Success Story Seminars

Golf Seminar: Golf For Women- Genevieve Hecker- 1904

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GOLF FOR WOMEN

GENEVIEVE HECKER

1904

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introductory, ii

II. Preumikary Training, …. 41

III. The Stance, 59

IV. The Swing, 73

V. The Swing {Continued), …. 86

VI. The Long Game, 95

VII. The Long Game (Continued), . . .110

VIII. The Short Game, 121

IX. The Short Game {Continued), . . .130

X. Approaching and Putting, . . . 140

XI. Putting {Concluded), and Tourney

Play, . .” 153

XII. Hazards and General Remarks, . .171
XIII. Golf Courses for Women, . . . 196
Impressions of American Golf, by Miss
Rhona K. Adair, 205

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

The publishers of this volume beg to ac-
knowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Harper &
Brothers, publishers of ” Golf,” in permit-
ting a reproduction of the chapters of this
book and the photographs, which originally
appeared in that magazine.

GOLF FOR WOMEN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

ll LTHOUGH there have been in die
r^L past few years a great many books
written upon golf, detailing how to
play the game, and the things one should do
and likewise leave undone, ti^ere has never
been a book which presented the Royal and
Ancient game to the feminine inquiring mind
and from a woman’s standpoint. It is my
purpose and desire to supply this deficiency, so
far as I may be able to do so, in the chapters
that shall make up this book.

No matter how valuable to a man the pres-
ent text-books of the game may be, I have
found by my own personal experience and

that of many of my friends that there were

12 GOLP FOR WOMEN

many points about the best of them which
were, perhapSy familiar as the A B C*s to a
man, but wholly incomprehensible to a
woman.

That this is quite to be expected is natural,
for how can a man understand the ways and
moods and means which must be taken into
consideration when a woman prepares to
golf?

Until quite recently — ^that is to say^ the last
six or seven years — ^women’s place in golf has
been so comparatively unimportant that no
woman has felt it incumbent upon her to blaze
the path, as it were, for her faltering yet en*
thusiastic sisters. Happily, that time has now
gone, and it has gone never to return. Women
in England and Scotland, as well as in Amer-
ica, but particularly here, have taken up the
game with so much enthusiasm — have become
such ” cranks,” to quote from the slang of the
day — and, better than all, have become so
thoroughly alive to its benefits from a purely
phj^ical standpoint, that it does not seem as

INTRODUCTORY 18

tliough it would ever be allowed to drop into
die oblivion which has heretofore followed all
the sports which have in turn been the fad of
^hour.

Nor is woman’s place in golf secured to her
only by the sufferance and good-4iature of her
masculine relatives. When she appears on a
links the flutter of her skirt is not the signal
for a deep and heart-felt, albeit suppressed*
burst of profanity, even from those devotees
who consider that the old Scotchman who
said, ” Never, my boys, allow business to in-
terfere with golf,” uttered one of the greatest
sayings of the world.

It is quite true that the Powers that Be at
St. Andrews, Scotland, by a majority of one,
refused recently to allow the Woman’s
national championship to be played there,
but sudt a storm of indignation arose over
this action, in both the ranks of the
club and among the towns-people, all of whom
under various rules and restrictions use the
historic old course, that the conunittee have

14 GOLF FOR WOMEN

practically decided to recall their decision,

•

and most humbly invite the ladies to
use their links, and, if they like, their clubs
and everything that is theirs, for the cham-
pionship meeting, and as long after as they
please. Such is woman’s delightful position
across the water, and here it is even more firm.

When women in America first began to play
golf, they were allowed at many of the big
clubs to use the links only at certain hours on
certain days when it was thought that their
presence would not incommode the Lords of
Creation.

The idea that a woman could learn to play
a really good and serious game of golf was
laughed to scorn, and if there were many wo-
men who evinced a desire to play at the vari-
ous clubs, numbers of them would doubtless
have followed the example of the Shinnecock
Hills Club and laid out a course exclusively
for women.

The small number who, at its first intro-
duction, took up the game, however, made

INTRODUCTORY 16

this quite unnecessary; so, at least, it was
thought.

The first courses laid out in America were
very short, and consequently easy. That of
the Morris County Club, one of the finest in
the country then, as now, had in those days but
seven holes, and not one of them was over a
drive and iron-shot in length. The women
were therefore able to reach them with a drive
and brassey, and so were as well off as the
men, and their scores soon began to compare
very favorably with those of their masculine
competitors. This was also true of other
courses and clubs, and the women naturally
asked for the privilege of playing at any and
all hours, urging as an excuse their ability to
make low scores.

After much hesitation and head-shaking
on the part of those men who, never having
had sisters, had no idea of the physical capa-
bilities of a girl, and her ability to do anything
she really wanted to, permission was granted
— ^reluctantly, it must be confessed, but nev-

16 GOLF FOR WOMEN

ertfaeless granted — ^to them except on Satur-
day afternoons, when the course was sure to
be overcrowded by masculine golfers.

The women took their hardly won permis-
sion with joyi and proceeded to demonstrate
that they could play good golf by taking on
their detractors for a round and soundly beat-
ing them. From that day women have had an
undisputed place on the links, and for die
past three or four years it has been esteemed
an honor for even the Amateur champion to
be asked to play in a mixed foursome by
any one of a dozen of our leading wcrnien
players.

As an evidence of how steadily and impress-
ively the quality of golf which our women are
playing is improving, the acticm on July i,
190a, of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, one
of the oldest, finest, and most conservative
clubs in America, of giving up the maintenance
of its women’s links, speaks volumes. This is
only one instance, but it shows the tendency.

Another pc»nt which shows clearly how

INTRODUCTORY 17

women are improving in dieir standard of
play is the fact that it is not now customary
to shorten the men’s course for a woman’s
tournament — even when the drives fnwn the
tee require a carry of from lOO to 120 yards,
and the bunkers placed to catch a poor second
shot are proporticmately far away.

Still another and a most convincing ail-
ment, were it needed, to prove the advance in
woman’s skill, is the fact that with hardly an
exception die women who were die stars of
die country four or five years ago are hardly
rated as being in the second class now, al-
though they are invariably playing as well as,
and in most cases better than they were, when
at the zenith of their fame. Nor is it in any
one or two particular points in which the
woman of to-day excels those of a few years
ago. It is in every department of the game.
She drives a much longer ball, she plays her
brassey and iron-shots better, and she lays her
approaches closer to the hole. If her putting
has not gained in die impjovemait to die

18 GOLF FOR WOMEN

same extent as have the other departments of
her play, it has held its own at least. For
these facts there are two reasons accountable.
One is that with the spread of the game the
number of first-class players is, of course, in-
creased. For instance, if there is one in every
I GOO, in every 10,000 there are ten, and if this
ratio is carried out to a ten times greater de-
gree, these 100 players form a large enough
number to aifect the percentage of good play-
ers materially ; the other reason lies in the age
at which the women who are prominent to-
day began to golf.

Before proceeding further, however, I wish
to most emphatically emphasize the fact that
there is no royal road to success in golf. It
comes only by the hardest kind of assiduous
and thoughtful practice.

Furthermore, the practice must be done in
the proper way.

Great achievements can be accomplished
only when they are attempted in the orthodox
style, and to acquire the proper swing should

INTRODUCTORY 19

be the first and most lasting ambition of every
woman who sets out to master the sport.

If she does not master it, her efforts to im-
prove will all be in vain, and no matter how
brilliantly she may play for a single round by
means of some unorthodox trick of style, it
will surely prove but a delusion and a snare
in the end.

To play golf of the championship class, it
is essential that a woman start to learn the
game before she is thirty years old, and each
year she begins before that, after reaching her
fourteenth birthday, is just that much in her
favor. It is true that we have in this country
a number of women who have obtained na-
tional prominence as golfers who did not be-
gin to play until they were thirty years or
more of age, but it has also been conclusively
proven by the records of the game that the
number of these women is becoming smaller
each year, and a study of their style of play
demonstrates that they have not the power to
execute the strokes of the game requiring thQ

80 GOLF FOE WOMEN

utmost freedom of mov^nent with anytfaiog
like the ability which their younger and more
Hsscmie sisters possess.

To judge from the style of play adopted by
the best examples of this class of womeij golf-
ers, it will be found that their lack of early
traifling lies more particularly in their driving
and brassey play, although all shots requiring
a full stroke are more or less affected. None
of them have ever acquired a full swing, their
dub under no circumstanpes ever describing
more than a three^uarter circle, and usually
not going back further than does the club in
tiie ” baseball ” «wing, which men like Mr. H.
P. Toler and Mr. J. A. Tyng have made
famous, and which is really hardly more than
a half-stroke.

This is also the stroke of nearly every other
woman who has taken up golf at the age of
thirty or more, and while it may be (hie in
part to the fact that women of that age are
much more apt to wear corsets and tight
dothes generally than are the girls in their

INTRODUCTOBY M

teens» it must be admitted that age has some-
thing to do with it. The traditions of aU
other lines of sport hold that no one ever be-
came really great who had not begun his
career at an early age, and golfing traditions
hold more strenuously than do those of any
other sport to this axiom. In fact, there has
been for many years a story told at old St.
Andrews which illustrates this point to a
nicety.

A beginner was anxiously inquiring of a
dour plain-spoken old professional how long
it took a man to become a great golfer.
” Well,” said the old fellow slowly, ” if your
father and your grandfather and his father
before him were muckle good golfers, and
you began as a little child, by the time you
were grown up you should play pretty
fair.”

That may have been true for England and
Scotland, but in America our men and women
have disproved it by the way in which they
have in two or three or four years reached

28 GOLF FOR WOMEN

the championship class; and this class in
America is, I am convinced, very little behind
the front rank of players across the sea.

Nor have we failed to produce feminine
players whose game has been a refutation of
the tradition that it is necessary to begin
young. It is true that there is no such encour-
aging example to the portly matrons and
elderly maids in the ranks of their own sex as
the men have in our present Amateur national
champion, Mr. Walter J. Travis, a man who
was quite, if not considerably past, thirty years
of age when he began to play golf. It is said
by many good judges that he has reached the
limit of his play, and that he cannot improve
further, but this was said of him in 1899,
when he disproved it most conclusively by his
wonderful series of victories and the increased
length of his long game in 1900. In his style
there was little improvement to be noticed, but
he did lengthen his swing a little, which shows
that a man beginning even as late in life as he
did can still acquire good form.

INTRODUCTORY 23

It is this fact more than any other which
makes one feel convinced that it is more the
fault of their clothes than their years which is
the trouble with our more elderly women in
their efforts to acquire the best style.

Summing up this matter of age, I think
that it is much better for a woman to begin to
golf at sixteen years old, but she need not
despair of becoming a really first-class player
even though she has arrived at the age of
thirty without knowing the difference between
a brassey and a hazard, while she can rest as-

sured that so long as she is young enough to
walk around the links and raise her arms with
a club in her grasp as high as her bead, she
can learn to become a golfer.

PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS

As I have said before, there is no royal road
to success in golf; and good physique, al-
though it may aid one who has the correct
principles to get the most out of the game, will
not in itself enable one to play well.

2* GOLF FOR WOMEN

Neither can it be said that the most suc-
cessful golfers are either big or little. Mr.
Herbert Harriman, the Amateur champion
of 1900, is a big, broad-shouldered man, who
stands six feet at least, and weighs probably
200 pounds, while Mr. Walter J. Travis, the
present title-holder, is by no means a tall man,
and tips the scales at probably less than 150
pounds.

James Braid, the man who last year de-
feated Vardon and Taylor for the English
Open championship, is six feet four inches tall,
but not as broad in proportion. He is prob-
ably the longest average driver in the world,
for he recently averaged in an eighteen-hole
round drives of 243 yards.

Of the extremes in women who have become
famous, perhaps the most notable is Miss
Beatrix Hoyt, who held the Woman’s na-
tional championship for three years in succes-
sion. She is about five feet two inches tall,
and is very slight, while Miss Cassatt of
Philadelphia, and a well-known figure in

INTRODUCTORY 26

national tournaments, is within an inch or
two of six feet, and is very well propor-
tioned.

Thus it may be seen that no one, large or
small, or medium-sized, is barred from becom-
ing a championship possibility by the limita-
tions of her physique.

The whole question resolves itself into ac-
quiring the proper style, as I have heretofore
emphasized.

Several women who perhaps have made up
in other sports for lack of skill by a super-
abundance of muscle have said to me that they
disagreed with me in the statement that one
need not be especially strong in order to pky
class golf, and that by all the laws of com-
mon-sense the stronger person would pky
die better through having the greater
power.

This is qpiite true provided each has the
same amount of skill, but if my critics had
seen, as I have, a man who, in his day, was
considered one oj the greatest athletes Yale

26 GOLF FOR WOMEN

ever turned out, a football guard, crew and
track man, outdriven by a twelve-year-old boy,
they might feel inclined to think less highly of
pure muscle. The reason was that the boy
knew how to do it, while the ex-Yale giant re-
lied on his strength alone.

