noble spectacle. It is the symbol of deathless hope. It is
part of the great discipline of the game. It is that part of the game at
which I do best. There is not a spinney over the whole course that I do not
know by heart. There is not a bit of gorse that I have not probed and been
probed by. I must have spent hours in the ditches, and I have upon me the
scars left by every hedgerow. And the result is that, while I am worthless
as a golfer, I think I may claim to be quite in the first class at finding
lost balls.

Now all discoveries hinge upon some sudden illumination. I had up to a
certain point been a sad failure in recovering balls. I watched them fall
with the utmost care and was so sure of them that I felt that I could walk
blindfold and pick them up. But when I came to the spot the ball was not
there. This experience became so common that at last the conclusion forced
itself upon me that the golf ball had a sort of impish intelligence that
could only be met by a superior cunning. I suspected that it deliberately
hid itself, and that so long as it was aware that you were hunting for it,
it took a fiendish delight in dodging you. If, said I, one could only let
the thing suppose it was not being looked for it would be taken off its
guard. I put the idea into operation, and I rejoice to say it works like a
charm.

The method is quite simple. You lose the ball, of course, to begin with.
That is easy enough. Then you search for it, and the longer you search the
deeper grows the mystery of its vanishing. Your companions come and help
you to poke the hedge and stir up the ditch, and you all agree that you
have never known such a perfectly ridiculous thing before. And having
clearly proved that the ball isn't anywhere in the neighbourhood, you take
another out of the bag, and proceed with the game.

So far everything is quite ordinary. The game is over, the ball is lost,
and you prepare to go. But you decide to go home by a rather roundabout way
that brings you by the spot that you have scoured in vain. You are not
going to search for the ball. That would simply put the creature up to some
new artifice. No, you are just walking round that way accidentally. What so
natural as that you should have your eyes on the ground? And there, sure
enough, lies the ball, taken completely unaware. It is so ridiculously
obvious that to say that it was lying there when you were looking for it so
industriously is absurd. It simply could