or could trick him into a display of
hope. If he achieved a four and two twos on the first holes, he would
say vindictively:

"What's the use? I'll lose my ball on the fifth."

And when this happened, he no longer swore, but said gloomily with even
a sense of satisfaction: "You can't get me excited. Didn't I know it
would happen?"

Once in a while he had broken out, "If ever my luck changes, if it
comes all at once--"

But he never ended the sentence, ashamed, as it were, to have indulged
in such a childish fancy. Yet, as Providence moves in a mysterious way
its wonders to perform, it was just this invincible pessimism that alone
could have permitted Booverman to accomplish the incredible experience
that befell him.

II

Topics of engrossing mental interests are bad form on the golf-links,
since they leave a disturbing memory in the mind to divert it from that
absolute intellectual concentration which the game demands. Therefore
Pickings and Booverman, as they started toward the crowded first tee,
remarked _de rigueur_:

"Good weather."

"A bit of a breeze."

"Not strong enough to affect the drives."

"The greens have baked out."

"Fast as I've seen them."

"Well, it won't help me."

"How do you know?" said Pickings, politely, for the hundredth time.
"Perhaps this is the day you'll get your score."

Booverman ignored this set remark, laying his ball on the rack, where
two predecessors were waiting, and settled beside Pickings at the foot
of the elm which later, he knew, would rob him of a four on the home
green.

Wessels and Pollock, literary representatives, were preparing to drive.
They were converts of the summer, each sacrificing their season's output
in a frantic effort to surpass the other. Pickings, the purist, did not
approve of them in the least. They brought to the royal and ancient game
a spirit of Bohemian irreverence and banter that offended his serious
enthusiasm.

When Wessels made a convulsive stab at his ball and luckily achieved
good distance, Pollock remarked behind his hand, "A good shot, damn it!"

Wessels stationed himself in a hopefully deprecatory attitude and
watched Pollock build a monument of sand, balance his ball, and
whistling nervously through his teeth, lunge successfully down.
Whereupon, in defiance of etiquette, he swore with equal fervor, and
they started off.

Pickings glanced at Booverman in a superior and critical way, but at
this moment a thin, dy