Altogether, he was a new and delightful type to one like me,—a young man fresh from his ancestral roof in the north of staid and conventional old England.
He was healthy, vigorous, and as keen as the edge of a razor.
On and on he talked, telling me of himself, his work and his projects.
I got to wondering if he were merely setting the proverbial sprat; but the sprat in his case proved the whale. Every moment I expected him to ask me for some confidences in return, but on this point Mr. K. B. Horsfal was silent.
We discovered our golfing ground, which proved to be a fairly good, little, nine-holed country course, rough and full of natural hazards.
K. B. Horsfal could play golf, that I soon found out. He entered into his game with the enthusiasm and grim determination which I imagined he displayed in everything he took a hand in.
He seldom spoke, so intent was he on the proper placing of his feet and the proper adjustment of his hands and his clubs.
Three times we went round that course and three times I had the pleasure of beating him by a margin. He envied me my full swing and my powerful and accurate driving; he studied me every time I approached a green and he scratched his head at some of my long putts; but, most of all, he rhapsodised on my manner of getting out of a hole.
"Man,—if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to keep out of."
I showed him the knack of it as it had been taught me by an old professional at Saint Andrews. K. B. Horsfal was in ecstasies, if a two-hundred-pound, keen, brusk, American business man ever allows himself such liberties.