s had it. Dignity retired hurt. Speech came from him with
a rush. When he brought off an excellent drive from the eighteenth
tee, he seemed to forget everything.

"Me dear boy--" he began, and stopped abruptly in some confusion.
Silence once more brooded over us as we played ourselves up the
fairway and on to the green.

He was on the green in four. I reached it in three. His sixth stroke
took him out.

I putted carefully to the very mouth of the hole.

I walked up to my ball and paused. I looked at the professor. He
looked at me.

"Go on," he said hoarsely.

Suddenly a wave of compassion flooded over me. What right had I to
torture the man like this? He had not behaved well to me, but in the
main it was my fault. In his place I should have acted in precisely
the same way. In a flash I made up my mind.

"Professor," I said.

"Go on," he repeated.

"That looks a simple shot," I said, eyeing him steadily, "but I might
easily miss it."

He started.

"And then you would win the championship."

He dabbed at his forehead with a wet ball of a handkerchief.

"It would be very pleasant for you after getting so near it the last
two years."

"Go on," he said for the third time. But there was a note of
hesitation in his voice.

"Sudden joy," I said, "would almost certainly make me miss it."

We looked at each other. He had the golf fever in his eyes.

"If," I said slowly, lifting my putter, "you were to give your consent
to my marriage with Phyllis--"

He looked from me to the ball, from the ball to me, and back again to
the ball. It was very, very near the hole.

"I love her," I said, "and I have discovered she loves me.... I shall
be a rich man from the day I marry--"

His eyes were still fixed on the ball.

"Why not?" I said.

He looked up, and burst into a roar of laughter.

"You young divil," said he, smiting his thigh, "you young divil,
you've beaten me."

I swung my putter, and drove the ball far beyond the green.

"On the contrary," I said, "you have beaten me."

* * * * *

I left the professor at the clubhouse and raced back to the farm. I
wanted to pour my joys into a sympathetic ear. Ukridge, I knew, would
offer that same sympathetic ear. A good fellow, Ukridge. Always
interested in what you had to tell him--never bored.

"Ukridge," I shouted.

No answer.

I flung open the dining-room door. Nobody.

I went into the drawing-room. It was empty.

I