THE HEART OF A GOOF

WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT

Golf is the Great Mystery. Like some Capricious goddess, it bestows its favours with what would appear an almost fatheaded lack of method and descrimination. Mys- terious, but there it is.

Ferdinand Dibble should have been a com- petent golfer—but he was a goof. That he loved Barbara Medway was beyond a doubt ; but he hadn’t the nerve to ask her to marry him. Every time he felt he had mustered up enough pep to. propose, he took ten on a bogey three. And then self-confidence left him. How does he achieve his object? Many other great golfing problems are solved by the Oldest Member. His pertinacity in these matters makes him a plus man.

A real Wodehouse book of humour and golf.

For List of Books by the same Author, see pages 315—317

THE HEART OF A GOOF

BY P. G. WODEHOUSE

HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED 3 YORK ST., LONDON, S.W.1

A HERBERT JENKINS

Fifth printing completing 46,400 coptes

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELi AND SONS, PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON

TO My DAUGHTER

LEONORA

WITHOUT WHOSE NEVER-FAILING SYMPATHY AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK WOULD HAVE BEEN FINISHED IN

HALF THE TIME

PREFACE

Before leading the reader out on to this little nine-hole course, I should like to say a few words on the club-house steps with regard to the criticisms of my earlier book of Golf stories, The Clicking of Cuthbert. In the first place, I noticed with regret a dis- position on the part of certain writers to speak of Golf as a trivial theme, unworthy of the pen of a thinker. In connection with this, I can only say that right through the ages the mightiest brains have occupied themselves with this noble sport, and that I err, therefore, if I do err, in excellent company.

Apart from the works of such men as James Braid, John Henry Taylor and Horace Hutchinson, we find Publius Syrius not disdaining to give advice on the back-swing (“He gets through too late who goes too fast’’); Diogenes describing the emotions of a cheery player at the water-hole (“Be of good cheer. I see land’); and Doctor Watts, who, watching one of his drives from

Vv

vi PREFACE

the tee, jotted down the following couplet on the back of his score-card:

Fly, like a youthful hart or roe, Over the hills where spices grow.

And, when we consider that Chaucer, the father of English poetry, inserted in his Squiere’s Tale the line

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spoone

(though, of course, with the modern rubber- cored ball an iron would have got the same distance) and that Shakespeare himself, Speaking querulously in the character of a weak player who held up an usnpatient foursome, said:

Four rogues in buckram let drive at me

we may, I think, consider these objections answered.

A far more serious grievance which I have against my critics is that many of them confessed to the possession of but the slightest knowledge of the game, and one actually stated in cold print that he did not know what a niblick was. A writer on golf is certainly entitled to be judged by his peers— which, in my own case, means men who do one good drive in six, four reasonable ap- proaches in an eighteen-hole round, and

PREFACE vii

average three putts per green: and I think I am justified in asking of editors that they instruct critics of this book to append their handicaps in brackets at the end of their remarks. By this means the public will be enabled to form a fair estimate of the worth of the volume, and the sting in such critiques as ‘‘We laughed heartily while reading these stories—once—at a misprint’’ will be sensibly diminished by the figures (36) at the bottom of the paragraph. While my elation will be all the greater should the words ‘“‘A genuine masterpiece’’ be followed by a simple (scr.).

One final word. The thoughtful reader, comparing this book with The Clicking of Cuthbert, will, no doubt, be struck by the poignant depth of feeling which pervades the present volume like the scent of muddy shoes in a locker-room: and it may be that he will conclude that, ike so many English writers, I have fallen under the spell of the great Russians.

This is not the case. While it is, of course, true that my style owes much to Dostoievsky, the heart-wringing qualities of such stories as ““The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh”’ and ‘‘ Keeping in with Vosper”’ is due entirely to the fact that I have spent much time recently plcying on the National Links at Southampton, Long Island, U.S.A. These links were constructed by an exiled Scot

who conceived the dreadful idea of assembling A2@

vil PREFACE

on one course all the really foul holes in Great Britain. It cannot but leave its mark on a man when, after struggling through the Sahara at Sandwich and the Alps at Prestwick, he finds himself faced by the Station-Master’s Garden hole at St. Andrew’s and knows that the Redan and the Eden are just round the corner. When you turn in a medal score of a hundred and eight on two successive days, you get to know some- thing about Life.

