"Come on," said he, burning with the zeal of a martyr-burner, "I'll show you the ground."
"Can't I see it by standing up in the hammock?" I protested.
We approached the dark demesne, which was now pretty decently clothed with potatoes, artichokes, rhubarb, raspberry-canes, marrows and even cucumber-frames. In the midst was a large open cask which filled itself by a pipe from a former six-inch water-hazard. Here James began to propound the mysteries.
"The game," he said, "is a mixture of the old golf, tiddleywinks, ludo and the race game."
"Not spillikins?" I protested. "A game I rather fancy myself at."
"For your information, please," continued James in his kindliest military manner, "I may remark that a mashie is the club mostly used—except when it is necessary to keep low between, say, two clumps of potatoes."
"So as not to rouse the wireworms," I nodded. "Yes—go on."
"The conditions of the game are governed by the necessity of paying due respect to the vegetable hazards. There is only one hole on the course."
"If you remember," I said, "I told you long ago that that was all there was room for, but you would persist in making it nine."
"The hole," said James, "is the water-butt. You have to get into that. By the way, your balls are floaters, I hope?"