When I say a person’s size has no effect on
the game he may develop I do not include in
the statement any enormously stout person, or
people who are in any way out of the ordinary,
but only those of nearly average proportions.

THE QUESTION OF CLOTHES

The most common dress for the links
among women is a shirt-waist and short skirt.
The material for each may be whatsoever the
wearer chooses, the predominating idea being
to select something comfortable and light
enough not to tire one in the tramp over #he
course. Most women vary their golfing
clothes with the season of the year, just as they
do their street and afternoon gowns, but this
is by no means necessary.

INTRODUCTORY 27

The most papular style of costume during
the summer months is a cotton shirt-waist with
a short skirt of white duck or pique, but per*
sonally I do not like this color, because I have
found it has a tendency to make me take my
eye off the ball, particularly in putting, and for
this reason I think a broadcloth, tailor-made
skirt of any other color than white is the best
to play in.

The matter of shoes may also be left to the
individual taste of the player. Some prefer
high-laced boots of heavy calf-skin, because
of the support which they give to the ankles.
Others, equally good players, wear nothing
but low shoes. In any case they should be of
at least medium weight with broad, com-
fortable soles and low military heels.

No one can play good golf without a secure
stance, and the shoes, consequently, should be
non-slippable.

Many players trust their footing to rubber
soles. These are very good in dry weather,
but useless in wet, and it is a bad plan, I think»

28 GOLP FOR WOMEN

to change frequently, just as a constant change
of clubs tends to unsettle one’s play.

I think the best all-round shoe, therefore, is
one with hobnails in the sole. This is the
kind that I wear, although I use rubber heels
instead of leather ones with hobnails, because
the weight in making a stroke is rested rather
on the sole of the foot than the heel, which
makes it necessary to have the former particu*
larly secure, while the rdbber heels tire one
much less in walking than do the ordinary
kind.

I also make a point of having my ^oes
heavy, and have them made with a double
sole, because I think they are much less apt
to hurt one’s feet than are light ones in tramp*
ing over the rough ground sometimes found
on golf courses.

The question of whether or not to wear a
hat is another point in which the individual
taste of the player can have full sway. Some
players wear hats, and others do not Still
others do one day and do not another.

INTRODUCTORY 39

I am one of the latter division, and I do not
think it has the slightest influence on one’s
game. If the eyes are not very strong
and affected at all by the glare of the sum-
mer sun, a hat with a good broad brim
that will act as a shade will be found a
relief.

I do not perscMially like to play golf in
gloves, unless my hands are a little sore, and
I think that the best players, both here and in
England, agree with me unanimously on this
point. Certainly none of the professionals
play in gloves, and, after all, for grand golf
day after day and week after week the profes-
sionals are a long way ahead of the amateur,
even though the latter occasionally strikes a
gait which is equal to the “pro.’s” best.
Great delicacy of touch is needed to play a
golf stroke to perfection, and it stands to rea-
son that one can obtain this much more truly
with the bare hand than if the sense of con-
tact must be transmitted tfarou^ a ;heavy
glove.

30 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Another point against the glove is that the
club is much more apt to slip in one’s hand,
and this follows especially in cold weather,
and no matter how much pitch is put on
it.

The question of corsets is one which a
woman can decide for herself. In the days
of tight lacing they were out of the question,
but now that common-sense governs their use,
they play no more important part in determin-
ing good golf than does the weight or color of
a player’s skirt.

TECHNICAL TERMS

The game of golf is so utterly unlike any
other, that no matter how well versed one may
be in other sports, a knowledge of them will
be of no use to the novice in golf, either as an
aid to a correct understanding of the princi-
ples of the game, or to the proper method of
play.

There are so many technical terms which
are necessary to express one’s meaning when

INTRODUCTORY 31

talking about golf that it has a vocabulary of
its own, and it is impossible to write or talk
about the game without using many of these
terms.

The names of the clubs, for example, con-
vey no meaning at all from their sound,
except, perhaps, the ” driver ” and ” put-
ter.” The first would naturally be sup-
posed to be the club with which the drives
are made, but everyone does not know
that die drive is the first shot in the play-
ing of each hole. The fact that there are
two meanings to the word ‘* tee ” also has a
confusing effect on the mind of the novice, and
indeed many who would be indignant at being
put in this category. Primarily it is the space
of ground from which the player makes her
first shot at each hole, but it also means the
little pat or mound of sand upon which she
places her ball for this shot.

The most useful word in the golfer’s
vocabulary — or at least the one which will de-
scribe the golfer’s efforts at first, most fre-

82 GOLF FOR WOMEN

quendy, I am afraid — ^is, ” foozle,” which
can be applied to any stroke which does not
result the way the player intended it to
do.

A ”hazard” is any difficulty, natural or
artificial, and a ” cop-bunker” is a mound of
eardi over which die ball must be played to
reach die hole. It should have a sand trench
three or four feet wide in front of its face, and
occasionally the trench is also placed on the
other side as well. Shallow, sandy pits are
known as ” pot-bunkers ” or ” traps,” and in
general any piece of waste sandy ground is a
” bunker.”

All bunkers are hazards, but all hazards
are not bunkers by any means, a fact which
many even fairly proficient golfers are either
unaware of or ignore.

To ” slice ” is to drive die ball in a curve to
the right, and a ” pull ” is for it to come to the
left.

A ” sclaff ” is hitting the ground before
or at the same time as one hits the ball, ^o

INTRODUCTORY 33

that the stroke loses something of its force,
and the opposite extreme is appropriately
called a “top.” Another appropriately
coined term is ” addressing the ball,” and it
describes the attempt of the player to settle
into a satisfactory position for making the
shot.

The ” caddie ” is the person who con-
descends to carry one’s clubs in the round, and
the ” cup ” is merely another name for the
hole.

The ” follow-through ” is that part of the
stroke which is made after the club has come
in contact with the ball, and no essential of
style is more important. ” Approaching ” is
any stroke calculated to place the ball on the
putting-green, be it made with driver, brassey,
or anything else, except a shot made from the
tee, which is always a drive. When the
” green ” is spoken of, it is the putting-green
that is meant, and this is the space within a
radius of twenty yards from the hole, ex-
clusive of hazards.

34 GOLF FOR WOMEN

The ” fair-green ” is properly that part of
the course which lies between the several tees
and their corresponding putting-greens.

An ” iron ” is any club with an iron head,
and the ” links ” is another general term for
the ground on which the game is played.
There is no such word as ” link ” to designate
a single hole.

The ” long-game ” is any full shot, and the
” short-game ” conversely means any stroke
played with less than a full swing.

The ” odd ” is one stroke more than the
opponent has played, and the ” like ” an equal
number. ” To press ” is to endeavor to hit
the ball harder than usual, in order to gain
greater distance. ” Putting ” is the art of get-
ting the ball. into the hole, once it has reached
the green.

With these startling additions to one’s
former vocabulary safely and surely in mind,
the novice should now learn a few of women’s
most common faults in order that she may her-
self avoid them.

INTRODUCTORY 36

FEMININE FAILINGS IN PARTICULAR

This is a topic on which it is more than
unusually hard to generalize, for just as
golfer’s have their pet club and certain strokes
which they must play unusually well, so also
have they certain idiosyncrasies which crop
out to their undoing time after time, despite
their utmost efforts to remedy the fault.

This can be accomplished, of course, with
time and patience after the trouble is located,
but oftentimes it will take many weeks to dis-
cover just what is the trouble, and in trying
one new thing after another, hoping to cure
some particular fault, another equally as dis-
astrous may be developed.

Naturally, this is discouraging, but in learn-
ing the cause and effect of shots as thoroughly
as one must in studying out the cause of bad
play, one will acquire a fund of invaluable
knowledge if one wishes to become a really
great player.

Perhaps the greatest fault among women

36 GOLF FOR WOMEN

is impatience. They are so anxious to make
their shot that many and many a time they
step up to the ball and play it with no more
than a casual glance at its lie, the distance to
be covered, and the nature of the shot which
will yield the best results. I have often seen
women, even among the best players, play a
full shot with a brassey or driver, simply be-
cause they had it in their hand, when, if they
had looked at the distance for a fraction of a
second, they would have realized that a
mashie or iron would have put them quite far
enough.

The same result often occurs through the
impatience which will not allow a woman to
call back her caddie when he has given her the
wrong cluD, and she plays the shot in conse-
quence, hoping that the Goddess of Fortune
will aid her to bring off the stroke with the
desired result, even though the means are far
from what they should be.

Many a woman has lost a match, and par-
ticularly a medal-play competition, by playing

INTRODUCTORY 37

shot after shot with lightning rapidity. In a
bunker I have frequently seen ten or twelve
strokes used when, if a moment’s study of the
situation had been taken, one or two would
have sufficed.

From the tee the average woman, who
plays an even moderately good game, usually
does consistently well, but if she does fail it is
from topping nine times out of ten. With
men, failure usually comes from slicing or
pulling, but I think that the average woman
drives a straight ball nearly always.

Topping is, of course, caused by taking the
eye off the ball a fraction of a second before
it is struck, and this is a fault which besets
women throughout every stroke from tee to
hole.

Women, at any rate all golfing women,
are pronounced optimists, and in their eager-
ness to see the ball go into the hole, they are
prone to lift their eyes for just that infinitesi-
mal length of time that is too soon, and the
result is failure.

38 GOLF FOR WOMEN

When one finds that the practice has be-
come a settled habit, the only thing to do is to
steel the mind rif^dly against looking for the
ball until at least a full second after it has been
struck.

Many women accustom themselves to play-
ing around without caddies, and this prac-
tice is responsible for much of the habit of
looking up quickly to watch the flight of the
baU.

Another very common fault among women
is overgolting. The woman begins with a
tremendous amount of enthusiasm, and she
spends all her waking hours of daylight on the
links for the first week or two. ^e probably
improves very rapidly in the first few days;
then, as she grows stiS and sore irom the un-
accustomed exercise, she becomes disgusted
with the game, temporarily at least, and it is
perhaps a month or six weeks before its fasci-
nations induce her to begin the weary road to
success once more.

“^^is is a practice much more common than

ASiGR, LTN’OX AND
TILDLN fCuf’.DATIONS.

INTRODUCTORY 39

one would imagine, and whenever one hears
of a woman who has tried golf, and is not
enthusiastic over it, one may put her down as
being in one of these intermediate stages.

The last of the faults which I think are
common enough to be spoken of under this
general caption is that of becoming nervous in
the face of difEculties. It is astonishing to
note how a woman who ordinarily will get
away a drive of 150 yards with no trouble at
all, will hesitate at an obstacle which requires
a carry of perhaps but fifty yards. ” He who
hesitates is lost,” is an axiom which every-
one knows, and it is particularly true of
golf.

The average woman falters in her mind as
she sees the hazard loom up before her, and
when she does that, in nine cases out of ten,
she fails to carry it.

Yet it is not lack of pluck which causes this
distressing effect. The average woman Is, I
think, far more plucky in the face of prac-
tically certain defeat than is the average man.

40 GOLF FOR WOMEN

When did you ever see a man hammering
away in dead earnestness when he was playing
five more in a bunker and his opponent was
ten yards off the green? Yet it is no un-
common sight in a woman’s match.

CHAPTER II

PRELIMINARY TRAINING

THE first thing to do, if one wishes
to play golf, is to read some good
book on the game, in order to ac-
quire a general understanding of what one is
trying to do.

But no matter how good the book, one
cannot become a crack golfer by sitting in the
house and reading it. Theory is all very
well, but it i» practice that makes perfect in
golf, as well as in everything else.

Practically every golf club in this country
has in its employ a professional golfer, whose
duties are to give instruction and repair clubs
primarily, but who sometimes, at the smaller
links, acts as green-keeper at well.

Usually he has played golf from the time

he left off his swaddling-clothes, and he plays

43 GOLF FOR WOMEN

it far more by instinct than by rhyme or rea-
son. He plays a successful shot, not because
he wants to, but because he can’t help it, as
an apoplectic old gentleman once remarked
indignantly, quite as though the ”props”
skill was a personal affront to him.

There are only a half-dozen or so pro-
fessionals in America who were not bom and
bred at this game, and as a rule they have no
knowledge of any other, and some of them
are men of little education. They therefore
are unable to explain the faults which arise
from the natural efforts of the player to
master what she fondly believes is a St.
Andrews swing, and those which arise
from former flirtations with tennis or basket-
ball.

Ordinarily, it will be found, and curiously
so, that the best player is by no means the best
teacher, and tivo of the best instructors I know
cannot play eighteen holes within five strokes
of the average amateur of their clubs, but
they have acquired the knack of telling others

TRAINING 43

how to play, and of detecting the faults of
their pupUs. This last is really a much more
valuable trait than the former, for, while
a person may learn to do a thing from obser-
vation and imitation, she can’t as easily correct
a glaring fault in her play by watching an
expert at work.

