way. Elsewhere is the Roebuck Golf Club, the
links of which are admitted ("even in Atlanta!") to be excellent--the
one possible objection to the course of the Birmingham Country Club
being that it is suited only to play with irons.

I mention these golfing matters not because they interest me, but
because they may interest you. I am not a golfer. I played the game for
two seasons; then I decided to try to lead a better life. The first time
I played I did quite well, but thence onward my game declined until,
toward the last, crowds would collect to hear me play. When I determined
to abandon the game I did not burn my clubs or break them up, according
to the usual custom, but instead gave them to a man upon whom I wished
to retaliate because his dog had bitten a member of my family.

Small wonder that all golf clubs have extensive bars! It is not hard to
understand why men who realize that they have become incurable victims
of the insidious habit of golf should wish to drown the thought in
drink. But in Birmingham they can't do it--not, at least, at bars.
Alabama has beaten her public bars into soda fountains and quick-lunch
rooms, and though her club bars still look like real ones, the drinks
served are so soft that no splash occurs when reminiscent tears drop
into them.

When we were in Alabama each citizen who so desired was allowed by law
to import from outside the State a small allotment of strong drink for
personal use, but the red tape involved in this procedure had already
discouraged all but the most ardent drinkers, and those found it next to
impossible, even by hoarding their "lonesome quarts," and pooling
supplies with their convivial friends, to provide sufficient alcoholic
drink for a "real party."

We met in Birmingham but one gentleman whose cellars seemed to be well
stocked, and the tales of ingenuity and exertion by which he managed to
secure ample supplies of liquor were such as to lead us to believe that
this matter had become, with him, an occupation to which all other
business must give second place.

It was this gentleman who told us that, since the State went dry, the
ancient form, "R.S.V.P.," on social invitations, had been revised to
"B.W.H.P.," signifying, "bring whisky in hip pocket."

To the "B.W.H.P." habit he himself strictly adhered. One night, when we
chanced to meet him in a downtown club, he drew a flask from a hip
pocket, and invited us to "have something."

"What is it?" asked