—but good caddies can be made.”
“How?” I cried, for I have suffered. “I'll have the plan patented.”