"Short," said Booverman, who found, to his satisfaction, that he was right by a yard.
"Take your time," said Pickings, biting his nails.
"Rats! I'll play it for a five," said Booverman.
His approach ran up on the line, caught the rim of the cup, hesitated, and passed on a couple of feet.
"A four, anyway," said Pickings, with relief.
"I should have had a three," said Booverman, doggedly. "Any one else would have had a three, straight on the cup. You'd have had a three, Picky; you know you would."
Pickings did not answer. He was slowly going to pieces, forgetting the invincible stoicism that is the pride of the true golfer.
"I say, take your time, old chap," he said, his voice no longer under control. "Go slow! go slow!"
"Picky, for the first four years I played this course," said Booverman, angrily, "I never got better than a six on this simple three-hundred-and-fifty-yard hole. I lost my ball five times out of seven. There is something irresistibly alluring to me in the mosquito patches to my right. I think it is the fond hope that when I lose this nice new ball I may step inadvertently on one of its hundred brothers, which I may then bring home and give decent burial."
Pickings, who felt a mad and ungolfish desire to entreat him to caution, walked away to fight down his emotion.