If you can get hold of an instructor who
really has some idea of telling one how to
play, it is best, I think, to begin at least under
his instruction, but if you find that the ” pro.”
has little or no idea of telling you how to
achieve the desired result, or what you are
doing wrong, it is better to leave him alone
and work out your own salvation.

When you have decided that golf is an
absolutely necessary adjunct to your peace of
mind and happiness in this world, the first
proceeding, after obtaining the proper clothes
(is there any occupation whatever from birth
to grave for which woman does not consider
clothes the most necessary adjunct?), is to
secure some of the implements of wan

44 GOLF FOR WOMEN

For the proper playing of the game of
golf there are six clubs necessary, viz., driver,
brassey, deek, mid-iron, mashie, and putter,
and I have also known many golfers to whom
a niblick was also useful at times. Besides
these, many players carry a jigger and driv-
ing-mashie.

I shall content myself at present by giving
the names of the necessary clubs, leaving them
to be discussed at length under a separate
chapter, and proceeding to generalize on the
first day^s proceedings.

While six clubs are necessary to the expert
player, it is a great mistake for a novice to
purchase so many to begin with. She should
buy a driver and a lot of old balls. Don^t
take new ones, or you will wound your feel-
ings deeply when your first shot cuts a gash
an inch long and a quarter of an inch deep in
the pretty white little globe.

Take the driver and the balls and proceed
to a quiet spot, either with the ” pro.,” or, if
you have decided to play out your own ideas,

TRAINING 46

with no one but your conscience, and a caddie
to chase the balls.

All the play that one indulges in for the
first few days should be driving away the
balls with the driver, and if one can command
the self-control, it is wise to practice some
time in merely swinging the club over a leaf
or bit of paper on the ground instead of the
ball. However, this is a precept which it is
quite too much to ocpect the ordinary mortal
to be able to follow.

The tortures of Tantalus are as nothing
compared to those of the mortal who has once
tasted the joys of a full cleanly hit shot, and
if our tyro can be kept from setting out for a
round of the links with the determina-
tion shining from her eye of lowering the
medal record on her first appearance,
she is doing quite all that one could ex-
pect.

This last practice is responsible for the
wrecking of more promising golfing careers
than anything else that one can do or leave

46 GOLF FOR WOMEN

undone, and I cannot emphasize too strongly
its harm fulness.

Not only should the novice refrain from
playing the course for several weeks, but,
above all, she should never think of counting
the number of her strokes for six months after
she begins to play.

The temptation to do so is of course very
great, but if she refrains from it the ultimate
reward is quite compensation enoug^.

It is very hard to make a beginner under-
stand why she should not keep track of her
strokes, and thus note her improvement from
day to day. The reason is that in an effort to
save a stroke here or there, in order that one
may cut one’s record for nine holes from 125
to 124, the excited record-breaker will be led
into committing numberless sins of commission
and omission which she never would have
dreamed of even, but for the fatal lodestar of
a broken record luring her on.

One of these tricks may temporarily bring
about the desired effect, but it is sure to be

THE >jF.’n” ”’””’;^’”
PUBLlCLlL¦.^^-’^’

ASTOR, LF.vrx r-1^
TILDEN PCL; ^ ¦¦ ¦’ •

TRAINING 47

only temporarily, and by the time she has a
repertoire of several such, Miss Novice will
find that she has forfeited all chance of ever
making a respectable score except by an effort
of the imagination which would make Baron
Munchausen turn in his grave with envy.

After becoming comparatively accom-
plished with the driver, the novice may take
up the cleek. The stroke for this club is made
so much like a driver-shot that after one has
mastered the rudiments of that club, the other
will be very easy. After acquiring a bowing
acquaintance with these two clubs, the mashie
may be taken up. Go thirty or forty yards
from a putting-green with a lot of old balls,
and drop them at intervals on the ground,
and proceed to play them up as near as pos-
sible to the hole. After they are on the
green, you can add variety to the practice by
getting out your putter and putting them into
the hole.

Putting is a matter entirely of individual
fancy. All the other strokes of golf arc made

48 GOLF FOR WOMEN

on more or less general principles, but every-
one is a law unto herself when once the put-
ting-green has been reached.

With this knowledge of what to do in mind
when the clubs are selected, let us proceed to
consider the implements themselves.

CLUBS

In looking back to the days when I first
began to golf, I remember that it was a
matter of absolutely no importance to me
whether my club was made of hickory or per-
simmon or cast-iron, and that I was far too
impatient to get out on the links to stop to
consider whether the advantages of a dog-
wood head outweighed those of one made of
persimmon or vice versa. I assume that
the majority of other g^rls feel as I did about
it.

With this in mind I shall therefore elimi-
nate, at this stage of writing at least, all
discussion of a technical nature, and simply
try to give a little useful advice in the matter

TRAINING 40

of selecting one’s golfing tools from the or-
dinary dealer’s or professional’s stock.

The first, and by all odds the most impart-
antf point to be considered in selecting a driver
(and the other clubs as well) is the balance.
This is a matter which everyone must decide
for herself, for one’s strength of wrist plays
a very large part in determining the propor-
tionate weights in head and shaft which com-
bine to make a club of ideal balance. It is a
very difficult thing to obtain a club which
” feels ” exactly right, and sometimes a
golfer will handle and ” waggle ” a hundred
before finding one which seems as if it would
do. Even then a trial on the links frequently
shows that what seemed ideal in the profes-
sional’s shop is far from it in actual play, and
the whole work of selection must be gone
through with once more.

It undoubtedly may seem absurd to the non-
golfer, this care and attention to the fraction
of an ounce in weight or of an inch in the
length or slant of a club, but no golfer con-

60 GOLF FOR WOMEN

siders it anything but a solemn duty and a
pleasure as well.

In fact, the club-makers* shops are always
full of players who stop in to handle and try
clubs, even when they have no intention ot
purchasing them, but merely for the pleasure
of feeling a good club in their grasp.

For a player of average height — ^that is,
about five feet five inches for a woman, or
five feet nine inches in a man — a driver should
be from 37 to 41 inches in the first instance,
and from 40 to 44 inches in the second,
measuring of course from the extreme end of
the shaft to the sole of the club.

The ” lie ” (meaning the relation which the
sole of the club bears to the angle of the
shaft) which will give the player the greatest
power, combined, of course, with a fair degree
of accuracy, must be learned by each indi-
vidual in actual practice. To begin with, it
is best to select a club which, when the entire
sole rests easily on the floor of the shop, brings
the shaft in the natural grip to a point where

TRAINING 61

it seems natural, and as though a full, power-
ful blow could be struck.

It is best not to go to extremes in selecting
clubs. It may appear to one person a conclu-
sion so logical that it admits of no denial that
a limber or ” whippy ” shaft and a heavy
head make a combination which will produce
the best results, or it may appear with equal
force to another that a light head and a stiff
shaft are the ideal combination. Indeed, a
dozen other variations may seem the one and
only solution to the art of golf, but one of the
uses of the game is to prove that there is no
such thing as a logical deduction, and so it is
best to start with clubs which are neither at
the one extreme nor the other.

As a general thing, no beginner appreciates
for a long time the strength required to swing
a golf-club rapidly and swiftly, and she there-
fore selects clubs which seem perhaps very
light when not in actual use, but are heavy
when it comes to playing strokes.

Another point which at least ninety per

62 GOLF FOR WOMEN

cent, of beginners fail to recognize is that it
is the speed at which a club is traveling when
it comes in contact with the ball, far more
than its weight, which produces long drives.
It is obvious that a lighter club can be swung
faster than a heavy one, and as soon as the
golfer has this point firmly imprinted on her
memory, the sooner will she begin to drive
nearer the 200-yard mark.

Still, the matter of light clubs should not
be carried to extremes, any more than any-
thing else. If there is no weight behind the
swing the additional speed will be wasted just
as certainly as weight is useless without speed.

The weight of the club once decided upon,
the limberness of the shaft is the next con-
sideration.

As a general rule, a whippy shaft will drive
a trifle longer ball than a stiff one, but as the
whippiness increases, so also does the tend-
ency to slice and pull, and it is therefore
best for the novice to begin with a club with
a fairly stiff shaft.

Ti,

till:.

I V

TRAINING 63

The brassey is substantially the same as the
driver, except that it is a trifle heavier, the
face is a little more laid back, and it has its
sole covered with a brass plate, perhaps a
sixteenth of an inch thick. The shaft should
also be a trifle stiffer than that of die driver,
and about one inch shorter. Otherwise the
clubs are the same, and the same reasons
govern their selection.

Until reasonably expert the driver should
be used only from the tee, and the brassey’s
usefulness begins as soon as it is necessary
to obtain a long distance after the tee
shot.

Even though the ball be lying badly, and
it seems almost impossible to get it out, do not
hesitate to use this club, for the brass on the
sole will cut through the turf readily, and the
loft of the face will throw the ball up suffi-
ciently to get away a clean shot.

In selecting one’s wooden clubs, it is well
to remember that practical experiments have
proven the fallacy of the idea that a driver

64 GOLi’ FOR WOMEN

or brassey which has a thick face possesses
an advantage over a thin-faced one.

Indeed the latter is preferable from the fact
that, with it, it is much easier to pick a ball
out of a bad lie.

A moment’s reflection shows the truth of
this, for it is apparent that the nearer to the
ground the center of the face is, so much the
less does the ball need to be elevated for it
to come in contact with the very center of the
club.

The cleek is the next most powerful club
on the list, and should be used to play dis-
tances between a full brassey and a mid-iron
shot, or, say, when distances between lOO and
125 yards are to be covered.

It should also be used when the distance to
be covered is greater, but the lie so bad that
using a brassey seems but to invite disaster.

The shaft should be about as stiff as that
of the driver, and the head laid back only
a small fraction of an inch. Like the brassey
and driver, and for the same reasons, the

TRAINING 66

blade or face should be narrow rather than
thick. The face should not be more than
3^ indies long, for if it is, it will detract
from the club’s ability to pick a ball out of a
hole, without adding anything to its driving
power.

The patent cleeks, in which the shaft runs
through the socket to the sole, and in which
the socket is but about an inch long, are rather
more powerful driving clubs than those of
ordinary pattern.

The mid-iron, to take the club with the next
longest driving capacity, is, as its name im-
plies, a club for moderate distances of from
perhaps 80 to 100 yards.

The face should be lofted to an angle of
about 45 degrees, rather broader in the face
than the cleek. The extra loft throws the
ball more into the air than do the aforemen-
tioned clubs, and dierefore it has less run.

The mashie or approaching club has a face
that is not only the deepest by one-half an inch
of all the clubs, but it is laid back to an angle

66 GOLF FOR WOMEN

of 60 degrees. It should have a head heavier
proportionately than any of the other clubs,
and, like the rest, should have a stiff shaft.

All these clubs, as the illustrations show,
are shorter in a descending scale, each one
perhaps an inch less than the one mentioned
before it.

What is sometimes called the most impor-
tant club in the game is the putter, and here
there are at least a dozen styles to choose
from. Personally, I have found the best
results from a heavy-headed gooseneck which
has a very little slant to the face. The shaft
should be comparatively short and absolutely
stiff.

The niblick is the club of last resort, and
when its use is necessary, the player is gener-
ally so desperate that *’ all niblicks look alike
to her,” to paraphrase a popular song of the
day.

With the outfit of clubs selected, the next
thing to do is to learn how to grip them cor-
rectly.

TRAINING n

THE DRIVING GRIP

Take the driver and hold it so that the

^ole lies flat on the ground at every point, and
the end of the handle rests against the skirt
half-way between the waist and knee.

Then place the hands on either side of the
handle, as shown in the illustration of the
driving grip, Fig. I. Care should be taken
to see that the shaft runs across the base of
the knuckles, and not the palm of the hand,
but under no circumstances, on the other hand,
allow the club to fall nearer the fingers than
the knuckles.

Fig. II. shows the method in which the
hands should close, and Fig. III. the com-
pleted grip.

This grip, I think, is by all odds the best.
Fig. IV. shows another which is used to some
extent, but it is impossible to get so good a
follow-through with it, and it also tends to
tighten the muscles of the arms in swinging
back for the stroke. This tightening extends

68 GOLP FOR WOMEN

to the wrists, and prevents obtaining that
subtle snap so essential to long driving.

Fig. V. shows the club correctly grasped
with the fingers, but with the thumbs held
down the shaft. This is a style which in-
variably takes from ten to fifteen yards from
the length of the shot, although adding in
some instances to its accuracy. So, on the
whole, it is not to be recommended.

The relation of the hands to each other
is a very important point, and the closer they
are held, the longer the shot, for every inch
they are apart lessens the drive by twenty
yards at least.

Under any and all conditions the position
of the left hand should remain the same, as
illustrated in Figs. I., II., III., and IV.

