ordinary methods of calculation," returned the Baron, "but I
got them back on a technicality, which I claim is a new and valuable
discovery in the game. You see it is impossible to play more than one
hole at a time, and I invariably proved to the Greens Committee that
in taking fourteen holes at once my opponent violated the physical
possibilities of the situation. In every case the point was accepted
as well taken, for if we allow golfers to rise above physical
possibilities the game is gone. The integrity of the Card is the soul
of Golf," he added sententiously.

"Tell me of the whale," said I, simply. "You landed a whale of large
proportions on the deck of your yacht with a simple silken line and a
minnow hook."

"Well it's a tough story," the Baron replied, handing me a cigar. "But
it is true, Ananias, true to the last word. I was fishing for eels.
Sitting on the deck of _The Lyre_ one very warm afternoon in the early
stages of my trip, I baited a minnow hook and dropped it overboard. It
was the roughest day at sea I had ever encountered. The waves were
mountain high, and it is the sad fact that one of our crew seated in
the main-top was drowned with the spray of the dashing billows.
Fortunately for myself, directly behind my deck chair, to which I was
securely lashed, was a powerful electric fan which blew the spray away
from me, else I too might have suffered the same horrid fate. Suddenly
there came a tug on my line. I was half asleep at the time and let the
line pay out involuntarily, but I was wide-awake enough to know that
something larger than an eel had taken hold of the hook. I had hooked
either a Leviathan or a derelict. Caution and patience, the chief
attributes of a good angler were required. I hauled the line in until
it was taut. There were a thousand yards of it out, and when it
reached the point of tensity, I gave orders to the engineers to steam
closer to the object at the other end. We steamed in five hundred
yards, I meanwhile hauling in my line. Then came another tug and I let
out ten yards. 'Steam closer,' said I. 'Three hundred yards
sou-sou-west by nor'-east.' The yacht obeyed on the instant. I called
the Captain and let him feel the line. 'What do you think it is?' said
I. He pulled a half dozen times. 'Feels like a snag,' he said, 'but
seein' as there ain't no snags out here, I think it must be a fish.'
'What kind?' I asked. I could not but agree that he was better
acquainted with the sea