5
_The Salvation of George Mackintosh_
The young man came into the club-house. There was a frown on hisusually cheerful face, and he ordered a ginger-ale in the sort of voicewhich an ancient Greek would have used when asking the executioner tobring on the hemlock.
Sunk in the recesses of his favourite settee the Oldest Member hadwatched him with silent sympathy.
"How did you get on?" he inquired.
"He beat me."
The Oldest Member nodded his venerable head.
"You have had a trying time, if I am not mistaken. I feared as muchwhen I saw you go out with Pobsley. How many a young man have I seen goout with Herbert Pobsley exulting in his youth, and crawl back ateventide looking like a toad under the harrow! He talked?"
"All the time, confound it! Put me right off my stroke."
The Oldest Member sighed.
"The talking golfer is undeniably the most pronounced pest of ourcomplex modern civilization," he said, "and the most difficult to dealwith. It is a melancholy thought that the noblest of games should haveproduced such a scourge. I have frequently marked Herbert Pobsley inaction. As the crackling of thorns under a pot.... He is almost as badas poor George Mackintosh in his worst period. Did I ever tell youabout George Mackintosh?"
"I don't think so."
"His," said the Sage, "is the only case of golfing garrulity I haveever known where a permanent cure was affected. If you would care tohear about it----?"
* * * * *
George Mackintosh (said the Oldest Member), when I first knew him, wasone of the most admirable young fellows I have ever met. A handsome,well-set-up man, with no vices except a tendency to use the mashie forshots which should have been made with the light iron. And as for hispositive virtues, they were too numerous to mention. He never swayedhis body, moved his head, or pressed. He was always ready to utter atactful grunt when his opponent foozled. And when he himself achieved aglaring fluke, his self-reproachful click of the tongue was music tohis adversary's bruised soul. But of all his virtues the one that mostendeared him to me and to all thinking men was the fact that, from thestart of a round to the finish, he never spoke a word except whenabsolutely compelled to do so by the exigencies of the game. And it wasthis man who subsequently, for a black period which lives in the memoryof all his contemporaries, was known as Gabby George and became a shadeless popular than the germ of Spanish Influenza. Truly, _corruptiooptimi pessima!_
One of the things that sadden a man as he grows older and reviews hislife is the reflection that his most devastating deeds were generallythe ones which he did with the best motives. The thought isdisheartening. I can honestly say that, when George Mackintosh came tome and told me his troubles, my sole desire was to ameliorate his lot.That I might be starting on the downward path a man whom I liked andrespected never once occurred to me.
One night after dinner when George Mackintosh came in, I could see atonce that there was something on his mind, but what this could be I wasat a loss to imagine, for I had been playing with him myself all theafternoon, and he had done an eighty-one and a seventy-nine. And, as Ihad not left the links till dusk was beginning to fall, it waspractically impossible that he could have gone out again and donebadly. The idea of financial trouble seemed equally out of thequestion. George had a good job with the old-established legal firm ofPeabody, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody, Cootes, Toots, and Peabody. Thethird alternative, that he might be in love, I rejected at once. In allthe time I had known him I had never seen a sign that George Mackintoshgave a thought to the opposite sex.
Yet this, bizarre as it seemed, was the true solution. Scarcely had heseated himself and lit a cigar when he blurted out his confession.
"What would you do in a case like this?" he said.
"Like what?"
"Well----" He choked, and a rich blush permeated his surface. "Well, itseems a silly thing to say and all that, but I'm in love with MissTennant, you know!"
"You are in love with Celia Tennant?"
"Of course I am. I've got eyes, haven't I? Who else is there that anysane man could possibly be in love with? That," he went on, moodily,"is the whole trouble. There's a field of about twenty-nine, and Ishould think my place in the betting is about thirty-three to one."
"I cannot agree with you there," I said. "You have every advantage, itappears to me. You are young, amiable, good-looking, comfortably off,scratch----"
"But I can't talk, confound it!" he burst out. "And how is a man to getanywhere at this sort of game without talking?"
"You are talking perfectly fluently now."
"Yes, to you. But put me in front of Celia Tennant, and I simply make asort of gurgling noise like a sheep with the botts. It kills my chancesstone dead. You know these other men. I can give Claude Mainwaring athird and beat him. I can give Eustace Brinkley a stroke a hole andsimply trample on his corpse. But when it comes to talking to a girl,I'm not in their class."