And yet it may be that there are a few gleams of sunshine in the book. If so, it is attributable to the fact that some of it was written before I went to Southampton and immediately after I had won my first and only trophy—an umbrella in a hotel tournament at Aiken, South Carolina, where, playing to a handicap of sixteen, I went through a field consisting of some of the fattest retired business-men in America like a devouring flame. If we lose the Walker Cup this year, let England remember that.

P. G. WODEHOUSE The Sixth Bunker Addington

CHAPTER

I. Il. Ill. IV. V. VI.

VII. WITT. IX,

CONTENTS

THE HEART OF A GOOF

HIGH STAKES °

KEEPING IN WITH VOSPER

CHESTER FORGETS HIMSELF . THE MAGIC PLUS FOURS.

THE AWAKENING OF ROLLO PODMARSH . ;

RODNEY FAILS TO QUALIFY JANE GETS OFF THE FAIRWAY THE PURIFICATION OF RODNEY

SPELVIN ° °

PAGE

II

47 SI

112 150

181 208

244

281

THE HEART OF A GOOF

CHAPTER I

THE HEART OF A GOOF

“Fore!” The breeze, as it blew gently up from the valley, seemed to bring a message of hope and cheer, whispering of chip-shots holed and brassies landing squarely on the meat. The fairway, as yet unscarred by the irons of a hundred dubs, smiled greenly up at the azure sky; and the sun, peeping above the trees, looked like a giant golf-ball perfectly lofted by the mashie of some unseen god and about to drop dead by the pin of the eighteenth. It was the day of the opening of the course after the long winter, and a crowd of considerable dimensions had col- lected at the first tee. Plus fours gleamed in the sunshine, and the air was charged with happy anticipation. In all that gay throng there was but one sad face. It belonged to the man who was waggling his driver over the new ball perched

It

| was a morning when all nature shouted

12 THE HEART OF A GOOF

on its little hill of sand. This man seemed careworn, hopeless. He gazed down the fair- way, shifted his feet, waggled, gazed down the fairway again, shifted the dogs once more, and waggled afresh. He waggled as Hamlet might have waggled, moodily, irreso- lutely. Then, at last, he swung, and, taking from his caddie the niblick which the intel- ligent lad had been holding in readiness from the moment when he had walked on to the tee, trudged wearily off to play his second.

The Oldest Member, who had been observ- ing the scene with a benevolent eye from his favourite chair on the terrace, sighed.

“Poor Jenkinson,” he said, ‘‘does not improve.”

“No,” agreed his companion, a young man with open features and a handicap of six. ‘And yet I happen to know that he has been taking lessons all the winter at one of those indoor places.”

“Futile, quite futile,’ said the Sage with a shake of his snowy head. ‘There is no wizard living who could make that man go round in an average of sevens. I keep advis- ing him to give up the game.”

“You!” cried the young man, raising a shocked and startled face from the driver with which he was toying. ‘‘ You told him to give up golf! Why I thought——”

‘T understand and approve of your horror,” said the Oldest Member, gently. ‘‘But you must bear in mind that Jenkinson’s is not an

THE HEART OF A GOOF 13

ordinary case. You know and I know scores of men who have never broken a hundred and twenty 1n their lives, and yet contrive to be happy, useful members of society. How- ever badly they may play, they are able to forget. But with Jenkinson it is different. He is not one of those who can take it or leave it alone. His only chance of happiness lies in complete abstinence. Jenkinson is a goof.’’

“A what?”

“A goof,’’ repeated the Sage. ‘‘One of those unfortunate beings who have allowed this noblest of sports to get too great a grip upon them, who have permitted it to eat into their souls, hke some malignant growth. The goof, you must understand, is not like you and me. He broods. He becomes morbid. His goofery unfits him for the battles of life. Jenkinson, for example, was once a man with a glowing future in the hay, corn, and feed business, but a constant stream of hooks, tops, and slices gradually made him so diffi- dent and mistrustful of himself, that he let opportunity after opportunity slip, with the result that other, sterner, hay, corn, and feed merchants passed him in the race. Every time he had the chance to carry through some big deal in hay, or to execute some flashing coup in corn and feed, the fatal diffidence generated by a hundred rotten rounds would undo him. I understand his bankruptcy may be expected at any moment.”

