practice by himself in the rough, and was now preparing to play an
approach shot across the pond.

"Twelve!"

"Then I've this for the hole," he yelled, and topped his ball gently
into the water ...

So it went on--what the papers call a ding-dong struggle. Suffice it
to say that at the twelfth I was dormy one and in a state of partial
collapse.

The thirteenth is a short hole. You drive from a kind of pulpit, and
the green is below you, protected by large stiff-backed bunkers like
pews.

"Last hole, thank Heaven," panted Haynes. "I couldn't bear much more.
I'm all of a dither as it is."

Mabel, twittering with excitement, teed up. I looked at the green
lying invitingly below and took that gigantic putter. The ball, struck
with all my little remaining strength, flew straight towards the
biggest bunker, scored a direct hit on the top of it, bounced high in
the air--and trickled on to the green.

Haynes invoked the Deity (even at that stressful moment, to his
eternal credit, in French) and took his miniature driver. His ball,
hit much too hard, pitched in the same bunker, crossed it, climbed up
the face of it, and joined mine on the green. Utterly unnerved, we
toddled down and took our putts. Haynes, through sheer luck (as he
admits), laid his ball stone dead; I had a brain-storm and over-ran
the hole, leaving myself a thirty-foot putt for the match. I took long
and careful aim, but my hands were shaking pitifully. The ball started
on a grotesquely wrong line, turned on a rise in the ground, cannoned
off a worm-cast and plopped into the tin. Mabel gave a shriek of
joy, and Lucy--well, I regret to say that Lucy made use of a terse
expression the French equivalent of which her employer had been at
great pains to remember. Haynes and I lay flat on the ground, overcome
as much by emotion as by our physical weakness.

At last I struggled to a sitting posture.

"Mabel," I croaked, "I shall want at least ten per cent. commission
for that. How much have you won?"

"Please, Sir," she cooed happily, "a 'a'p'ny, Sir."

* * * * *

THE MERRY WIDOW (GRASS).

"Mother's help, to assist lady; husband away; happy
home."--_Birmingham Daily Post_.

* * * * *

"A St. Cleather man, who had planted a wastrel, is to be invited
to attend the next meeting."--_Western Morning News_.

Surely they don't want the wastrel dug up again.

* *