The shaft should be grasped with the left
hand as firmly as possible, and also with the
last three fingers of the right hand. The fore-
finger and thumb should barely touch the club,
and if at all only at the last second of the
downward swing before the ball is struck.

THE WRIST ACTION IN DRIVING.

THE NEW , Olii;

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

CHAPTER III

THE STANCE

AFTER settling the question of the
/-\ proper method of gripping the club
to one’s entire satisfaction, the next
step in order is the determining of the rela-
tion the position of the feet shall bear to the
ball, and the direction it is wished that the
ball shall take.

This is technically called the stance, and
there are almost as many ways of standing as
there are of gripping the club.

The stance may be divided into three
classes, which are called :

L — Off the right foot.

IL— Off the left foot

III. — Standing square.

The most common method is the first, and

60 GOLF FOR WOMEN

probably so because the player can see the
direction in which she wishes the ball to go
better, and consequently feels more confidence
that it will go there.

In adopting this stance, the right foot is
placed in advance of the left, the exact differ-
ence depending upon the player’s fancy. In
other words, if a line were drawn on the
ground parallel to the line of flight, the left
toe should be just touching it, while the right
would be anywhere from one to ten inches
over it. The extent to which the right foot
is advanced determines the proportion of the
weight of the body it should hold ; the farther
it is advanced, the greater amount of weight
is rested upon it.

In driving “off the left foot,” the right
foot is withdrawn in almost the same propor-
tion as it is advanced when driving ” off the
right foot,” and the stance is virtually die
inverse of the former.

In standing square, the stance is as its name
implies. Both feet are on a parallel line, and

k .c

THE N i::\’-” Yv;RK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR. LENOX AND
TILDEN FGUKDATlGiMo.

THE STANCE 61

the weight of the body is equally divided be-
tween them.

The distance which the feet should be apart
is another matter which must be decided by
the individual, and should be regulated by
both feeling and physique.

Roughly speaking, the feet should be from
1 8 to 24 inches apart.

The knees should be bent in the smallest
degree, just so that the knee-joint is not stiff,
and the arms, when the club head rests behind
die ball, are bent in an equally small degree
at the elbow.

The position of the ball and its relation to
the feet are most important.

When the ‘^standing square” stance is
adopted, the ball should be nearly oppo-
site the left heel — ^that is, within two or
three inches of the line which a right
angle drawn by the feet and ball would
make.

When playing “off the right foot” the
ball should be more to the right, and as the

62 GOLF FOR WOMEN

foot Is advanced, so proportionately should
the ball be moved to the right.

When playing ” off the left foot ” the ball
should be inversely moved to the left.

I favor using a stance in which die feet are
practically on a line, as the illustration of the
side view of the address for a drive will show.
I do not, as I said before, try to place my feet
in identically the same position for each shot,
and therefore the position of the right one
may occasionally vary an inch or even two
inches, both in its distance to the right of
the left foot and its distance ahead of the
left.

Again, I try to have my feet approximately
twenty inches apart, but I let the matter settle
Itself instinctively, and only try to get a stance
which seems natural. The majority of the
men who have written books on golf, and also
the professionals, agree that it is only the
position of the left foot which is really im-
portant, and that the right may vary in its
place several inches without affecting the re-

THE STANCE 63

suit of the shot; my experience has been that
this is true.

Another point, perhaps a minor considera-
tion, but one which many a beginner on the
rocky pathway to golfing fame stumbles over,
is the position of the toes. Some think that
they must be turned out as nicely as a dancing
professor insists upon in the first position;
others think that the feet should be straight,
and some imagine, or at least a casual ob-
server would so suppose, that a good drive
can only be secured by turning the toes in.

No one need worry over this point, how-
ever, for as good drives may be made in one
way as in another. Ordinarily I place the ball
and I tee about three inches to the right of
my left heel, and I rest the weight of my body
equally on each foot. I have found that by
adopting this stance I can obtain a full, easy
backward swing, and that I can swing my club
in a sweeping circle much farther and
straighter in the line of flight of the bail-
or, in technical words, can obtain a much

64 GOLF FOR WOMEN

better *’ follow-through ” in this way than in
any other.

Tlie question of the ” follow-through ”
may seem of very little importance to the tyro,
but later on I shall endeavor to dissipate this
idea. At the present time I shall content
myself with saying that it is an admitted fact
that it is quite as important as is the part of
the swing before the ball is struck.

The main objection to an accentuation of
the left-foot style is that it makes a proper
follow-through very difficult to achieve.
Owing to the right foot being so far back, it
is impossible to be facing front at the end of
the swing, and the body pivots on the left
foot, thereby encouraging the club to swing
round the body. On ttu other hand, how-
ever, if the right foot is advanced too far,
the prospect of hooking the ball is almost
certain. For these reasons, therefore, I
recommend that the right foot be only about
an inch ahead of the left, if at all; but every
player of any experience will soon pick out

TH’£ l-

A?-”C’. .”" ‘ ‘ -^

^„ . —

THE STANCE 66

the position which for some reason, real or
fancied, seems to be a trifle the best, and use
it for the regular stance. When the time
comes, as come it will inevitably to even the
very best golfer in the world, that no shot
can be made as it should from that stance,
then simply try a little change in it, and you
will very soon find that you are once more
playing up to your game. When that day
comes that the new stance becomes another of
the failures and disappointments, try another,
and so you will gradually work around to the
old favorite once more. In other words, golf
is a continual experiment, and those who know
when to continue experimenting, and when to
be satisfied with the results already achieved,
make the best players.

Never made the mistake of taking up a
certain stance simply because some celebrated
golfer uses it. Be a law unto yourself, for,
unless you stand so that you feel natural and
easy and as though you were going to hit the
ball exactly as you wish, you never will be able

66 GOLF FOR WOMEN

to do so. Confidence in golf is at least half
the battle. If you find that some champion
uses the same stance that you do, well and
good. Say to yourself, he uses good judg-
ment and is a legitimate champion, and feel
well satisfied that the champion follows you,
but never follow him. When I say that, after
finding the stance which seems best, one
should continue using it, I do not mean that
one should worry over getting in exactly the
same position each time. I take up a stance
which is substantially the same, but I do it
instinctively, and never think of looking to
see just how many inches one foot is away
from the other, or how many inches one is
in front of the other.

There is no surer way of producing foozles
or of acquiring a stiff and awkward, to say
nothing of an improper, swing than to con-
tinually worry over getting in identically the
same position for every stroke.

The ball should be teed at whatever place
the club head lies when it is gripped in the

THE STANCE 67

proper way, and then allowed to fall naturally
to the ground straight in front of the player.
The whole idea is to get it at such a distance
that it will be directly in the line of a natural
swing. There is a great diversity of opinion
about the distance one should stand away.
Some of the best drives in the country stand
so far that the toe of their club^ when address-
ing the ball, is quite two or three inches be-
hind the ball, while others have the ball even
with the neck of the club head. I do not favor
either of these extremes.

If the ball is too far away and the player
has to reach for it, as it were, the whole posi-
tion is quite apt to be cramped, and the swing
is consequently without snap, or else, in en-
deavoring to have it free and easy, the player
does not always *’ reach ” the exact fraction
of an inch which is necessary for the perfect
performance of the shot, and a bad slice or
pull results.

With the question of grip and stance
properly settled, in mind if not in actual prac-

68 GOLF FOR WOMEN

tice, the next thing to consider is the swing
of the club, from which the force which drives
the ball is obtained.

As I have said before, the swing for all the
strokes of the long game, or, in other words,
those which are made with the full power of
the club in hand, depends upon fixed and in-
variable principles, however far good golfers
may differ from one another in matter of
detail in execution. The swing proper may
be divided into three component parts :

I. — ^The wrist action.

11. — ^The arm movement.

III. — ^The body movement.

Each plays its own particular part in the
achievement of the desired result, and no one
can hope to become a good long-game player
who has not mastered the intricacies of all
three. •

While it is true that a mastery of all three
of the component parts of the swing is neces-
sary to achieve long play, one of these parts
is a little more essential than the other two,

THE STANCE 69

and vastly harder to master. This is the
wrist action, and a perfect accomplishment of
it is, I think, about the hardest bit of all the
hard things in golf. But it is well worth
working for, because when it is finally mas-
tered, it will be found to have lengthened the
wooden-club shots at least fifteen yards, and
the full iron shots proportionately.

In the discouraging moments when it seems
absolutely impossible to impart that almost
undefinable snap to the wrists as the club head
meets the ball, it may seem that a gain of
fifteen yards is not worth anything like the
trouble it is causing, but when you come to
play in a tournament or a match, on the win-
ing of which your heart is set, that extra
fifteen yards will seem worth anything in the
world.

The illustrations which show the positions
of the hands and wrists at the different stages
of the upward swing give a far better idea of
how the wrists should bend than words can do.
As they show, the wrists should be supple

70 GOLF FOR WOMEN

from the very beginning of the stroke, arid
should be allowed to turn in a perfectly
natural way. There are two benefits to be
derived from this turning. The first lies in
the fact that through it the club can be swung
at a greatly accelerated speed, and, as I have
pointed out in a former chapter, it is the speed
of the swing which produces the distance of
the shots; the second, that it is only through
the turning of the wrists, as the club swings
backward, that they can be brought into posi-
tion for the impartation of a snap to the club
as it meets the ball.

By glancing at the illustrations of the down
swing it will be seen that at a couple of feet
from the ball the wrists are bent. Just at
this point they should be suddenly straight-
ened and made rigid, and as this is done with
the club moving at tremendous speed it has
the effect of imparting a snap to the shot.
Do not, however, fall into the error of sup-
posing that because you have accomplished
this much there is nothing more to worry

THE NE’.v \o-^\:
PUBLIC LlLTvAKY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FCUN’DATIONS.

THE STANCE 71

about, for nothing is further from the actual
truth. The follow-through of a stroke, while
not quite so important as the backward swing,
plays a very essential part in the shot, much
more so than anyone but a golfer of experi-
ence could believe.

After the ball is struck — and care should
be taken to see that the desire to impart the
** snap ” to the shot does not impair the har-
mony of the swing (a point to be treated in
the next chapter) — ^the hands and arms
should swing well forward, and as the club
moves onto the upward half of its circle the
wrists will begin to perform another turn,
exactly the reverse of that made in the back-
ward stroke. That is, they will do so if they
have been relaxed as soon as the ball has been
struck. The illustrations show how the wrists
should turn.

Many players are afraid to hold the wrists
relaxed for fear that, if they do, the club’s face
will be diverted from the angle at which the
ball was addressed, and that it will conse-

73 GOLF FOR WOMEK

quently connect with the ball in such a way
as to cause a slice or pull. This is a ground-
less fear. If the club is gripped properly,
the stance correct, and the wrists allowed to
turn naturally, they will take care of them-
selves in the downward swing. One should
not, however, try to force this turn or disaster
mil result. It won’t be natural.

CHAPTER IV

THE SWING

N the foregoing chapter I laid no 8tre$s
upon the fact that the left wrist, in con-
sequence of gripping the club more
tightly with that hand than with the right,
did a rather greater share of the work than
the right, but this is nevertheless the case.
The ideal, of course, is to have the two hands
work so harmoniously together that it is im-
possible to see wliere one contributes more
strength than the other.

With the theoretical knowledge of the part
which the wrists should play in the full stroke
firmly implanted in one’s mind, the next steg
is naturally to apply the knowledge to a prac-
tical use, and like so many other things, it will
be found that what works well in theory does
not act quite so well in practice.

Of course the stronger the wrist muscles

74 GOLF FOR WOMEN

are, the more power they will be able to exert,
and with a realization of the important part
which they play throughout the entire game
from tee to hole in mind, it is the part of
wisdom to spend a few moments each day in
simple exercises which are calculated to de-
velop them and the muscles, also, of the fore-
arm. Any gymnasium or Delsarte teacher
can suggest some good ones which can be
practiced at home with dumbbells, qt even
without anything in the hands at all. Of
course if one is in the habit of attending a
gymnasium regularly, the wrist-machine will,
as its name implies, give’ a great variety of
wrist and forearm exercises.

One very beneficial exercise is to hold the
arms out straight from the shoulders, and
open and shut the fingers rapidly. In this the
arm muscles should be held tense. Another
good exercise is to hold the arms either ex-
tended or bent at the elbow, and relaxing com-
pletely the muscular tension at the wrists,
shake the hands rapidly.

THE SWING 76

The second part of a correct full stroke de-
pends upon the way the arms are swung.
They must be free, and carry the club in as
great an arc as possible, but in the endeavor
to do this, accuracy and harmony must not be
sacrificed. In fact, the harmony or perfect
timing of the swing, and the exertion of
strength at exactly the proper moment have
much more to do with the success of the shot
than has the amount of strength which is put
into it.