14 THE HEART OF A GOOF

“My golly!” said the young man, deeply impressed. ‘“‘I hope I never become a goof. Do you mean to say there is really no cure except giving up the game? ”

The Oldest Member was silent for a while.

“It is curious that you should have asked that question,”’ he said at last, “‘for only this morning I was thinking of the one case in my experience where a goof was enabled to over- come his deplorable malady. It was owing to a girl, of course. The longer I live, the more I come to see that most things are. But you will, no doubt, wish to hear the story from the beginning.”’

The young mdn rose with the startled haste of some wild creature, which, wandering through the undergrowth, perceives the trap in his path.

“‘T should love to,’ he mumbled, “only I shall be losing my place at the tee.”’

“The goof in question,’ said the Sage, attaching himself with quiet firmness to the youth’s coat-button, “ was a man of about your age, by name Ferdinand Dibble. I knew him well. In fact, it was to me ‘

“Some other time, eh?”’

“It was to me,’ proceeded the Sage, pla- cidly, ‘“‘that he came for sympathy in the great crisis of his life, and I am not ashamed to say that when he had finished laying bare his soul to me there were tears in my eyes. My heart bled for the boy.”’

“T bet it did. But——”

THE HEART OF A GOOF 18

The Oldest Member pushed him gently back into his seat.

“Golf,” he said, “‘is the Great Mystery. Like some capricious goddess i

The young man, who had been exhibiting symptoms of feverishness, appeared to become resigned. He sighed softly.

“Did you ever read ‘The Ancient Mar- iner’?”’ he said.

“Many years ago,’’ said the Oldest Member. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the young man. “It just occurred to me.”

Golf (resumed the Oldest Member) is the Great Mystery. Like some capricious god- dess, it bestows its favours with what would appear an almost fat-headed lack of method and discrimination. On every side we see big two-fisted he-men floundering round in three figures, stopping every few minutes to let through little shrimps with knock knees and hollow cheeks, who are tearing off snappy seventy-fours. Giants of finance have to accept a stroke per from their junior clerks. Men capable of governing empires fail to control a small, white ball, which presents no difficulties whatever to others with one ounce more brain than a cuckoo-clock. Mysterious, but there itis. There was no apparent reason why Ferdinand Dibble should not have been a competent golfer. He had strong wrists and a good eye. Nevertheless, the fact remains

16 THE HEART OF A GOOF

that he wasadub. And ona certain evening in June I realised that he was also a goof. I found it out quite suddenly as the result of a conversation which we had on this very terrace.

I was sitting here that evening thinking of this and that, when by the corner of the club- house I observed young Dibble in conversa- tion with a girlin white. I could not see who She was, for her back was turned. Pre- sently they parted and Ferdinand came slowly across to where I sat. His air was dejected. He had had the boots licked off him earlier in the afternoon by Jimmy Fother- gill, and it was to this that I attributed his gloom. I was to find out in a few moments that I was partly but not entirely correct in this surmise. He took the next chair to mine, and for several minutes sat staring moodily down into the valley.

“T’ve just been talking to Barbara Med- way, he said, suddenly breaking the silence. “Indeed?” I said. “A delightful girl.”’

“She’s going away for the summer to Marvis Bay.”’

‘She will take the sunshine with her.”’

‘You bet she will!’’ said Ferdinand Dibble, with extraordinary warmth, and there was another long silence.

Presently Ferdinand uttered a _ hollow

roan.

“IT love her, dammit!’”’ he muttered brok- enly. ‘Oh, golly, how I love her!”’

THE HEART OF A GOOF 17

I was not surprised at his making me the recipient of his confidences like this. Most of the young folk in the place brought their troubles to me sooner or later.

“And does she return your love?”’

“T don’t know. I haven’t asked her.”

“Why not? I should have thought the point not without its interest for you.”’

Ferdinand gnawed the handle of his putter distractedly.

