Haynes bent himself double to address his ball, but straightened up while swinging and missed it by a foot. At the second attempt he hooked it over square-leg's head on to the fairway of the eighteenth hole.
"Sacré bleu!" he said with very fair freedom, "I'm not going all that way after it. Lucy, run and fetch it, there's a dear."
Lucy, highly scandalized at the idea of losing a hole so tamely, started off; Mabel and Haynes and I went after my ball.
I took the mashie, because I distrusted my ability to carry the bunker with another telegraph pole. That mashie would have been about the right length for me if I could have stood on a chair while making my stroke. As it was it entered the ground two feet behind the ball and emerged, with a superb divot, just in front.
"Aren't there any short clubs in the bag, Mabel?" I asked. She handed me a straight-faced putter ...
Five strokes later I picked my ball up out of the bunker.
"I'm over-exerting myself," I said. "We'll call that hole a half."
Neither of us was satisfied with his tee shot at the next hole. I picked my ball out of a gorse-bush, and Haynes rescued his from a drain. Then we strolled amicably towards the third tee. Our caddies, unused to such methods, followed reluctantly.
"Was that 'ole 'alved, too, Sir?" piped Mabel with anxious interest.
"It's a nice point. I hardly know. Why?"