As I said when writing about the stance,
the distance the ball should be from the feet,
when addressing it, is a matter for each in-
dividual to settle for herself, but it should be
great enough to allow of the arms hanging
clear and free from the body. In the first
part of the backward stroke, as a glance at the
accompanying illustration of the up-swing will
show, the arms are already extending as far
backward as they can without overbalancing
the body or causing it to sway in the same
direction. I shall later take up the part which

76 GOLF FOR WOMEN

the body plays, but for the moment I will
touch only upon the arm movement.

After assuming the proper stance, it is a
good idea to ‘* waggle ” the club two or three
times over the ball, but it should never be
” lifted ” more than an inch over it. This is
also a very good exercise for the wrists, and
can be practiced as such to good advantage.
After waving the club backward and forward
two or three times to get the proper feel to
it, rest for the space of a second behind the
ball, and then begin the backward swing. To
digress from this for a moment, let me sol-
emnly urge everyone not to fall into the ex-
ceedingly bad habit of taking up several
minutes in addressing the ball.

And there are any number of reasons why
my advice on this point should be taken, even
if it is scorned upon every other. In the first
place, it is bad for the stroke one is to play,
for it is tiring to eye, nerve, and muscle to
make three or four feints, and consequently,
when the actual stroke is played it is apt to be

THESWING 77

just a shade less effectual than if all this extra
exertion had not been made. That this is the
general opinion also among ninety-nine out of
every hundred amateurs of the first class is, I
think, a fact, and I also am unable to recall
to mind a single professional of recognized
ability who indulges in long-drawn-out prepa-
rations for his shot.

This is the argument against it from the
purely practical standpoint of the question,
but from the standpoint of courtesy and eti-
quette it is even more strong.

A player who wastes two or three minutes
in addressing the ball for each shot will not
only keep her partner standing in idle and of
course helpless wrath, but she will probably
keep back, and in a like degree of impotent
rage, all the others who have been so unfor-
tunate as to tee off behind her. According to
the wording of the rules of golf, the player
has as long as she likes to make her round,
but if she wishes to be unpopular on the links
she can take no quicker or more sure method

78 GOLF FOR WOMEN

of achieving it than to indulge in this prac-
tice.

I may perhaps appear to feel too strongly
over this point, but anyone who has been
subjected to the annoyance of waiting and
waiting after each ^ot, while someone a
couple of hundred yards ahead goes through
a half-dozen meaningless swings, will, I
think, most heartily indorse all that I have
said.

After this bit of advice let us return to the
question of what part the arms are to play in
the achievement of a perfect swing. At the
beginning of the club’s swing, for the first
three or four inches of its journey, the wrists
perform the work of raising it, as a glance
at the first illustration in the up-swing series
will show. At that point, as the next cut illus-
trates, the arms begin to assert themselves,
and they should be allowed to move out
freely. Under no circumstances, however,
allow the club head to swing up. On the con-
trary, when the club begins the backward

THESWING 70

swing, keep it as close as possible to the
ground. There are many important reasons
for this. In the first place, this will carry the
arms out naturally quite a little further than
they would go if the club head went up more
perpendicularly, and thus a larger arc of a
circle is formed.

The advantages of this are at once obvious.
The more distance that the club head travels
on a line parallel with the ball, the less chance
there is of it striking the ball above or below
it (technically sclaffing or topping), and, of
course, this is one point of danger eliminated.

Another advantage is that the further the
club head travels on a line parallel to the ball,
before striking it, the greater power it will
impart to it. This, of course, is due to the
fact that the momentum will be applied more
directly behind the ball, and therefore utilized
to its fullest extent. If, on the other hand,
the club is coming down more perpendicu-
larly, part of its momentum will be expended
in covering that distance, and even when it

80 GOLF FOR WOMEN

hits the ball, it will do so with a sort of cut
which will take many and many a yard from
the length of the shot.

As the club head draws back, the arms
follow, but the elbows should not be allowed
to get too far away from the side of the body.
Just how far (to the number of inches) they
may be allowed to go, no one could specify^
but a glance at the illustrations in the series
showing the up-swing will give an idea. So
much for the arms.

The third of the three component parts of
the swing, the body movement, embraces not
only the turning of the trunk of the body
from the hips as the club swings up or down
(when the body must sway, too), but also
the degree in which the knee should bend and
the heel turn.

After assuming the proper stance for ad-
dressing the ball, in which, as I stated in the
chapter devoted to the stance, the knee should
be bent just sufficiently to make the whole
position easy, and to allow the body to turn

THE SWING 81

to the right as the club swings backward in
the upper part of the stroke, and to the left
as it completes the arc, swing the club back-
ward, keeping in mind the idea that it must
be kept as close as possible to the ground.
As it swings, there will develop a strong
inclination to turn the entire body from the
knees up in the same direction. This should
never be done, however. With the hips as
a pivot, the trunk of the body may be allowed
to turn, but never more than is shown in the
illustration. In fact a little less would be
much preferable to the slightest degree more.
Perhaps the best guide as to the distance
the arms should be raised is that the club,
when at the very top of the swing, should
be a very little past the horizontal line back
of and across the right shoulder. As the body
turns, and the club swings up, die left heel,
if allowed to do so, will naturally raise itself
a few inches from the ground, and the foot
turn on the toe. This is all very well if not
carried to excess, but care must be taken to

82 GOLF FOR WOMEN

see that only the natural turn is allowed, and
that there is no forcing of it.

When the club has reached the extreme
height to which the backward swing is to
extend, without pausing for a single second,
bring the arms and body around again in
the same arc of the circle, and *’ sw ball away. It is not a blow. It is distinctly
a sweep, and this is a most important fact to
bear in mind.

Many persons are imbued widl the idea
that after the ball is struck, it matters not
what becomes of the club, or in what manner
the arms and body finish out the stroke.

No greater mistake could be made. The
follow-through of the stroke is considered
nearly if not quite as important as that part
of the stroke made before the club comes in
contact with the ball, and a moment's reflec-
tion upon the laws of physics will demon-
strate conclusively that this must be true.

If a ball and a club head are placed in
''ontact with no force, it will be quickly seen

THE SWING 83

that the point of contact is exceedingly small
— ^no larger in fact than the point of a lead-
pencil. On the other hand, a glance at the
club head after a full stroke has been made
often shows a mark of the ball which is at
least as large as a quarter of a dollar.

The composition of which the ball is made
has, of course, a certain amount of resiliency,
and the wood of the club head also gives a
fraction of an inch under the force of a full
stroke. Consequently, when these two forces
meet each other, it is proof that they are in
actual contact for a certain period of time
after the club head strikes the ball, and while
this period is, of course, an infinitesimal part
of a second, the club is traveling so fast that
its relative position to the ball during that
space is of the utmost importance.

Naturally, to achieve the perfect perform-
ance of the shot, the head should be at an
absolute right angle to the desired line of
flight, and the further the club can be made
to follow in this line, the better.

84 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Consequently, after the ball is struck, the
hands and arms should be allowed to swing
as far forward as they naturally wish to go,
as the illustrations in the series showing the
follow-through, illustrate very clearly. And
they also show that after the club has swung
a couple of feet or a yard past the spot where
the ball was, the wrists will begin to turn
once more in the inverse way to that in which
diey turned as the club swung backward, and
the finish of the stroke, if correctly carried
out, will he the exact reverse of the top of
the backward swing.

There are two great points, however, eitfier
of which, if neglected, will bring to naught
the best efforts of the player, no matter how
diligently she practices or how perfectly she
acquires the swing.

They sound delightfully simple, but like
many other things which seem simple, are
tremendously intricate. They are:

First — Don't move your head.

Second — Keep your eye cm the ball.

THE SWING 85

So important are these two injunctions diat
words fail to express their significance. Neg-
lect of either, however, will teach it, and
teach it in a way to demonstrate that the old
saying that experience is a bitter teacher was
a most true one.

The reason '* why " these two tilings are
of sudi importance I shall endeavor to satis-
factorily explain in the next chapter.

In the meantime, bum into your mind with
flaming letters:

" Keep your eye on the ball."

" Don't move your head."

CHAPTER V

THE SWING (continued)

IT may seem that there are so many In-
junctions in golf to be kept in mind that
there cannot be any one point which it
is especially imperative to observe, but such
is, nevertheless, the fact, and it is the first
of the two injunctions I exhorted all golfers
to burn into their minds with flaming letters
at the conclusion of the preceding chapter :

" Keep your eye on the ball."

Six little words, but what a tremendous
amount they mean !

Oh, the sorrows which would have been

averted had the injunctions which they record

been strictly adhered to! The tears which

need not have been shed; the matches which

would not have been lost; the six-inch putts

which would not have been missed ; the drives

THE SWING 87

which would not have been topped or pulled
or sliced or sclaffed 1

The things which otherwise would not have
been are legion; far too numerous to count.
But perhaps it is better that we are but
human, and that the eye will wander. Were
it not so, golf would be so perfect a pleasure
and so great a delight that it might lose part
of its charm, for in it, as in everything else,
it is the unobtainable which is most desired.

It might seem to a hasty observer that if
one kept either the head immovable or the
eye on the ball, that the other essential would
follow as a matter of course, but such is by
no means the case. It is more apt to occur,
of course, but by no means is it a certainty.

Of the two, I consider keeping the eye on
the ball by far the most important, for if it
is done absolutely, the chances are very likely
that the head will be kept still.

There is no greater temptation in all the
world of golf than to take the eye off the
ball a fraction of a second before the club

88 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Comes in contact with it, in order that one
may see where it is going as a result of the
stroke. Women have from the days of Eve
been accused of unlimited curiosity, but I am
happy to say that I find from personal experi-
ence that men are much more apt to take dieir
eyes off than women, and that, therefore,
feminine curiosity, in golf at least, is second
to man's.

I consider this point of such extreme im-
portance that I earnestly advise all beginners
to not only keep the eye on the ball until it
is struck, but to keep it on the spot until the
dub has reached the end of the follow-
through.

Nor need this advice be considered appli-
cable to beginners only. Players of a consid-
erable amount of skill may find that their
gam£ improves amazingly by following it,
and while I myself confess that I do not,
when in good form, follow it quite to the
extent of not moving my eye until my club
has reached' the extreme end of the stroke^

THE SWING 89

I do so whenever I find that my game is not
up to my best form.

The expression " keeping the eye on the
ball," however, should not, in my opinion, be
taken with too absolute literalness. I think
that the eye should be focused not on the
top of the ball, where it naturally would be
if the ball were its object point, but on a
spot of ground directly behind the ball itself.
One advantage of this is that one is less apt
to top the shot, and another that in this way
the object upon which the eye has been fo-
cused is not swept away at the middle of
the shot, as it is if the eye is directly upon the
ball, and it is in consequence much easier to
keep it steadier until the end of the follow-
through has been reached. Although we are
dealing just now with the importance of this
point in its relations to the long game (as
full shots with any distance-covering clubs
are termed), it is equally important in every
department of the game, down to six-inch
putts, a point which I shall endeavor to im-

90 GOLF FOR WOMEN

press when the other shots are being discussed.
Of its corollary, keeping the head in the
same position, its value lies in the fact that
if this is done, the body will not sway as the
club goes back on the up-swing, and hands,
arms, and clubs must therefore swing down
on the same positions as those which they had
assumed in addressing the ball, and which
it naturally follows assures the ball being
struck in the absolutely correct way.

So thoroughly and entirely is this true that
it is no uncommon feat for a professional,
after assuming his stance and getting the
correct address to the ball, to allow himself
to be blindfolded, and then drive nearly as
effective a shot as though his eyes were open.
This, however, is something which can only
be acquired by years of constant play, but
it illustrates the importance of keeping the
head still.

If the player were only satisfied to drive
a moderately long ball, and paid much more
attention to the correct carrying out of these

THE SWING 91

details than to the amount of strength put
into the stroke in an endeavor to make the
records of James Braid, Douglas RoUand,
and their like look insignificant, respectable
driving from the tee through the green
would not be such a difficult art, but ninety-
nine out of every hundred players are not
satisfied with this, and, in the endeavor to
utilize every atom of strength, sway back an
inch or two. There are several methods of
practice which will overcome this fault.

A very excellent one, which has the ad-
vantage of being easy to take up at home, if
you are so fortunate as to have a full-length
mirror or a room large enough to allow of
the swinging of a club in it without inter-
ference with bric-a-brac and furniture, is to.
practice swinging in front of the mirror,
needless to say without a ball. Then by look-
ing up at one's reflection instead of directly
at the spot where the ball should be, the
movement of the head can be detected.

This, of course, has the disadvantage of

02 GOLF FOR WOMEN

taking the eye from the spot it should be in
the actual stroke.

Another method, and probably a better
one, is to assume a position on the tee widi
the sun directly at one's back, and watch the
shadow of the head during the swing. In
this way one can instantly tell whether it is
being held immovable or not, and if not, the
swing must of course be practiced until the
desired result is achieved.