““IT haven’t the nerve,” he burst out at length. ‘I simply can’t summon up the cold gall to ask a girl, least of all an angel like her, tomarryme. You see, it’s like this. Every time I work myself up to the point of having a dash at it, I go out and get trimmed by someone giving me a stroke a hole. Every time I feel I’ve mustered up enough pep to propose, I take ten on a bogey three. Every time I think I’m in good mid-season form for putting my fate to the test, to win or lose it all, something goes all blooey with my swing, and I slice into the rough at every tee. And then my self-confidence leaves me. I become nervous, tongue-tied, diffident. 1 wish to goodness I knew the man who invented this infernal game. I’d strangle him. But I suppose he’s been dead for ages. Still, I could go and jump on his grave.’’

It was at this point that I understood all, and the heart within me sank like lead. The truth was out. Ferdinand Dibble was a goof.

18 THE HEART OF A GOOF

“Come, come, my boy,” I said, though feeling the uselessness of any words. ‘“* Mas- ter this weakness.”

“T can’t.”

€¢ Try! >)

“‘T have tried.”’

He gnawed his putter again.

“She was asking me just now if I couldn’t manage to come to Marvis Bay, too,’ he Said.

“That surely 1s encouraging? It suggests that she is not entirely indifferent to your society.”

“Yes, but what’s the use? Do you know,”’ a gleam coming into his eyes for a moment, ““T have a feeling that if I could ever beat some really fairly good player—just once—I could bring the thing off.’’ The gleam faded. ‘But what chance is there of that?”

It was a question which I did not care to answer. I merely patted his shoulder sym- pathetically, and after a little while he left me and walked away. I was still sitting there, thinking over his hard case, when Barbara Medway came out of the club-house.

She, too, seemed grave and pre-occupied, as if there was something on her mind. She took the chair which Ferdinand had vacated, and sighed wearily.

“Have you ever felt,’ she asked, “that you would like to bang a man on the head with something hard and heavy? With knobs on?”’

THE HEART OF A GOOF 19

I said | had sometimes experienced such a desire, and asked if she had any particular man in mind. She seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying, then, apparently, made up her mind to confide in me. My advanced years carry with them certain pleasant compensations, one of which is that nice girls often confide in me. I frequently find myself enrolled as a father-confessor on the most intimate matters by beautiful crea- tures from whom many a younger man would give his eye-teeth to get a friendly word. Besides, I had known Barbara since she was a child. Frequently—though not recently— I had given her her evening bath. These things form a bond.

“Why are men such chumps?” she ex- claimed.

“You still have not told me who it is that has caused these harsh words. Do I know him?”

“Of course you do. You've just been talk- ing to him.”

“Ferdinand Dibble? But why should you wish to bang Ferdinand Dibble on the head with something hard and heavy with knobs on?”

“Because he’s such a goop.”’

“You mean a goof?”’ I queried, wondering how she could have penetrated the unhappy man’s secret.

“No, a goop. A goop is a man who's in love with a girl and won’t tell her so. I am

20 THE HEART OF A GOOF

as certain as I am of anything that Ferdinand is fond of me.”

“Your instinct is unerring. He has just been confiding in me on that very point.”’

“Well, why doesn’t he confide in me, the poor fish?” cried the high-spirited girl, petu- lantly flicking a pebble at a passing grass- hopper. “I can’t be expected to fling myself into his arms unless he gives some sort of a hint that he’s ready to catch me.”

“Would it help if I were to repeat to him the substance of this conversation of ours? ”’

“Tf you breathe a word of it, I'll never speak to you again,” she cried. ‘“I’d rather die an awful death than have any man think I wanted him so badly that I had to send relays of messengers begging him to marry me.”

I saw her point.

“Then I fear,’ I said, gravely, “‘that there is nothing to be done. One can only wait and hope. It may be that in the years to come Ferdinand Dibble will acquire a nice lissom, wristy swing, with the head kept rigid and the right leg firmly braced and ‘-

“What are you talking about?”

“TI was toying with the hope that some sunny day Ferdinand Dibble would cease to

be a goof.” “You mean a goop?”’ “No, a goof. A goof is a man who——”

And I went on to explain the peculiar psycho- logical difficulties which lay in the way of

THE HEART OF A GOOF 21

any declaration of affection on Ferdinand’s art.

