ould be much pleasanter
than a game with Thomson, but ought I to leave him in his present
serious condition of health? His illness was approaching its critical
stage, and it was my duty to pull him through if I could.

"No, no," I said. "Let's go on. The fresh air will do you good."

"Perhaps it will," he said hopefully. "I'm sorry I'm like this, but I've
had a cold hanging about for some days, and that on the top of my
liver----"

"Quite so," I said.

The climax was reached, at the next hole, when, with several strokes in
hand, he topped his approach shot into a bunker. For my sake he tried to
look as though he had _meant_ to run it up along the ground, having
forgotten about the intervening hazard. It was a brave effort to hide
from me the real state of his health, but he soon saw that it was
hopeless. He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. Then he held his
fingers a foot away from him, and looked at them as if he were trying to
count them correctly. His state was pitiable, and I felt that at any
cost I must save him.

I did. The corner was turned at the fifth, where I took four putts.

"You aren't going to win _all_ the holes," he said grudgingly, as he ran
down his putt.

Convalescence set in at the sixth, when I got into an impossible place
and picked up.

"Oh, well, I shall give you a game yet," he said. "Two down."

The need for further bulletins ceased at the seventh hole, which he
played really well and won easily.

"A-ha, you won't beat me by _much_," he said, "in spite of my liver."

"By the way, how _is_ the liver?" I asked.

"Your fresh-air cure is doing it good. Of course, it may come on again,
but----" He drove a screamer. "I think I shall be all right," he
announced.

"All square," he said cheerily at the ninth. "I fancy I'm going to beat
you now. Not bad, you know, considering you were four up. Practically
speaking, I gave you a start of four holes."

I decided that it was time to make an effort again, seeing that
Thomson's health was now thoroughly re-established. Of the next seven
holes I managed to win three and halve two. It is only fair to say,
though (as Thomson did several times), that I had an extraordinary
amount of good luck, and that he was dogged by ill-fortune throughout.
But this, after all, is as nothing so long as one's health is above
suspicion. The great thing was that Thomson's liver suffered no relapse;
even though, at the seventeenth tee, he was one down and t