The matter of practicing is another point
which should be considered seriously, and not
done haphazard.

PRACTICING

There is only one way in which a person
'can become a really high-class golfer, and
diat is by constant and thoughtful practice.
The idea that it is the person who plays the
most rounds of a course who will be the best
player is entirely erroneous. It makes little
difference in the improvement to be sought,
nany times a player makes a certain shot,

THE SWING 98

iT each time it is aot made correctly, and in
fact it is worse to play constantly in bad form
than not to play at all.

The golfer who really wishes to improve
will make it a point to practice over and over
again for ten or fifteen minutes at a time die
same shot, be it drive, approach, or putt, and
study the cause and eifect of each one.

It is unwise to practice one style of shot
more than fifteen minutes in succession, how-
ever, for the muscles become a trifle tired
from repeating die same motion time after
time, and one also becomes a trifle careless,
no matter how much this is guarded against.

To a person who reads this without stop-
ping to think, it may seem that playing the
regular round would be as good practice as
the above method, but in the regular round
you make a certain shot, and then have no
opportunity of repeating it for five or ten
minutes, in which time you have played a half-
dozen or more other shots of an entirely dif-
ferent nature.

94 GOLF FOR WOMEN

When one is trying to acquire the proper
swing for a stroke, it is by no means necessary
that a ball should be used. In fact, it is often
a good idea not to do so, for so weak is human
nature, that the desire to make a fine drive out
of the shot becomes overpowering, and in con-
sequence the result becomes of more impor-
tance than the method of achievement.

A good substitute for the ball is a leaf, a
bit of paper, or a cork, or anything, in fact,
which will serve as an object point for the
eye to focus upon.

CHAPTER VI

THE LONG GAME

THE four greatest obstacles to perfect
driving are sclafEng, topping, pull-
ing, and slicing, and any one of
them is wonderfully easy — except when one
really wishes to do so.

With the exception of taking the eye off
the ball or swaying the head with the move-
ment of the body in the swing, there is prob-
ably nothing in the glossary of golf which
causes so much trouble as an improper stance.

As it may seem, both sclaffing and its very

reverse, topping, may be caused by the same

fault, viz., standing too much in front of the

ball, that is, with it placed nearly opposite the

right foot instead of nearly opposite the left.

The results of this kind of a stance are at once

apparent in one's play, and the result could

96 GOLF FOR WOMEN

easily be imagined if the player stopped to
consider cause and effect.

The first result of such a stance is that the
swing becomes a " chop " instead of a sweep,
and the club comes down either upon the top
of the ball or under it instead of being
swept away just as the club head begins to
rise.

. The "pop-up" shot, which starts away
from the tee with such promise, rises high in
the heavens, and drops with such a disagree-
able and annoying thud about fifty or one
hundred yards short of where one expected
from its fine start it was going to do, is caused
by this kind of a choppy swing, as is also that
most distressing of all things, a ball which
runs with apparently tremendous speed along
the ground, and loses itself in the first hazard
upon the course.

Pulling and slicing, two faults from which
only the really first-class player is free, may
be caused by an improper stance, but usually
are the result of not forcing the arms and

THE LONG GAME 97

shoulders to finish out the stroke in th« line
of flight taken by the ball.

This may happen from allowing the body to
fall away from the ball as the club reaches it
in the downward swing, or it may be due to
pulling the arms around quickly to the left.
If this is done, and the ball be struck squarely
in the center of the club head, a terrific pull
will result, while, if the arms have commenced
to swerve enough to the left to cause the ball
to be struck on the toe of the club, an equally
great slice will result.

The difference in cause is so slight, and that
of result so great, that it takes an experienced
player to recognize that both are caused by
practically the same error.

Other little faults which from time to time
creep into a player's game, and for a longer
or shorter time prevent the perfect execution
of a drive, will be found to be due to a loose-
ness of grip, or a carelessness regarding the
way the thumbs are held, which may cause the
club to turn in the hands.

»8 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Another common cause for a slice or pull

is that the club Is not evenly soled when ad-
dressing the ball, and in consequence it is at
an angle when brought into contact with the
ball in the swing.

This is a more important point than many
players believe, and the beginner especially
should invariably be sure that both the heel
and toe are on the ground, and that the face
is at right angles to the tee.

Another common fault is diat of loosening
every muscle of the body, and trying to get
every particle of strength and weight into the
stroke. This can only be done after a player
has acquired a good share of proficiency, and
while I by no means recommend that a player
should endeavor to swing with no suppleness
at all, I think it is better to err at first on the
side of rigidity.

Despite all these precautions, however,
there will come a time when a drive cannot
be made as it should be, and then diere is
only one thing to dOt

THE LONG GAME 99

Adopt a half-swing, and try to make up
for the lack of distance the club travels before
reaching the ball by accuracy and power of
the follow-through.

With half a swing this is absolutely neces-
sary in order to get any distance at all, and
die practice will be found very beneficial to
the length of the drive when a full swing is
resumed) as well as being absolutely the only
method of playing when the unhappy time of
being unable to drive with a full swing arrives,
as it undoubtedly will.

PLAYING AGAINST THE WIND

Nothing is more discouraging than to drive
oif what you consider a fine ball, and then
have a wind take it away to one side, or
else stop it at somediing like half the distance
you felt sure it would go. The wind is a far
more powerful factor than would seem pos-
sible, considering the size of the ball upon
which it has to operate, and while its baleful
influences cannot always be entirely overcome,

100 GOLF FOR WOMEN

they can in most cases be rendered compara-
tively harmless, and in scHne few instances
made actually helpful.

When playing against a wind which is- di-
rectly in one's teeth, the player should re-
member that the slightest pull or slice will be
magnified by the wind one-hundredfold, and
accuracy should therefore be the first consid-
eration.

To obtain this one must of course maintain
a perfect balance on the feet, and the best way ,
to insure this is to swing easily — not try
to put an extra amount of force into the
stroke, as so many unthinking players do. If
the ball is hit absolutely clean, and the follow-
through is all that it should be, the drive will
ithin a few yards as far as though you
lit it with all your strength, and it is cer-
hat while a " pressed " shot may once in
:en times be phenomenal, the eleven fail-
trill be more than ordinarily bad.
is true that a low ball hit in the right
will travel much further against a wind

THE LONG GAME 101

than a high ball, but it will not do so if its
lowness is the result of a half-top. Trying to
half top a ball causes more fully toppe4 shots
than one could count, and even if it is
done successfully, the ball will not travel very
far.

One should use a low tee under any and all
circumstances, and if this is done, a correctly
hit ball will not fly high enough for the wind
to have much of an effect upon it.

With the wind directly at one's back the
same rules remain in force, except that per-
haps the tee might be made a fraction of an
inch higher, in order that the ball may get up
in the air a little more, and so give the wind
an opportunity to exert its force.

When the wind is blowing across the line
of play, it may be made an aid by noticing
whether it is blowing from left to right, or
right to left, and playing for a slice or a
pull as the case may be. By so doing one
obtains in many instances nearly as much
benefit from the wind as though it had

102 GOLF FOR WOMEN

been from behind. It is so easy, and at
times apparently so unavoidable, to slice and
pull that it may seem like carrying coals to
Newcastle to give advice on how to commit
these chief sins of the golfing decalougue, but
there are times when they have their uses the
same as everything else.

To pull a ball, the best method is to place
the ball very little farther back than usual,
aim very slightly to the right, and hit cleanj
exactly as though you wished to drive a
straight ball. If properly carried out, this
method will give quite enough pull to the
shot to insure its keeping a little bit more than
straight against the wind, and it will have,
when it strikes the ground, the rotary motion
toward the left which is responsible for the
long roll which all pulled balls have. In f act,
so much farther does a pulled drive go than
even an absolutely straight one, that the
majority of the best players endeavor to im-
part a slight pull to every long shot they may
be called upon to make, except, of course.

THE LONG GAME 103

where the character of the links makes a
pulled shot liable to run into a hazard.

A common method pursued when it is
wished to pull a shot is to stand well in front
of the ball and aim well to the right. This
is a very bad policy, for it will result in so
terrific a pull that it is impossible to gauge
the distance it will cover, and much trouble is
likely to follow its use.

Another argument against its adoption is
that, if one takes up this stance, the mind will
instinctively think about achieving a pull, and
the shoulders in consequence will instinctively
swing around to the left, in order to help in
the desired result, instead of leaving it to be
accomplished by the stance, and the resultant
pull will be quite too strong to be pleasant or
useful.

Slicing a ball when the wind is blowing
from left to right (of course I refer invariably
to right-handed players) is one of the most
difficult and delicate strokes of the games.
The reason that it is more so than is a pull

104 GOLF FOR WOMEN

comes frcHn the fact that it is easier to overdo
it, and also that the wind has mudi more
effect upon it.

When playing for a slice, aim a little to
the left, and keep the ball well In front of
you, almost opposite the left foot, and then
play your shot exactly as though a straight
drive were desired. If such a thing Is pos-
sible, the follow-through is even more im-
portant than anywhere else.

It may be thought that I have devoted too
much space and gone into too many details in
analyzing the movements which are combined
in the perfect pcrfonnance of the drive, but
if one stops to consider that the stroke is
really the fundamental principle upon which
are based all the other full strokes of the
game, it will be realized that it would be im-
possible to dwell too strongly upon so im-
portant and far-reaching a point.

It is far too much to expect that the golfer
will be possessed of sufficient self-restraint to
refrain from making the rounds of the course

THE LONG GAME 106

after having once acquired a fairly proficient
command of the driver, and I shall therefore
proceed to offer some hints of a general char-
acter before taking up the technical points in
which lie the secrets of the brassey and
cleek

AMOUNT TO PLAY

The amount that a person can play and
yet keep at the top of her game depends ab-
solutely on the individual physique and mental
temperament. Generally speaking, if one
devotes a half hour to practicing certain shots
over and over again, and follows this practice
with an eighteen-hole round of the links three
times a week, it is quite enough to obtain the
best results. Still, the point, like so many
others, must be determined by the player per-
sonally.

I think it rather better to play eighteen
holes three timps a week than thirty-six holes
on two days, unless one is fortunate enough
to be able to reach the club with a very short

106 GOLF FOR WOMEN

journey, for most golfers will find it neces-
sary to spend from an hour to an hour and a
half traveling before reaching the links, and
this trip added to thirty-six holes of golf over
the long course and the return trip to town
makes a little more exertion than is beneficial
to the average woman. Still, if the course is
easy to walk over, and a trial finds you fresh
and energetic after such a day's golf, there is
no reason why your play should not be done
in this way.

OVERGOLF

There is one point over which the golfer
who really desires to improve will come to
grief more surely than she who is not so en-
thusiastic, and the more earnest the player,
tBe more certainly is she in danger of ship-
wreck in this Scylla of golf. This is the
matter of playing too much. Once you feel
you are overgolfed, lay aside your clubs,, no
matter what the temptation to play, for sev-
eral days, or a week is better if your moral

THE LONG GAME 107

strength is of suflBicient caliber to withstand
such a strain, and banish the thought of golf
from your mind. It may be the hardest bit
of self-denial you have ever accomplished, but
it will pay in the long run.

There is absolutely nothing which will
bring disaster on the links and despair to
your heart so quickly and fiercely and ever-
lastingly as trying to play when over-
golfed.

The novice may think I speak too strongly,
but I assure her I do not. Nothing goes right.
Your drives are sliced or pulled or topped or
sclaffed, your approaches the same. Your
putts simply will not go into the hole. Or if
they do go in, they will not stay there. They
roll around the edge of the cup and hang on
the lip, and seem to grin at you with fiendish
delight, and the more care you take, the
worse matters become. There is but one
remedy. Stop playing, and the sooner you
realize it the better it will be both for your
game and your conscience.

106 GOLF FOR WOMEN

ACCURACY

Next to a good style, the most important
thing to aim for is accuracy of direction. It
makes little difference whether one is five
yards more or less distant from the tee after
a drive, provided the ball has gone straight
for the hole and is lying on the fair green in
the center of the course, but if it is in the long
grass, or other trouble which almost in-
variably is to be found on either side of the
line of play, *he added five yards of distance
which lands one here will be found very
costly, for it will take a stroke to get out of
the trouble, and another to reach the point
where a good second after a straight drive
would have placed the ball.

The same principle is exemplified when the
green is within reach. A straight shot reaches
it, and then the orthodox two putts should see
one down, while a wildly played approach will
necessitate a little approach putt and usually
the other two as well, the distinct loss of a
stroke.

THE LONG GAME 109

One of the best methods to insure accuracy
is to never " press," but use a club which will
give the desired distance with an easy swing.

Thus, if pressing with a cleek will achieve
the desired result, take a brassey ; if a mid-iron
mi^t do it, take a cleek; and so on down the
list of clubs.

CEiAPTER VII
THE LONG GAME (continued)

UPON every golf-course there should
be, and almost Invariably is, a pro-
portion of holes so long diat it will
require two, or even three, shots with the full
power of the driver to reach the green.