“But I never heard of anything so ridi- culous in my life,’’ she ejaculated. ‘‘Do you mean to say that he is waiting till he is good at golf before he asks me to marry him?”’

“It is not quite so simple as that,” I said sadly. “‘Many bad golfers marry, feeling that a wife’s loving solicitude may improve their game. But they are rugged, thick- skinned men, not sensitive and introspective, like Ferdinand. Ferdinand has allowed him- self to become morbid. It is one of the chief merits of golf that non-success at the game induces a certain amount of decent humility, which keeps a man from pluming himself too much on any petty triumphs he may achieve in other walks of life; but in all things there is a happy mean, and with Ferdinand this humility has gone too far. It has taken all the spirit out of him. He feels crushed and worthless. He is grateful to caddies when they accept a tip instead of drawing them- selves up to their full height and flinging the money in his face.”’

“Then do you mean that things have got to go on like this for ever? ”’

I thought for a moment.

“Tt is a pity,’ I said, “that you could not have induced Ferdinand to go to Marvis Bay for a month or two.”’

“Why?”

22 THE HEART OF A GOOF

“Because it seems to me, thinking the thing over, that it is just possible that Marvis Bay might cure him. At the hotel there he would find collected a mob of golfers—I used the term in its broadest sense, to embrace the paralytics and the men who play left-handed —whom even he would be able to beat. When I was last at Marvis Bay, the hotel links were a sort of Sargasso Sea into which had drifted all the pitiful flotsam and jetsam of golf. I have seen things done on that course at which I shuddered and averted my eyes—and I am not a weak man. If Ferdinand can polish up his game so as to go round in a fairly steady hundred and five, I fancy there is hope. But I understand he is not going to Marvis Bay.”

‘Oh yes, he is,”’ said the girl.

“Indeed! He did not tell me that when we were talking just now.”’

“He didn’t know it then. He will when I have had a few words with him.”’

And she walked with firm steps back into the club-house.

It has been well said that there are many kinds of golf, beginning at the top with the golf of professionals and the best amateurs and working down through the golf of ossified men to that of Scotch University professors. Until recently this last was looked upon as the lowest possible depth; but nowadays, with the growing popularity of summer hotels,

THE HEART OF A GOOF 23

we are able to add a brand still lower, the golf you find at places like Marvis Bay.

To Ferdinand Dibble, coming from a club where the standard of play was rather un- usually high, Marvis Bay was a revelation, and for some days after his arrival there he went about dazed, like a man who cannot believe it is really true. To go out on the links at this summer resort was like entering a new world. The hotel was full of stout, middle-aged men, who, after a mis-spent youth devoted to making money, had taken to a game at which real proficiency can only be acquired by those who start playing in their cradles and keep their weight down. Out on the course each morning you could see representatives of every nightmare style that was ever invented. There was the man who seemed to be attempting to deceive his ball and lull it into a false security by looking away from it and then making a lightning slash in the apparent hope of catching it off its guard. There was the man who wielded his mid-iron like one killing snakes There was the man who addressed his ball as if he were stroking a cat, the man who drove as if he were cracking a whip, the man who brooded over each shot like one whose heart is bowed down by bad news from home, and the man who scooped with his mashie as if he were ladling soup. By the end of the first week Ferdinand Dibble was the acknowledged champion of the place. He had gone through

24 THE HEART OF A GOOF

the entire menagerie like a bullet through a cream puff.

First, scarcely daring to consider the possi- bility of success, he had taken on the man who tried to catch his ball off its guard and had beaten him five up and four to play. Then, with gradually growing confidence, he tackled in turn the Cat-Stroker, the Whip-Cracker, the Heart Bowed Down, and the Soup- Scooper, and walked all over their faces with spiked shoes. And as these were the leading local amateurs, whose prowess the octo- genarians and the men who went round in bath-chairs vainly strove to emulate, Fer- dinand Dibble was faced on the eighth morn- ing of his visit by the startling fact that he had no more worlds to conquer. He was monarch of all he surveyed, and, what is more, had won his first trophy, the prize in the great medal-play handicap tournament, in which he had nosed in ahead of the field by two strokes, edging out his nearest rival, a ven- erable old gentleman, by means of a brilliant and unexpected four on the last hole. The prize was a handsome pewter mug, about the size of the old oaken bucket, and Ferdinand used to go to his room immediately after dinner to croon over it like a mother over her child.

