listen to me, my
old University chum, for I have matured a dark scheme. Don't run away.
You know you don't really want to go and look at that chicken. Listen
to me. If I am in form this afternoon, and I feel in my bones that I
shall be, I shall nurse the professor. I shall play with him. Do you
understand the principles of Match play at Golf, Robert? You score by
holes, not strokes. There are eighteen holes. All right, how was _I_ to
know that you knew that without my telling you? Well, if you understand
so much about the game, you will appreciate my dark scheme. I shall toy
with the professor, Bob. I shall let him get ahead, and then catch him
up. I shall go ahead myself, and let him catch me up. I shall race him
neck and neck till the very end. Then, when his hair has turned white
with the strain, and he's lost a couple of stone in weight, and his
eyes are starting out of his head, and he's praying--if he ever does
pray--to the Gods of Golf that he may be allowed to win, I shall go
ahead and beat him by a hole. _I'll_ teach him, Robert. He shall taste
of my despair, and learn by proof in some wild hour how much the
wretched dare. And when it's all over, and he's torn all his hair out
and smashed all his clubs, I shall go and commit suicide off the Cob.
Because, you see, if I can't marry Phyllis, I shan't have any use for
life."

Bob wagged his tail cheerfully.

"I mean it," I said, rolling him on his back and punching him on the
chest till his breathing became stertorous. "You don't see the sense of
it, I know. But then you've got none of the finer feelings. You're a
jolly good dog, Robert, but you're a rank materialist. Bones and cheese
and potatoes with gravy over them make you happy. You don't know what
it is to be in love. You'd better get right side up now, or you'll have
apoplexy."

It has been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate
nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played
euchre with the Heathen Chinee, I state but facts. I do not, therefore,
slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of mind. I am
not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my
off moments.

I felt ruthless towards the professor. I cannot plead ignorance of the
golfer's point of view as an excuse for my plottings. I knew that to
one whose soul is in the game as the professor's was, the agony of
being just beaten in an important match exceeds in bitterness all oth