The point of arranging the distance of the
holes on a golf-course so that it is necessary
to play shots perfectly in order to reach the
green in two or three or four, as the case may
be, is a most important one for the develop-
ment of good golf, but one which is, most
unfortunately, only too often overlooked. It
is so manifestly unfair to have a hole of such
a distance that a player can make a poor drive
and still reach the green in two by making a
good brassey, and be just as well off as a
nUv^r who has made a good drive and a good

THE LONG GAME 111

approach shot with a mashie, that it is very
discouraging to the good player, and to play
over a course so arranged takes away much of
the pleasure of the game.

Supposing, however, that the course has
been correctly laid out and the distance ar-
ranged so that full shots with the driver are
required, the point arises, as soon as a bad lie
Is found, of what club to use which will not
only lift the ball out of the bad lie, but has the
power to achieve the desired distance. The
club designed for the express purpose is the
brassey. Of course, where the lie is good
enough, the driver should be used, but when
there is any doubt whatsoever of the ability
to get the ball away with the driver the
brassev should be taken.

This club is really like a driver, except that
its face is usually laid back a trifle so as to
impart a loft to the ball, and on its 9ole is
fastened a thin piece of brass.

In playing a brassey, practically the same
swing should be used in the drive proper, ex-

112 GOLF FOR WOMEN

cept that it should not be allowed to swing
back quite so far.

In driving a ball from a tee, one should
endeavor to hit it as cleanly as possible, but
when the lie is such that a brassey is being
used, one should not endeavor to do this.

On the contrary, the club should be brought
down more perpendicularly, and the ground
struck at the same time with the ball.

In playing a brassey, do not imagine that
because the ground should be struck as well
as the ball, an extra amount of force must be
imparted to the stroke.

Rather to the contrary, for the whole se-
cret of successfully negotiating a bad lie is
the cleanness with which the ball is picked up,
and, as I have reiterated in former chapters,
the " follow-through."

In addressing the ball for a brassey-shot, it
should be a trifle nearer the right foot than
when a tee shot is being played, and that foot
should also be somewhat further advanced
than in the other instance. It may sound

THE LONG GAME 113

absurd to say that one inch is about the dis-
tance, but a golfer will readily appreciate the
difference which such an even apparently in-
significant distance will make.

If the player has been wise enough to ac-
custom herself to the use of a low tee she
should have no difficulty in hitting her brassey-
shots cleanly, but if she has been accustomed
to driving oS from a mound of sand any-
where from one to three inches in height, she
will probably find that the brassey-shots are
being topped most distressfully. This is one
of the punishments of using a high tee, and
should oflfcr an argument in favor of a low
one, sufficiently strong to make the golfer
discard that violation of the traditions of golf
at once and for evermore, and the argument is
equally applicable to all the shots played
through the field.

The best way to remedy the fault, after
discarding the high tee, is to fasten the eye
on a spot directly behind instead of upon the
ball when preparing for a stroke, as was ad-

114 GOLF FOR WOMEN

vised in the first place. This has the effect of
bringing the objective focus of the eye to a
spot a trifle lower than in the other method,
and the result is that the club is instinctively
swung a little lower, bringing it down to the
proper level.

Sometimes a player will strike the ground
so hard a blow, in endeavoring to avoid top-
ping, that the wrist will receive a severe jar,
and the memory of it will cause the player to
err on the other side, with the result that a
long series of " tops " will result. There is
only one way to overcome this, and that is to
play the shots easily and carefully until the
feeling of flinching disappears.

If one is sclaffing brassey-shots continually
in an effort to avoid topping, it may be over-
come by locking at a spot just ahead of the
ball, on the same principle that constant
topping may be overcome by looking be-
hind it.

Beyond these points the advice laid down

r the performance of a drive, the timing of

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THE LONG GAME 116

the stroke, the necessity of accuracy, etc., etc.,
applies equally to the brassey.

One of the hardest " lies " from which to
negotiate a good shot is from what is called
a " hanging lie," that is, when the ground
behind the ball slopes upward. The ball may
be perched upon a tuft of grass which sets it
up as high as though it were on the tee, but
nevertheless it is an extremely difficult and un-
pleasant situation. The only way to nego-
tiate it successfully is to allow the club to go
through after the ball in accordance with the
dip of the ground; and another thing to be
very particular about here, and in the per-
formance of every other stroke as well, is
to see that the face of the club is not turned
in, or in other words, that the end of the face
is not nearer the left foot than the heel.

The next most powerful club, meaning the
distance which it will drive the ball, is the
deek*

This is an almost straight-faced iron club,
and with it one should be able to get within

116 GOLF FOR WOMEN

about twenty or thirty yards of the distance
one can get with a brassey. It is played prac-
tically like a brassey, and should be used in
its place when one is afraid of overplaying
with the latter, or when the lie is particularly
bad and it is necessary to get distance.

Next to the cleek in power is the mid-iron,
and dien the mashie.

APPROACHING

Technically, of course, every shot, except
th« drive from the tee, which is expected to
land the ball upon the green, is an approach,
but the term is usually regarded to mean only
shots played with a mid-iron or mashie, or, In
other words, those from a distance of about
no yards down to where the putter is em-
ployed. There are many ways of playing
approach shots, and there is no more im-
portant part of the game than this, not even
excepting putting, which is, I must confess,
usually regarded as die most difficult and
most important part of the game. While

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THE LONG GAME 117

putting is undoubtedly of the greatest im-
portance, the player who can lay her ball
within a very few feet of the hole from a
long approach shot practically saves a stroke,
for she should occasionally go down in one
putt, and always in two, while it is a grand
putter indeed who can always go down in two
putts when her ball lies thirty or forty feet
away.

In playing approach shots, the importance
of accuracy is intensified, for the distance to
be covered is so small that the short player is
just as well off as the long one, and the ad-
vantage which the latter enjoys from her su-
periority in that department from the tee and
through the field is lost.

In playing a full shot, while it is extremely
pleasant to see the ball go sailing away clean
and sweet and dead on the line of the flag, it
makes really no difference whether it does
just that or whether it goes ten or fifteen yards
to the right or left. When it comes to ap-
proaching the green, however, it is a different

116 GOLJ' FOR WOMEN

matter, and this ten or fifteen yards to one side
or die other resolves itself into the question
of a stroke more or less.

In playing approaches, the point mentioned
in a former chapter regarding the use of a
club which will carry the required distance
without either pressing or trying to spare the
shot is particularly apropos.

There are two ways of playing approach
shots.

One is to play them up in the air with a
little cut on the ball so that they will drop
with comparatively little roll, and the other is
to play them low and depend upon a long run.

Both have advantages, and while it is better
to settle upon one way and use it whenever
practicable, one should endeavor to master
both methods, for upon every course there will
be some holes where each will be foujid
necessary.

When golf was younger in America than
it is to-day, and our courses were consequently
more imperfect and rougher, the highly lofted

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THE LONG GAME 119

approach which would drop with compara-
tively little roll was the favorite among
players generally, from the fact that if one
dropped the ball upon the green it ran truly,
while an approach played so that it would
bound and roll along the ground (which in
those days was usually quite rough) exposed
it to the chances of being turned widely from
its true course by contact with the lumps in
the ground.

A point against the highly lofted approach
was that it was quite as liable to be swerved
from its proper course by the wind as the low
shot was by the rough ground.

This objection still holds good, while in
the last year or two courses have improved
so greatly that the ball in the vast majority of
instances may be depended upon to roll
straight, and for this reason the low approach
shot is more generally used, when the condi-
tions are such that a choice can be made.

Another point in favor of this style of ap-
proach shot is that it is decidedly easier to

120 GOLF FOR WOMEN

correctly gauge the proper amount of force
necessary to cover a given distance when
hitting with a straighter-faced club than when
using a well-lofted (Hie.

Still another point in its favor is that if
one fails to hit the ball exactly as one should,
the results are not so disastrous, for a half-
tipped or a sclaffed shot from off a compara-
tively straight-faced club gets much nearer
the mark than when this unhappy result is
achieved with a greatly lofted one.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SHORT GAME

A LTHOUGH the term " approaching "
/-% technically includes every stroke
which will place the ball on the
putting-green, be it made with driver, cleek,
mashie, or even putter, the usually accepted
definition of an approach shot is one made
with a mid-iron or mashie, and executed with
a three-quarters, one-half, or wrist stroke.

This is the first reference which I have
made in these chapters to anything less than a
full shot, and lest someone should mistake my
meaning when reference is made to three-
quarters or half shots, I will explain imme-
diately that this is the manner in which shots
executed with a swing which is but three-
quarters or one-half of the arc described by
a full stroke, are designated, and have no

122 GOLF FOR WOMEN

reference whatever to the distance about to
Be covered. Frequently a half-shot made
by a person with especially strong wrists
can be made to go nearly as far as a full
shot.

The wrist shot is, as its name implies, made
practically through the action of the wrists
alone, and necessarily calls for the utmost
accuracy and delicacy.

At the beginning of this work the point
was made that it is much easier to play cor-
rectly a shot which would cover the distance
with ease than to play it with a club with
which one must press, and important as that
point is in the playing of full shots, it is even
more so when approaches are to be made.
To my mind, the shorter the shot, the more
difficult it is to play correctly.

In the first place there is always an instinc-
tive feeling of carelessness induced by the
apparent easiness of the shot, and this is the
forerunner of a sclaff or a top.

In a short approach, too, these sins are

t •

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FINISH OF SWING FOR aS-YARD APPROACH.

THE SHORT GAME 123

usually more severely punished than the same
deflections from the perfect stroke would be
in a full shot. There is so little force behind
a thirty- or forty-yard approach shot, that
unless it is hit cleanly it will be considerably
short, while if an amount of force is put into
it sufficient to allow for a sclaff or top, and
still reach the cup, then, if one happens to
make the stroke cleanly, the ball will be away
over the hole. In a full shot, on the other
hand, the momentum of the club is so great
that one can frequently sclaff a little or even
half top the ball and still get practically the
same distance as though it had been hit clean,
and there is also the point that two or three
yards, when one is one hundred and fifty
yards away, make vastly less difference than
does the same distance when one is thirty or
forty yards away.

To emphasize the importance of good ap-
proach play would be futile. As cwie mentally
reviews past matches and remembers how the
medal at such and such a tournament was lost

124 GOLF FOR WOMEN

by a poor drive, it would seem as though the
long game was by all odds the most im-
portant part of a successful career links. But at many another meeting we re-
member that the cup was lost despite a long
game in which not even the most carping
critic could find a flaw, and solely because of
a poor approach shot now and then. Then
it is that one forgets the fact that the long
game is important and sighs, " Oh, for an
always perfect approach 1 " And then again
it is a great, albeit sad, truth that it is useless
to hope to win golf matches if one cannot be
sure of putting out in two after reaching'the
green.

So it goes. And the most important part
of golf remains, like the will-o'-the-wisp, a
phantasma which one wearily pursues only
to find that, just as it is within one's grasp, it
has changed its hue and the chase must be
resumed once more. Still, good approaching
means many saved strokes.

The player who can depend upon holing

THE SHORT GAME 125

out in three from the approaching distance
will never be beaten very badly.

The idea is of course to lay the approach
so close to the hole that one's first putt is
sure to be stone-dead, if not down indeed.
She who can do this should be happy.

Of course it is by no means impossible to
get down in two from whatever part of the
putting-green the approach has left you, but
it is an unpleasant feeling to feel at each
green that one must lay a thirty-foot putt
stone-dead, and even the best of us some-
times fail by a yard or two. Then, it is a
case of nerves truly.

No doubt all readers of this humble work
would be quite equal to holing eighteen
two-yard putts in a round, but everyone is
still mortal, and it is much better fun, to my
mind, to be three inches away and have one's
opponent playing to hole a two-yard putt for a
half than to be in that position one's self. Be-
sides a stroke is a stroke, and one saved by
holing out in one putt is as valuable an aid to

126 GOLF FOR WOMEN

winning a match or a medal as one gained in
any other way. Decidedly, then, we must
admit that approaching is useful.

Another point is that everyone holes a
certain proportion of all putts, no matter what
the distance.

And that proportion decreases very rapidly
w^ith each foot added to the distance to be
holed.

It may be eighty or ninety per cent, at a
foot, and it is quite likely to be one-tenth of
one per cent, at thirty feet, and so naturally
the more putts one has to hole at the shorter
distance, the higher will be the percentage,
and the greater will be the number of strokes
saved.

In the last chapter I devoted considerable
space to a discussion as to the advisability of
playing one's approaches high in the air or
running them along the ground, and therefore
will pass over that point now.