You are wondering, no doubt, why, in these circumstances, he did not take advan- tage of the new spirit of exhilarated pride which had replaced his old humility and

THE HEART OF A GOOF 25

instantly propose to Barbara Medway. I will tell you. He did not propose to Barbara because Barbara was not there. At the last moment she had been detained at home to nurse a sick parent and had been compelled to postpone her visit for a couple of weeks. He could, no doubt, have proposed in one of the daily letters which he wrote to her, but somehow, once he started writing, he found that he used up so much space describing his best shots on the links that day that it was difficult to squeeze in a declaration of undying passion. After all, you can hardly cram that sort of thing into a postscript.

He decided, therefore, to wait till she arrived, and meanwhile pursued his con- quering course. The longer he waited the better, in one way, for every morning and afternoon that passed was adding new layers to his self-esteem. Day by day in every way he grew chestier and chestier.

Meanwhile, however, dark clouds were gathering. Sullen mutterings were to be heard in corners of the hotel lounge, and the spirit of revolt was abroad. For Ferdinand’s chestiness had not escaped the notice of his defeated rivals. There is nobody so chesty as a normally unchesty man who suddenly becomes chesty, and I am sorry to say that the chestiness which had come to Ferdinand was the aggressive type of chestiness which breeds enemies. He had developed a habit

26 THE HEART OF A GOOF

of holding the game up in order to give his opponent advice. The Whip-Cracker had not forgiven, and never would forgive, his well-meant but galling criticism of his back- swing The Scooper, who had always scooped since the day when, at the age of sixty-four, he subscribed to the Correspondence Course which was to teach him golf in twelve lessons by mail, resented being told by a snip of a boy that the mashie-stroke shouid be a smooth, unhurried swing. The Snake- Killer—— But I need not weary you with a detailed recital of these men’s grievances ; it is enough to say that they all had it in for Ferdinand, and one night, after dinner, they met in the lounge to decide what was to be done about it.

A nasty spirit was displayed by all.

“‘A mere lad telling me how to use my mashie!” growled the Scooper. ‘“‘Smooth and unhurried my left eyeball! I get it up, don’t I? Well, what more do you want?”

‘I keep telling him that mine is the old, full St. Andrew swing,’ muttered the Whip- Cracker, between set teeth, “‘but he won't listen to me.”

““He ought to be taken down a peg or two,” hissed the Snake-Killer. It is not easy to hiss a sentence without a single “‘s’’ in it, and the fact that he succeeded in doing so shows to what a pitch of emotion the man had been goaded by Ferdinand’s maddening air of superiority.

THE HEART OF A GOOF 2

“Yes, but what can we do?” queried an octogenarian, when this last remark had been passed on to him down his ear-trumpet.

“That’s the trouble,’ sighed the Scooper. “What can we do?” And there was a sorrowful shaking of heads.

‘‘T know!” exclaimed the Cat-Stroker, who had not hitherto spoken. He was a lawyer, and a man of subtle and sinister mind. “I have it! There’s a boy in my office—young Parsloe—who could beat this man Dibble hollow. Jl wire him to come down here and we'll spring him on this fellow and knock some of the conceit out of him.”

There was a chorus of approval.

“But are you sure he can beat him?” asked the Snake-Killer, anxiously. “It would never do to make a mistake.”

‘“‘Of course I’m sure,”’ said the Cat-Stroker. “George Parsloe once went round in ninety- four.”

“Many changes there have been since ninety-four,”’ said the octogenarian, nodding sagely. “‘Ah, many, many changes. None of these motor-cars then, tearing about and killing——”

Kindly hands led him off to have an egg- and-milk, and the remaining conspirators returned to the point at issue with bent brows.

“Ninety-four?” said the Scooper, incredu- lously. “Do you mean counting every stroke? ”

28 THE HEART OF A GOOF

‘Counting every stroke.”

