eks I've on."

Golfers should, I think, sometimes be on their guard lest a too
kind-hearted caddie, in an excess of zeal for his employer, should be
tempted to transgress the laws of the game, or depart from strict
truthfulness in his behalf. Sometimes it is done with a wonderful air of
innocence and simplicity. Caddies have been known, when their employers
have been in doubt as to exactly how many strokes they have played at
certain holes, to give an emphatic, but none the less untruthful
declaration, on the side of fewness. They mean well, but mistakenly, and
it is better for everybody concerned, but particularly for the caddies,
that they should be severely reprimanded when there is reason to doubt
their good faith.

And who shall say that another, and for our purposes the final
characteristic of the average caddie of experience, is not a wonderful
amount of solid worldly common-sense of a variety specially adapted to
golf? And what golfer is there who has not at one time or another had
the advantage of it? But he may at the time have been unconscious of the
assistance. There is the historic case of the caddie on the Scottish
links who warned a beginner, dallying too much on the tee, that he
"maunna address the ba' sae muckle." Forthwith the southern tyro,
greatly exasperated at his own failures, burst out, "So far as I know I
haven't said a word to the infernal thing, but the irritation of this
beastly game is enough, and if I have any more of your confounded tongue
you may repent it!" Then the caddie murmured to himself, "I dinna like
'is look. I'll better get 'm roond as pleesant as possible." Could any
advice have been more delicately worded than that of the caddie to the
stout clergyman who with all his strength made a most mighty swing at
his ball on the tee with the usual result--a foozle? "It'll nae do, sir;
ye ken ye canna drive as far as that." "Wha--wha--what do you mean by
such a remark? As far as what?" gasped the reverend but irate gentleman.
"I jist mean, sir, that ye canna drive as far as ye wad like."

Perhaps we shall never hear the best caddie stories, for is it not
likely that a great abundance of them are made and told in the sheds
after the day's play is over, and when the golfer's tools are being
wiped and cleaned, and his irons burnished to a beautiful brightness? It
is then that the caddie is in his happiest vein, his tongue and
disposition untrammelled by the presence of the club members.