d-iron shots. When we get to
the place where the choice must be made, Paisley suggests that I go
around, which makes me grip my mashie firmly, recall all the things I
have read in the little book about how to play a mashie shot, and let
drive with all my force, which usually lands me somewhere near the top
of the clay bank, where it would take a mountain goat to play the next
shot. After that, Paisley and I exchange a few hectic observations and
my temperature and score mount to the highest known altitude.

Of course, every now and then, I forget my stance and Paisley long
enough to send the ball in a beautiful parabola right on to the green,
and when I do--oh, brother!--the things I say to Paisley put him in
such a frame of mind that I could play the rest of the course with a
paddle and a basket-ball and still beat him. This particular afternoon
he had tried to play the seventh hole as it should be played, and
though we had both foozled, I had won the hole and romped triumphantly
home with the side of pig.

I was gaily humming to myself as I put on my clothes when James
Felderson came in. His face was drawn and his mouth was set in a way
that was utterly foreign to Jim, whose smile has done more to keep
peace in committee meetings and to placate irate members than all other
harmonizing agencies in the club put together. There was something
unnatural, too, about his eyes, as though he had been drinking.

"Have you seen Helen?" he demanded in a thick voice.

"No. Not to-day," I answered. "What's the matter, Jim? Anything
wrong?"

Felderson has been my law partner ever since he married my sister
Helen. I had left him at the office just before lunch and he had
seemed then as cheerful and unperturbed as usual.

"Helen has gone with Frank Woods!" he burst out, his voice breaking as
he spoke.

It took a second for me to grasp the meaning of what he said, then I
grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Jim, Jim, what are you saying?"

My sister--left her husband--run off with another man! I had read of
such things in stories, but never had I believed that real people, in
real life and of real social position, ever so disgraced themselves.
Every one knew that Frank Woods had been seeing a lot of Helen, and
several close friends had asked me if Jim knew the man's reputation. I
had even spoken to Helen, only to be laughed at, and assured that it
was the idle gossip of scandal-mongers. That she should have left Jim,