ntinuing to struggle. But he
did in a spirit of pure vindictiveness, as if he were trying to take it
out of the ball. It was a grisly sight to see him, head and shoulders
above the ditch, hewing at his obstinate colonel. It was a similar
spectacle that once induced a lay spectator of a golf match to observe
that he considered hockey a silly game.

"_Sixteen!_" said the professor between his teeth. Then he picked up
his ball.

I won the seventh hole.

I won the eighth hole.

The ninth we halved, for in the black depths of my soul I had formed a
plan of fiendish subtlety. I intended to allow him to win--with extreme
labour--eight holes in succession.

Then, when hope was once more strong in him, I would win the last, and
he would go mad.

I watched him carefully as we trudged on. Emotions chased one another
across his face. When he won the tenth hole he merely refrained from
oaths. When he won the eleventh a sort of sullen pleasure showed in his
face. It was at the thirteenth that I detected the first dawning of
hope. From then onward it grew.

When, with a sequence of shocking shots, he took the seventeenth hole
in seven, he was in a parlous condition. His run of success had
engendered within him a desire for conversation. He wanted, as it were,
to flap his wings and crow. I could see Dignity wrestling with
Talkativeness. I gave him the lead.

"You have got your form now," I said.

Talkativeness had it. Dignity retired hurt. Speech came from him in a
rush. When he brought off an excellent drive from the eighteenth tee,
he seemed to forget everything.

"Me dear boy,"--he began; and stopped abruptly in some confusion.
Silence once more brooded over us as we played ourselves up the fairway
and on to the green.

He was on the green in four. I reached it in three. His sixth stroke
took him out.

I putted carefully to the very mouth of the hole.

I walked up to my ball and paused. I looked at the professor. He looked
at me.

"Go on," he said hoarsely.

Suddenly a wave of compassion flooded over me. What right had I to
torture the man like this?

"Professor," I said.

"Go on," he repeated.

"That looks a simple shot," I said, eyeing him steadily, "but I might
miss it."

He started.

"And then you would win the Championship."

He dabbed at his forehead with a wet ball of a handkerchief.

"It would be very pleasant for you after getting so near it the last
two years."

"Go on," he said for the t