"You must not be diffident."
"But I _am_ diffident. What's the good of saying I mustn't bediffident when I'm the man who wrote the words and music, whenDiffidence is my middle name and my telegraphic address? I can't helpbeing diffident."
"Surely you could overcome it?"
"But how? It was in the hope that you might be able to suggestsomething that I came round tonight."
And this was where I did the fatal thing. It happened that, just beforeI took up "Braid on the Push-Shot," I had been dipping into the currentnumber of a magazine, and one of the advertisements, I chanced toremember, might have been framed with a special eye to George'sunfortunate case. It was that one, which I have no doubt you have seen,which treats of "How to Become a Convincing Talker". I picked up thismagazine now and handed it to George.
He studied it for a few minutes in thoughtful silence. He looked at thepicture of the Man who had taken the course being fawned upon by lovelywomen, while the man who had let this opportunity slip stood outsidethe group gazing with a wistful envy.
"They never do that to me," said George.
"Do what, my boy?"
"Cluster round, clinging cooingly."
"I gather from the letterpress that they will if you write for thebooklet."
"You think there is really something in it?"
"I see no reason why eloquence should not be taught by mail. One seemsto be able to acquire every other desirable quality in that mannernowadays."
"I might try it. After all, it's not expensive. There's no doubt aboutit," he murmured, returning to his perusal, "that fellow does lookpopular. Of course, the evening dress may have something to do withit."
"Not at all. The other man, you will notice, is also wearing eveningdress, and yet he is merely among those on the outskirts. It is simplya question of writing for the booklet."
"Sent post free."
"Sent, as you say, post free."
"I've a good mind to try it."
"I see no reason why you should not."
"I will, by Duncan!" He tore the page out of the magazine and put it inhis pocket. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give this thing a trialfor a week or two, and at the end of that time I'll go to the boss andsee how he reacts when I ask for a rise of salary. If he crawls, it'llshow there's something in this. If he flings me out, it will prove thething's no good."
We left it at that, and I am bound to say--owing, no doubt, to my nothaving written for the booklet of the Memory Training Course advertisedon the adjoining page of the magazine--the matter slipped from my mind.When, therefore, a few weeks later, I received a telegram from youngMackintosh which ran:
_Worked like magic,_
I confess I was intensely puzzled. It was only a quarter of an hourbefore George himself arrived that I solved the problem of its meaning.
"So the boss crawled?" I said, as he came in.
He gave a light, confident laugh. I had not seen him, as I say, forsome time, and I was struck by the alteration in his appearance. Inw
hat exactly this alteration consisted I could not at first have said;but gradually it began to impress itself on me that his eye wasbrighter, his jaw squarer, his carriage a trifle more upright than ithad been. But it was his eye that struck me most forcibly. The GeorgeMackintosh I had known had had a pleasing gaze, but, though frank andagreeable, it had never been more dynamic than a fried egg. This newGeorge had an eye that was a combination of a gimlet and a searchlight.Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, I imagine, must have been somewhatsimilarly equipped. The Ancient Mariner stopped a wedding guest on hisway to a wedding; George Mackintosh gave me the impression that hecould have stopped the Cornish Riviera express on its way to Penzance.Self-confidence--aye, and more than self-confidence--a sort of sinful,overbearing swank seemed to exude from his very pores.
"Crawled?" he said. "Well, he didn't actually lick my boots, because Isaw him coming and side-stepped; but he did everything short of that. Ihadn't been talking an hour when----"
"An hour!" I gasped. "Did you talk for an hour?"
"Certainly. You wouldn't have had me be abrupt, would you? I went intohis private office and found him alone. I think at first he would havebeen just as well pleased if I had retired. In fact, he said as much.But I soon adjusted that outlook. I took a seat and a cigarette, andthen I started to sketch out for him the history of my connection withthe firm. He began to wilt before the end of the first ten minutes. Atthe quarter of an hour mark he was looking at me like a lost dog that'sjust found its owner. By the half-hour he was making little bleatingnoises and massaging my coat-sleeve. And when, after perhaps an hourand a half, I came to my peroration and suggested a rise, he chokedback a sob, gave me double what I had asked, and invited me to dine athis club next Tuesday. I'm a little sorry now I cut the thing so short.A few minutes more, and I fancy he would have given me hissock-suspenders and made over his life-insurance in my favour."
"Well," I said, as soon as I could speak, for I was finding my youngfriend a trifle overpowering, "this is most satisfactory."
