mself, and was consequently entitled to his gratitude. And that was
all that there was to be said about it.

These things I endeavored to make plain to him as we swam along. But
whether it was that the salt water he had swallowed dulled his
intelligence or that my power of stating a case neatly was to seek,
the fact remains that he reached the beach an unconvinced man.

We faced one another, dripping.

"Then may I consider," I said, "that your objections are removed? We
have your consent?"

He stamped angrily, and his bare foot came down on a small but
singularly sharp pebble. With a brief exclamation he seized the foot
with one hand and hopped. While hopping, he delivered his ultimatum.
Probably this is the only instance on record of a father adopting this
attitude in dismissing a suitor.

"You may not," he said. "You may not consider any such thing. My
objections were never more--absolute. You detain me in the water till
I am blue, sir, blue with cold, in order to listen to the most
preposterous and impudent nonsense I ever heard."

This was unjust. If he had heard me attentively from the first and
avoided interruptions and not behaved like a submarine, we should
have got through our little business in half the time. We might both
have been dry and clothed by now.

I endeavored to point this out to him.

"Don't talk to me, sir," he roared, hobbling off across the beach to
his dressing tent. "I will not listen to you. I will have nothing to
do with you. I consider you impudent, sir."

"I am sure it was unintentional, Mr. Derrick."

"Isch!" he said--being the first occasion and the last on which I ever
heard that remarkable word proceed from the mouth of man.

And he vanished into his tent, while I, wading in once more, swam back
to the Cob and put on my clothes.

And so home, as Pepys would have said, to breakfast, feeling
depressed.

SCIENTIFIC GOLF

XX

As I stood with Ukridge in the fowl run on the morning following my
maritime conversation with the professor, regarding a hen that had
posed before us, obviously with a view to inspection, there appeared a
man carrying an envelope.

Ukridge, who by this time saw, as Calverley almost said, "under every
hat a dun," and imagined that no envelope could contain anything but a
small account, softly and silently vanished away, leaving me to
interview the enemy.

"Mr. Garnet, sir?" said the foe.

I recognized him. He was Professor Derrick's ga