‘‘Not conceding himself any putts?”

“Not one.”

‘““Wire him to come at once,” said the meeting with one voice.

That night the Cat-Stroker approached Ferdinand, smooth, subtle, lawyer-like.

‘‘Oh, Dibble,” he said, “‘just the man I wanted to see. Dibble, there’s a young friend of mine coming down here who goes in for golf a little. George Parsloe is his name. I was wondering if you could spare time to give hima game. He is just a novice, you know.”

‘“‘T shall be delighted to play a round with him,” said Ferdinand, kindly.

‘He might pick up a pointer or two from watching you,” said the Cat-Stroker.

“True, true,”’ said Ferdinand.

"Then Pll introduce you when he shows

“Delighted,” said Ferdinand.

He was in excellent humour that night, for he had had a letter from Barbara saying that she was arriving on the next day but one.

It was Ferdinand’s healthy custom of a morning to get up in good time and take a dip in the sea before breakfast. On the morning of the day of Barbara’s arrival, he arose, as usual, donned his flannels, took a good look at the cup, and started out. It

THE HEART OF A GOOF 29

was a fine, fresh morning, and he glowed both externally and internally. As _ he crossed the links, for the nearest route to the water was through the fairway of the seventh, he was whistling happily and rehearsing in his mind the opening sentences of his proposal. For it was his firm resolve that night after dinner to ask Barbara to marry him. He was proceeding over the smooth turf without a care in the world, when there was a sudden cry of “‘ Fore!’ and the next moment a golf ball, missing him by inches, sailed up the fair- way and came to a rest fifty yards from where he stood. He looked round and observed a figure coming towards him from the tee.

The distance from the tee was fully a hundred and thirty yards. Add fifty to that, and you have a hundred and eighty yards. No such drive had been made on the Marvis Bay links since their foundation, and such 1s the generous spirit of the true golfer that Ferdinand’s first emotion, after the not inex- cusable spasm of panic caused by the hum of the ball past his ear, was one of cordial admiration. By some kindly miracle, he supposed, one of his hotel acquaintances had been permitted for once in his life to time a drive right. It was only when the other man came up that there began to steal over him a sickening apprehension. The faces of all those who hewed divots on the hotel course were familiar to him, and the fact that this

30 THE HEART OF A GOOF

fellow was a stranger seemed to point with dreadful certainty to his being the man he had agreed to play.

“Sorry,” said the man. He was a tall, strikingly handsome youth, with brown eyes and a dark moustache.

“Oh, that’s all right,’ said Ferdinand. “Er—do you always drive like that?”

“Well, I generally get a bit longer ball, but I’m off my drive this morning. It’s lucky I came out and got this practice. I’m playing a match to-morrow with a fellow named Dibble, who’s a local champion, or something.”’

‘“Me,” said Ferdinand, humbly.

“Eh? Oh, you?” Mr. Parsloe eyed him appraisingly. ‘‘Well, may the best man win.”

As this was precisely what Ferdinand was afraid was going to happen, he nodded in a sickly manner and tottered off to his bathe. The magic had gone out of the morning. The sun still shone, but in a silly, feeble way; and a cold and depressing wind had sprung up. For Ferdinand’s inferiority complex, which had seemed cured for ever, was back again, doing business at the old stand.

How sad it is in this life that the moment to which we have looked forward with the most glowing anticipation so often turns out on arrival, flat, cold, and disappointing. For ten days Barbara Medway had been living

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for that meeting with Ferdinand, when, getting out of the train, she would see him popping about on the horizon with the love- light sparkling in his eyes and words of devotion trembling on his lips. The poor girl never doubted for an instant that he would unleash his pent-up emotions inside the first five minutes, and her only worry was lest he should give an embarrassing publicity to the sacred scene by falling on his knees on the station platform.

“Well, here I am at last,” she cried gaily.

‘“Hullo!” said Ferdinand, with a twisted smile.

The girl looked at him, chilled. How could she know that his peculiar manner was due entirely to the severe attack of cold feet resultant upon his meeting with George Parsloe that morning? The interpretation which she placed upon it was that he was not glad to see her. If he had behaved lke this before, she would, of course, have put it down to ingrowing goofery, but now she had his written statements to prove that for the last ten days his golf had been one long series of triumphs.