"So-so," said George. "Not un-so-so. A man wants an addition to hisincome when he is going to get married."
"Ah!" I said. "That, of course, will be the real test."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, when you propose to Celia Tennant. You remember you were sayingwhen we spoke of this before--"
"Oh, that!" said George, carelessly. "I've arranged all that."
"What!"
"Oh, yes. On my way up from the station. I looked in on Celia about anhour ago, and it's all settled."
"Amazing!"
"Well, I don't know. I just put the thing to her, and she seemed to seeit."
"I congratulate you. So now, like Alexander, you have no more worlds toconquer."
"Well, I don't know so much about that," said George. "The way it looks tome is that I'm just starting. This eloquence is a thing that rather growson one. You didn't hear about my after-dinner speech at the anniversarybanquet of the firm, I suppose? My dear fellow, a riot! A positivestampede. Had 'em laughing and then crying and then laughing again andthen crying once more till six of 'em had to be led out and the rest downwith hiccoughs. Napkins waving ... three tables broken ... waiters inhysterics. I tell you, I played on them as on a stringed instrument...."
"Can you play on a stringed instrument?"
"As it happens, no. But as I would have played on a stringed instrumentif I could play on a stringed instrument. Wonderful sense of power itgives you. I mean to go in pretty largely for that sort of thing infuture."
"You must not let it interfere with your golf."
He gave a laugh which turned my blood cold.
"Golf!" he said. "After all, what is golf? Just pushing a small ballinto a hole. A child could do it. Indeed, children have done it withgreat success. I see an infant of fourteen has just won some sort ofchampionship. Could that stripling convulse a roomful of banqueters? Ithink not! To sway your fellow-men with a word, to hold them with agesture ... that is the real salt of life. I don't suppose I shall playmuch more golf now. I'm making arrangements for a lecturing-tour, andI'm booked up for fifteen lunches already."
Those were his words. A man who had once done the lake-hole in one. Aman whom the committee were grooming for the amateur championship. I amno weakling, but I confess they sent a chill shiver down my spine.
* * * * *
George Mackintosh did not, I am glad to say, carry out his mad projectto the letter. He did not altogether sever himself from golf. He wasstill to be seen occasionally on the links. But now--and I know ofnothing more tragic that can befall a man--he found himself graduallyshunned, he who in the days of his sanity had been besieged with moreoffers of games than he could manage to accept. Men simply would notstand his incessant flow of talk. One by one they dropped off, untilthe only person he could find to go round with him was old MajorMoseby, whose hearing completely petered out as long ago as the year'98. And, of course, Celia Tennant would play with him occasionally;but it seemed to me that even she, greatly as no doubt she loved him,was beginning to crack under the strain.
So surely had I read the pallor of her face and the wild look of dumbagony in her eyes that I was not surprised when, as I sat one morningin my garden reading Ray on Taking Turf, my man announced her name. Ihad been half expecting her to come to me for advice and consolation,for I had known her ever since she was a child. It was I who had givenher her first driver and taught her infant lips to lisp "Fore!" It isnot easy to lisp the word "Fore!" but I had taught her to do it, andthis constituted a bond between us which had been strengthened ratherthan weakened by the passage of time.
She sat down on the grass beside my chair, and looked up at my face insilent pain. We had known each other so long that I know that it wasnot my face that pained her, but rather some unspoken _malaise_ ofthe soul. I waited for her to speak, and suddenly she burst outimpetuously as though she could hold back her sorrow no longer.
"Oh, I can't stand it! I can't stand it!"
"You mean...?" I said, though I knew only too well.
"This horrible obsession of poor George's," she cried passionately. "Idon't think he has stopped talking once since we have been engaged."
"He _is_ chatty," I agreed. "Has he told you the story about theIrishman?"
"Half a dozen times. And the one about the Swede oftener than that. ButI would not mind an occasional anecdote. Women have to learn to bearanecdotes from the men they love. It is the curse of Eve. It is hisincessant easy flow of chatter on all topics that is undermining evenmy devotion."
"But surely, when he proposed to you, he must have given you an inklingof the truth. He only hinted at it when he spoke to me, but I gatherthat he was eloquent."
