I shall race him neck and neck
till the very end. Then, when his hair has turned white with the
strain, and he's lost a couple of stone in weight, and his eyes are
starting out of his head, I shall go ahead and beat him by a hole.
_I'll_ teach him, Robert. He shall taste of my despair, and learn by
proof in some wild hour how much the wretched dare. And when it's all
over, and he's torn all his hair out and smashed all his clubs, I
shall go and commit suicide off the Cob. Because, you see, if I can't
marry Phyllis, I shan't have any use for life."

Bob wagged his tail cheerfully.

"I mean it," I said, rolling him on his back and punching him on the
chest till his breathing became stertorous. "You don't see the sense
of it, I know. But then you've got none of the finer feelings. You're
a jolly good dog, Robert, but you're a rank materialist. Bones and
cheese and potatoes with gravy over them make you happy. You don't
know what it is to be in love. You'd better get right side up now, or
you'll have apoplexy."

It has been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuate
nothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who played
euchre with the heathen Chinee, I state but the facts. I do not,
therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace of
mind. I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but
I have my off moments.

I felt ruthless toward the professor. I cannot plead ignorance of the
golfer's point of view as an excuse for my plottings. I knew that to
one whose soul is in the game, as the professor's was, the agony of
being just beaten in an important match exceeds in bitterness all
other agonies. I knew that if I scraped through by the smallest
possible margin, his appetite would be destroyed, his sleep o' nights
broken. He would wake from fitful slumber moaning that if he had only
used his iron at the tenth hole all would have been well; that if he
had aimed more carefully on the seventh green, life would not be drear
and blank; that a more judicious manipulation of his brassy
throughout might have given him something to live for. All these
things I knew.

And they did not touch me. I was adamant.

* * * * *

The professor was waiting for me at the clubhouse, and greeted me with
a cold and stately inclination of the head.

"Beautiful day for golf," I observed in my gay, chatty manner.

He bowed in silence.

"Very well," I