“T got your letters,” she said, persevering bravely.

“IT thought you would,” said Ferdinand, absently.

“You seem to have been doing wonders.”’

“Yes.”

There was a. silence.

32 THE HEART OF A GOOF

‘“‘Have a nice journey?” said Ferdinand.

‘Very,’ said Barbara.

She spoke coldly, for she was madder than a wet hen. She saw it all now. In the ten days since they had parted, his love, she realised, had waned. Some other girl, met in the romantic surroundings of this pic- turesque resort, had supplanted her in his affections. She knew how quickly Cupid gets off the mark at a summer hotel, and for an instant she blamed herself for ever having been so ivory-skulled as to let him come to this place alone. Then regret was swallowed up in wrath, and she became so glacial that Ferdinand, who had been on the point of tell- ing her the secret of his gloom, retired into his shell and conversation during the drive to the hotel never soared above a certain level. Ferdinand said the sunshine was nice and Barbara said yes, it was nice, and Fer- dinand said it looked pretty on the water, and Barbara said yes, it did look pretty on the water, and Ferdinand said he hoped it was not going to rain, and Barbara said yes, it would be a pity if it rained. And then there was another lengthy silence.

“How is my uncle?” asked Barbara at last.

I omitted to mention that the individual to whom I have referred as the Cat-Stroker was Barbara’s mother’s brother, and her host at Marvis Bay.

“Your uncle?”

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‘“‘His name is Tuttle. Have you met him?”

“Oh yes. I’ve seen a good deal of him. He has got a friend staying with him,” said Ferdinand, his mind returning to the matter nearest his heart. “A fellow named Parsloe.”’

‘“‘Oh, is George Parsloe here? How jolly!”

“Do you know him?” barked Ferdinand, hollowly. He would not have supposed that anything could have added to his existing depression, but he was conscious now of having slipped a few rungs farther down the ladder of gloom. There had been a horribly joyful ring in her voice. Ah, well, he reflected morosely, how like life it all was! We never know what the morrow may bring forth. We strike a good patch and are beginning to think pretty well of ourselves, and along comes a George Parsloe.

“‘Of course I do,” said Barbara. ‘‘ Why, there he is.”

The cab had drawn up at the door of the hotel, and on the porch George Parsloe was airing his graceful person. To Ferdinand’s fevered eye he looked like a Greek god, and his inferiority complex began to exhibit symp- toms of elephantiasis. How could he com- pete at love or golf with a fellow who looked as if he had stepped out of the movies and considered himself off his drive when he did a hundred and eighty yards?

“Geor-gee!’’ cried Barbara, blithely. “Hullo, George!”’

34 THE HEART OF A GOOF

“Why, hullo, Barbara!”’

They fell into pleasant conversation, while Ferdinand hung miserably about in the offing. And presently, feeling that his society was not essential to their happiness, he slunk away.

George Parsloe dined at the Cat-Stroker’s table that night, and it was with George Par- sloe that Barbara roamed in the moonlight after dinner. Ferdinand, after a profitless hour at the billiard-table, went early to his room. But not even the rays of the moon, glinting on his cup, could soothe the fever in his soul. He practised putting sombrely into his tooth-glass for a while; then, going to bed, fell at last into a troubled sleep.

Barbara slept late the next morning and breakfasted in her room. Coming down towards noon, she found a strange emptiness inthe hotel. It was her experience of summer hotels that a really fine day like this one was the cue for half the inhabitants to collect in the lounge, shut all the windows, and talk about conditions in the jute industry. To her surprise, though the sun was streaming down from a cloudless sky, the only occupant of the lounge was the octogenarian with the ear-trumpet. She observed that he was chuckling to himself in a senile manner.

“Good morning,” she said, politely, for she had made his acquaintance on the previous evening.

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“Hey?” said the octogenarian, suspending his chuckling and getting his trumpet into position.

“T said ‘Good morning!’” roared Bar- bara into the receiver.

66 Hey? >?

“Good morning!”

“Ah! Yes, it’s a very fine morning, a very fine