"When he proposed," said Celia dreamily, "he was wonderful. He spokefor twenty minutes without stopping. He said I was the essence of hisevery hope, the tree on which the fruit of his life grew; his Present,his Future, his Past ... oh, and all that sort of thing. If he wouldonly confine his conversation now to remarks of a similar nature, Icould listen to him all day long. But he doesn't. He talks politics andstatistics and philosophy and ... oh, and everything. He makes my headache."
"And your heart also, I fear," I said gravely.
"I love him!" she replied simply. "In spite of everything, I love himdearly. But what to do? What to do? I have an awful fear that when weare getting married instead of answering 'I will,' he will go into thepulpit and deliver an address on Marriage Ceremonies of All Ages. Theworld to him is a vast lecture-platform. He looks on life as one longafter-dinner, with himself as the principal speaker of the evening. Itis breaking my heart. I see him shunned by his former friends. Shunned!They run a mile when they see him coming. The mere sound of his voiceoutside the club-house is enough to send brave men diving for safetybeneath the sofas. Can you wonder that I am in despair? What have I tolive for?"
"There is always golf."
"Yes, there is always golf," she whispered bravely.
"Come and ha
ve a round this afternoon."
"I had promised to go for a walk ..." She shuddered, then pulled herselftogether. "... for a walk with George."
I hesitated for a moment.
"Bring him along," I said, and patted her hand. "It may be thattogether we shall find an opportunity of reasoning with him."
She shook her head.
"You can't reason with George. He never stops talking long enough togive you time."
"Nevertheless, there is no harm in trying. I have an idea that thismalady of his is not permanent and incurable. The very violence withwhich the germ of loquacity has attacked him gives me hope. You mustremember that before this seizure he was rather a noticeably silentman. Sometimes I think that it is just Nature's way of restoring theaverage, and that soon the fever may burn itself out. Or it may be thata sudden shock ... At any rate, have courage."
"I will try to be brave."
"Capital! At half-past two on the first tee, then."
"You will have to give me a stroke on the third, ninth, twelfth,fifteenth, sixteenth and eighteenth," she said, with a quaver in hervoice. "My golf has fallen off rather lately."
I patted her hand again.
"I understand," I said gently. "I understand."
* * * * *
The steady drone of a baritone voice as I alighted from my car andapproached the first tee told me that George had not forgotten thetryst. He was sitting on the stone seat under the chestnut-tree,speaking a few well-chosen words on the Labour Movement.
"To what conclusion, then, do we come?" he was saying. "We come to theforegone and inevitable conclusion that...."
"Good afternoon, George," I said.
He nodded briefly, but without verbal salutation. He seemed to regardmy remark as he would have regarded the unmannerly heckling of some oneat the back of the hall. He proceeded evenly with his speech, and wasstill talking when Celia addressed her ball and drove off. Her drive,coinciding with a sharp rhetorical question from George, wavered inmid-air, and the ball trickled off into the rough half-way down thehill. I can see the poor girl's tortured face even now. But shebreathed no word of reproach. Such is the miracle of women's love.
"Where you went wrong there," said George, breaking off his remarks onLabour, "was that you have not studied the dynamics of golfsufficiently. You did not pivot properly. You allowed your left heel topoint down the course when you were at the top of your swing. Thismakes for instability and loss of distance. The fundamental law of thedynamics of golf is that the left foot shall be solidly on the groundat the moment of impact. If you allow your heel to point down thecourse, it is almost impossible to bring it back in time to make thefoot a solid fulcrum."
I drove, and managed to clear the rough and reach the fairway. But itwas not one of my best drives. George Mackintosh, I confess, hadunnerved me. The feeling he gave me resembled the self-conscious panicwhich I used to experience in my childhood when informed that there wasOne Awful Eye that watched my every movement and saw my every act. Itwas only the fact that poor Celia appeared even more affected by hisespionage that enabled me to win the first hole in seven.
On the way to the second tee George discoursed on the beauties ofNature, pointing out at considerable length how exquisitely the silverglitter of the lake harmonized with the vivid emerald turf near thehole and the duller green of the rough beyond it. As Celia teed up herball, he directed her attention to the golden glory of the sand-pit tothe left of the flag. It was not the spirit in which to approach thelake-hole, and I was not surprised when the unfortunate girl's ballfell with a sickening plop half-way across the water.
"Where you went wrong there," said George, "was that you made thestroke a sudden heave instead of a smooth, snappy flick of the wrists.Pressing is always bad, but with the mashie----"
"I think I will give you this hole," said Celia to me, for my shot hadcleared the water and was lying on the edge of the green. "I wish Ihadn't used a new ball."
