"I say, take your time, old chap," he said, his voice no longer under
control. "Go slow! go slow!"

"Picky, for the first four years I played this course," said
Booverman, angrily, "I never got better than a six on this simple
three-hundred-and-fifty-yard hole. I lost my ball five times out of
seven. There is something irresistibly alluring to me in the mosquito
patches to my right. I think it is the fond hope that when I lose this
nice new ball I may step inadvertently on one of its hundred brothers,
which I may then bring home and give decent burial."

Pickings, who felt a mad and ungolfish desire to entreat him to caution,
walked away to fight down his emotion.

"Well?" he said, after the click of the club had sounded.

"Well," said Booverman, without joy, "that ball is lying about two
hundred and forty yards straight up the course, and by this time it has
come quietly to a little cozy home in a nice, deep hoof track, just as I
found it yesterday afternoon. Then I will have the exquisite pleasure of
taking my niblick, and whanging it out for the loss of a stroke. That'll
infuriate me, and I'll slice or pull. The best thing to do, I suppose,
would be to play for a conservative six."

When, after four butchered shots, Pickings had advanced to where
Booverman had driven, the ball lay in clear position just beyond the
bumps and rills that ordinarily welcome a long shot. Booverman played a
perfect mashy, which dropped clear on the green, and ran down a moderate
put for a three.

They then crossed the road and arrived by a planked walk at a dirt mound
in the midst of a swamp. Before them the cozy marsh lay stagnant ahead
and then sloped to the right in the figure of a boomerang, making for
those who fancied a slice a delightful little carry of one hundred and
fifty yards. To the left was a procession of trees, while beyond, on the
course, for those who drove a long ball, a giant willow had fallen the
year before in order to add a new perplexity and foster the enthusiasm
for luxury that was beginning among the caddies.

"I have a feeling," said Booverman, as though puzzled but not duped by
what had happened--"I have a strange feeling that I'm not going to get
into trouble here. That would be too obvious. It's at the seventh or
eighth holes that something is lurking around for me. Well, I won't
waste time."

He slapped down his ball, took a full swing, and carried the far-off
bank with a low, shooting drive that c