"The price of golf-balls," said George, as we started to round thelake, "is a matter to which economists should give some attention. I amcredibly informed that rubber at the present time is exceptionallycheap. Yet we see no decrease in the price of golf-balls, which, as Ineed scarcely inform you, are rubber-cored. Why should this be so? Youwill say that the wages of skilled labour have gone up. True. But----"
"One moment, George, while I drive," I said. For we had now arrived atthe third tee.
"A curious thing, concentration," said George, "and why certainphenomena should prevent us from focusing our attention---- This bringsme to the vexed question of sleep. Why is it that we are able to sleepthrough some vast convulsion of Nature when a dripping tap is enough tokeep us awake? I am told that there were people who slumberedpeacefully through the San Francisco earthquake, merely stirringdrowsily from time to time to tell an imaginary person to leave it onthe mat. Yet these same people----"
Celia's drive bounded into the deep ravine which yawns some fifty yardsfrom the tee. A low moan escaped her.
"Where you went wrong there----" said George.
"I know," said Celia. "I lifted my head."
I had never heard her speak so abruptly before. Her manner, in a girlless noticeably pretty, might almost have been called snappish. George,however, did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. He filled hispipe and followed her into the ravine.
"Remarkable," he said, "how fundamental a principle of golf is thiskeeping the head still. You will hear professionals tell their pupilsto keep their eye on the ball. Keeping the eye on the ball is only asecondary matter. What they really mean is that the head should be keptrigid, as otherwise it is impossible to----"
His voice died away. I had sliced my drive into the woods on the right,and after playing another had gone off to try to find my ball, leavingCelia and George in the ravine behind me. My last glimpse of themshowed me that her ball had fallen into a stone-studded cavity in theside of the hill, and she was drawing her niblick from her bag as Ipassed out of sight. George's voice, blurred by distance to amonotonous murmur, followed me until I was out of earshot.
I was just about to give up the hunt for my ball in despair, when Iheard Celia's voice calling to me from the edge of the undergrowth.There was a sharp note in it which startled me.
I came out, trailing a portion of some unknown shrub which had twineditself about my ankle.
"Yes?" I said, picking twigs out of my hair.
"I want your advice," said Celia.
"Certainly. What is the trouble? By the way," I said, looking round,"where is your _fiance_?"
"I have no _fiance_," she said, in a dull, hard voice.
"You have broken off the engagement?"
"Not exactly. And yet--well, I suppose it amounts to that."
"I don't quite understand."
"Well, the fact is," said Celia, in a burst of girlish frankness, "Irather think I've killed George."
"Killed him, eh?"
It was a solution that had not occurred to me, but now that it waspresented for my inspection I could see its merits. In these days ofnational effort, when we are all working together to try to make ourbeloved land fit for heroes to live in, it was astonishing that nobodybefore had thought of a simple, obvious thing like killing GeorgeMackintosh. George Mackintosh was undoubtedly better dead, but it hadtaken a woman's intuition to see it.
"I killed him with my niblick," said Celia.
I nodded. If the thing was to be done at all, it was unquestionably aniblick shot.
"I had just made my eleventh attempt to get out of that ravine," thegirl went on, "with George talking all the time about the recentexcavations in Egypt, when suddenly--you know what it is when somethingseems to snap----"
"I had the experience with my shoe-lace only this morning."
"Yes, it was like that. Sharp--sudden--happening all in a moment. Isuppose I must have said something, for George stopped talking aboutEgypt and said that he was reminded by a remark of the last speaker'so
f a certain Irishman-----"
I pressed her hand.
"Don't go on if it hurts you," I said, gently.
"Well, there is very little more to tell. He bent his head to light hispipe, and well--the temptation was too much for me. That's all."
"You were quite right."
"You really think so?"
"I certainly do. A rather similar action, under far less provocation,once made Jael the wife of Heber the most popular woman in Israel."
"I wish I could think so too," she murmured. "At the moment, you know,I was conscious of nothing but an awful elation. But--but--oh, he wassuch a darling before he got this dreadful affliction. I can't helpthinking of G-George as he used to be."
She burst into a torrent of sobs.
"Would you care for me to view the remains?" I said.
"Perhaps it would be as well."
She led me silently into the ravine. George Mackintosh was lying on hisback where he had fallen.
"There!" said Celia.
And, as she spoke, George Mackintosh gave a kind of snorting groan andsat up. Celia uttered a sharp shriek and sank on her knees before him.George blinked once or twice and looked about him dazedly.
"Save the women and children!" he cried. "I can swim."
"Oh, George!" said Celia.
"Feeling a little better?" I asked.
"A little. How many people were hurt?"
"Hurt?"
"When the express ran into us." He cast another glance around him."Why, how did I get here?"
"You were here all the time," I said.
"Do you mean after the roof fell in or before?"
Celia was crying quietly down the back of his neck.
"Oh, George!" she said, again.
He groped out feebly for her hand and patted it.
"Brave little woman!" he said. "Brave little woman! She stuck by me allthrough. Tell me--I am strong enough to bear it--what caused theexplosion?"
It seemed to me a case where much unpleasant explanation might beavoided by the exercise of a little tact.
"Well, some say one thing and some another," I said. "Whether it was aspark from a cigarette----"
Celia interrupted me. The woman in her made her revolt against thiswell-intentioned subterfuge.
"I hit you, George!"
"Hit me?" he repeated, curiously. "What with? The Eiffel Tower?"
"With my niblick."
"You hit me with your niblick? But why?"
She hesitated. Then she faced him bravely.
"Because you wouldn't stop talking."
He gaped.
"Me!" he said. "_I_ wouldn't stop talking! But I hardly talk atall. I'm noted for it."
Celia's eyes met mine in agonized inquiry. But I saw what had happened.The blow, the sudden shock, had operated on George's brain-cells insuch a way as to effect a complete cure. I have not the technicalknowledge to be able to explain it, but the facts were plain.
"Lately, my dear fellow," I assured him, "you have dropped into thehabit of talking rather a good deal. Ever since we started out thisafternoon you have kept up an incessant flow of conversation!"
"Me! On the links! It isn't possible."
"It is only too true, I fear. And that is why this brave girl hit youwith her niblick. You started to tell her a funny story just as she wasmaking her eleventh shot to get her ball out of this ravine, and shetook what she considered the necessary steps."
"Can you ever forgive me, George?" cried Celia.
George Mackintosh stared at me. Then a crimson blush mantled his face.
"So I did! It's all beginning to come back to me. Oh, heavens!"
"_Can_ you forgive me, George?" cried Celia again.
He took her hand in his.
"Forgive you?" he muttered. "Can _you_ forgive _me?_ Me--atee-talker, a green-gabbler, a prattler on the links, the lowest formof life known to science! I am unclean, unclean!"
"It's only a little mud, dearest," said Celia, looking at the sleeve ofhis coat. "It will brush off when it's dry."
"How can you link your lot with a man who talks when people are makingtheir shots?"
"You will never do it again."
"But I have done it. And you stuck to me all through! Oh, Celia!"
"I loved you, George!"
The man seemed to swell with a sudden emotion. His eye lit up, and hethrust one hand into the breast of his coat while he raised the otherin a sweeping gesture. For an instant he appeared on the verge of aflood of eloquence. And then, as if he had been made sharply aware ofwhat it was that he intended to do, he suddenly sagged. The gleam diedout of his eyes. He lowered his hand.
"Well, I must say that was rather decent of you," he said.
A lame speech, but one that brought an infinite joy to both hishearers. For it showed that George Mackintosh was cured beyondpossibility of relapse.
"Yes, I must say you are rather a corker," he added.
"George!" cried Celia.
I said nothing, but I clasped his hand; and then, taking my clubs, Iretired. When I looked round she was still in his arms. I left themthere, alone together in the great silence.
* * * * *
And so (concluded the Oldest Member) you see that a cure is possible,though it needs a woman's gentle hand to bring it about. And how fewwomen are capable of doing what Celia Tennant did. Apart from thedifficulty of summoning up the necessary resolution, an act like hersrequires a straight eye and a pair of strong and supple wrists. Itseems to me that for the ordinary talking golfer there is no hope. Andthe race seems to be getting more numerous every day. Yet the finestgolfers are always the least loquacious. It is related of theillustrious Sandy McHoots that when, on the occasion of his winning theBritish Open Championship, he was interviewed by reporters from theleading daily papers as to his views on Tariff Reform, Bimetallism, theTrial by Jury System, and the Modern Craze for Dancing, all they couldextract from him was the single word "Mphm!" Having uttered which, heshouldered his bag and went home to tea. A great man. I wish there weremore like him.