When the distance is such that the player
determines to make her approach with a cleek

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THE SHORT GAME 127

or iron, the stance and swing differ but little
from those with which she has become familiar
in learning to drive, except that one usually
advances the right foot an inch or two more,
and stands a little more upright, or, in other
words, closer to the ball. Another point of
difference is that the club should not go back
so far in the upward swing, and it should also
be raised more vertically, not trailed along
back as closely to the ground as possible, as
in a drive, and the difference should be ac-
centuated as the distance of the shot decreases.
For making an approach shot of any dis-
tance between that for which a cleek is the
proper club and approximately down to lOO
yards from the hole, I use a mid-iron. In
playing a shot of this kind, the same rules
which governed the cleek play may remain
in force, except that, as the distance to be
covered in the shot decreases, the right foot
should be advanced a trifle. The ball should
also be a trifle nearer the right foot, say an
inch or possibly two, than for a cleek shot.

128 GOLF FOR WOMEN

The grip to be employed when grasping the
club for a deek or mid-iron shot differs
slightly from that used when making a drive
or brassey. As the accompanying illustra-.
tions show, the fingers grip the club somewhat
more closely, the most noticeable difference
being that the forefinger of the right hand is
more closely wrapped around the club. After
waggling and swinging the club backward
and forward a few times to accustom one^s
self to the new way of holding the club, grip
it tightly and take the proper stance. In
doing this, it should be remembered that a
straight line drawn through the center of the
ball and the hole is the direction to be played
for, and this must be aimed at regardless of
where it seems from the stance that the ball
should fly.

Also be sure that the face of the club, as
its sole rests on the ground when addressing
the ball, is at right angles to the line of play.

In making a drive, brassey, or cleek shot,
it is an extremely desirable thing to hit the

THE SHORT GAME 139

ball with such cleanness that the ground re-
mains untouched, but in making an approach
with a mid-iron, mashie, or jigger, the club
should be allowed to cut the turf a little, just
as the ball is struck by the club head and starts
away. To allow the club to touch the ground
before reaching the ball would spoil the whole
stroke, as the ball could not then be hit clean,
and this is absolutely essential if a truly gauged
approach is to be made. The club should not
be stopped in its swing, however, for as much
importance attaches to the follow-through of
an approach shot as to that of a drive.

CHAPTER IX
THE SHORT GAME (continued)

WITH the very agreeable supposi-
tion fixed in mind, if not in actual
practice, that the cleek and iron
have been thoroughly mastered, and that a
shot of one hundred yards or more is now one
of the easiest things in the world for her
Ladyship-o'the-Links to accomplish perfectly,
let us take up the shots which range from
that distance downward until the putting--
green itself is reached.

These may be played with a jigger, which
is a sort of cross between a mid-iron and
mashie, or a mashie itself, as the individual
preference of the player may indicate.

In any event I adopt a decidedly different
style of grip for playing these shots. As the
accompanying illustration will show, my hands

THE SHORT GAME 131

are interlocked as they are in the grip for
driver and brassey, and in this particular there
is little change. The radical point of dif-
ference lies in the position of the thumbs, and
particularly the right thumb. This I press
firmly on the top of the club shaft, so that
my entire thumb is in contact with it. The
advantage of this departure from the other
grip is in the better direction one can securci
with it when making a short shot.

When one is about to play an approach shot
of one hundred yards or less, and there is no
bunker or other hazard, the question arises
whether to play a running-up approach or a
boldly lofted one.

There are advantages to be gained from
each style of play.

Providing it has been determined to play
the lofted shot, one should take several pre-
liminary swings a couple of feet away from
the ball to gauge the force with which to
swing in order to put the ball on the green.
In the cleek and wooden-club shots, where

132 GOLF FOR WOMEN

one hits with only a desire to carry as great
a distance as possible, a preliminary swing
is useful only as a means of loosening one's
swing, but in approaching it also acts as a
gauge to the amount of force.

One of the greatest evils of a short ap-
proach shot is the tendency to drag the club
through the stroke, as it were, instead of
striking it sharply and firmly, as should be
done. And the tendency to do this increases
in the same ratio as the distance to be cov-
ered diminishes, for it seems, with but a thirty-
or forty-yard shot to make, that if one hit
the ball sharply it would go over the green.

The remedy for this is, of course, to shorten
the swing' until at some distances the club
head may not swing backward over six or
eight inches, while the entire action is brought
about by the wrist alone.

As the right foot Is advanced a trifle, when
making a cleek-shot, over the position it
should hold when making a full shot with
a wooden club, so does the same foot con-

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THE SHORT GAME 138

tinue to advance as the distance to be covered
decreases, and the result is that when the
player is making a thirty*yard approach, the
right foot is so far in advance that its heel
would be about two or three inches over
a line drawn at right angles from the ball
to the left toe. In the same ratio does the
amount of space from the ball to the right
foot diminish, so that when the stance for a
thirty-yard approach is taken, the ball is
within an inch or two of a line drawn straight
through the heel and toe of the right foot,
and perhaps from eighteen to twenty-four
inches in front of the right toe. The in-
stinctive effect of the advancement of the
right foot has been to turn the body to the
left— or towards the line of play, in other
words — and in consequence one is practically
facing the disk when making a very short
shot.

In the performance of the strokes hereto-
fore discussed, stress was laid on the impor-
tance of getting the weight and momentum

184 GOLF FOR WOMEN

of the body into them, but this becomes of
less and less importance as the distance de-
creases. In fact, all the shots of from sixty
to thirty yards should be made with the arms
alone, although the body may be allowed to
turn an inch or so if one feels that by so do-
ing the swing will be freer. Under no cir-
cumstances, however, should one endeavor
to have the body take any part in the
stroke.

The action of the wrists is extremely im-
portant in all shots, and never more so than
in approaching. In fact, when making shots
of the shorter distance mentioned above, and
under, one should use them to the very full-
est extent, and hold the arms as immovable
as possible.

The methods detailed above are those
which are the natural results of the methods
of making a full shot, modified to suit the
conditions of the distance to be covered, and
the system, I think, is certainly the best for
that reason, if no other.

THE SHORT GAME 136

Still, one can make good approaches by
keeping the elbows and wrists stiff and per-
forming the whole stroke with the shoulders.
The only advantage I can see to this style
of play, however, is that the ball does not rise
so high as it does when played in the other
way — an advantage, it must be admitted,
when the wind is blowing strongly; but diis
can be secured also by using a straighter-
faced club with the other style of swing.

If you glance at the photographs illus-
trating the approach shots, it will be noticed
that the knees are bent slightly more than
they are when playing the long game, and
that the body is likewise bent over a trifle
more.

The weight of the body should be very
gradually shifted from being divided pretty
equally between the two feet, as it is in the
long game, to the right foot as it advances
with the shortening of the shot, but under no
circumstances should either foot be allowed
to move.

136 GOLF ]?0R WgMEN

When playing a lofted approach, it is, of
course, desirable to have as little run follow
the landing of the ball as possible, it being
thus easier to judge the distance to be
covered.

After one has achieved a fair degree of
skill, the ball, even if played naturally, will
not run many yards. But still it may be
wise to endeavor to acquire the art of play-
ing short approaches sixty yards or less with
what is technically known as a '* back spin,"
the idea being to drop the ball dead. This
comes into play most handily in such a situ-
ation as a green with a bunker or other
hazard immediately at its back and some-
thing directly before it, over which the ball
must be pitched.

There are not, it is true, very many such
holes on the standard golf-courses, but time
and again a match has been won or lost by a
single hole.

The way to impart this back spin to a ball
is to play it with a slice or cut, and this is

THE SHORT GAME 187

made by drawing die arms In towards the
body as they descend in the downward swings
stopping the stroke as soon as the club touches
the ball. It is an extremely hard shot to play
correctly, and I do not advocate it except
in some extreme case like that mentioned
above.

If one has a beautiful lie with the ball teed
up so that it is easy to cut under it, the shot
is not so impossible, but when the lie is bad,
it is a '' class " player indeed who can bring
it off successfully.

If it is to be attempted, however, one must
bear in mind that the eifect of the back spin
will be to make whatever run there is to the
ball take effect to the right of the spot where
it touches the ground.

This, of course, makes it necessary to play
for the left of, and not straight at, die flag.
Just how much allowance must be made, ex-
perience only can accurately tell, but it will
be found to be somewhere around one or
two yards. This shot should never be at-

138 GOLF FOR WOMEN

tempted when at a longer distance from the
hole than sixty yards, for if it is, it is likely
to be so greatly deflected that the result
would be more disastrous than if played
straight.

Nor is it good generalship to try to put
a back spin on the ball because the wind is
behind it. If the wind is strong the effect
of the back spin will be neutralized, and if
it is not strong, it will have but little effect
on the ball anyway.

It is a fact that the longer an approach is,
the less run there will be on the ball, and
therefore a little twenty-five-yard wrist shot
often has a longer run than a hundred-yard
full iron.

Perhaps the best way to play a ball with-
out run is to lay back the face of the club.
When this is done the player should stand
more behind the ball — ^that is, her left foot
should be nearer it than the right. The same
result may be accomplished by having a
special club for just such shots made with

THE NEW YORK

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THE SHOUT GAME 139

the face abnormally laid back, but both of
these methods are open to the disadvantage
that with them the chances are about equal
of cutting under the ball without touching it,
and thus making a rank foozle.

CHAPTER X

APPROACHING AND PUTTING

THE very best way of all of playing
an approach shot so that it will
have a minimum of run after it
lands is, like the best of everything else, the
most difficult to acquire.

Among golfers it is known as ” cutting
the feet from it,*’ and difficult as it is to put
into execution, it is still more difficult to
describe it so that an unpractical golfer will
know what is meant. The accompanying
illustrations, however, show the main point
of difference from the ordinary approach shot
very clearly.

The main point is the decidedly more per-
pendicular swing necessary for the stroke.
The grip and stance need not be changed.
The club must be brought down sharply and
carried right into the turf, not swept over

140

PUTTING 141

it as in an ordinary approach shot, and then
at the moment of impact the arms should
be whipped right up into the air as quickly
and as straight as possible, the whole stroke
giving a decided snap to the ball. As it is
necessary to cut well into the turf to perform
this stroke with the best results, it should not
be attempted unless the turf is soft enough
to admit of a club cutting into it easily.

And while speaking of cutting into turf, in
this connection I am going to give a bit of
advice which will, I am afraid, bring down
upon me the wrath of all Green Committees,
but which I must perforce brave, if I am to
set forth truly my ideas on the game.

In making all approach shots, I cut away
the grass, and sometimes take a bit of turf
as well, and I think that so doing adds con-
siderable steadiness to one’s play.

I am far from being an advocate of taking
a divot with the stroke. There is nothing
more reprehensible to my mind than the
golfer who goes serenely along the course,

142 GOLF FOR WOMEN

tearing out great chunks of earth three or
four inches long and equally wide, and from
one to three inches deep, at each stroke. The
class of golfers who do this are invariably
not only of very mediocre ability, but they
are either so ignorant of the rules and eti-
quette of the game, or so utterly selfish and
careless, that they pay no heed as to where
the divots fall or to the place whence they
were torn. These become, of course, little
cups into which the ball of the next player
and all succeeding ones roll with unvarying
regularity, with the result that it is rarely
indeed that the ball can be played as it should
be, and a loss of a stroke is thereby recorded.

No matter how small an amount of grass
or turf be cut away, see yourself that it is
replaced and trampled down. Far too many
players leave this important duty to caddies,
who, as a general rule, are carelessness and
inefficiency personified.

Before closing the chapter on approaching,
it is only right that the second most general

PUTTING 143

method of approaching should receive men-
tion. Of course every golfer will modify
any style to a greater or less degree to cor-
respond to her own personal likings and limi-
tations, after she has attained a fair degree
of proficiency, but next to the method already
described, the majority of approaches are
played from the stance technically known as
” playing off the left leg.”

In this position the ball is nearly on a line
with the center of the left foot, and that is
quite a distance back of the right one. The
weight, instead of being principally on the
right leg, is principally on the left, and the
body is bent over a trifle more, perhaps, than
in the other method. The arms also are kept
in rather more towards the body.

I cannot see that there are any advantages
in this method myself, but its advocates
claim that with it one can secure a much
straighter line of play, and when one is a little
off in the orthodox method, it might be well
to try this.

144 GOLF FOR WOMEN

PUTTING

When the ball has once been safely landed
on the putting-green and mashie laid aside,
one lays aside with it all the pretensions to
a single style of play which has been under-
lying all the strokes heretofore discussed. In
other words, while all drives, brassey-strokes,
cleeks, and even mashie-shots are performed
by strokes the principles of which are based
upon one general principle, however much
individual preferences may cause them to be
modified, putting is performed exactly as
each individual player sees fit. One way
seems quite as good as another. The whole
point is to get the ball in the hole in the
fewest possible number of strokes, and there
are as many different ways of standing and
as many different ways of hitting the ball as
there are players.

Another point In which putting departs
from the other departments of the game is
that no player even pretends to always putt

PUTTING 145

in the same way or even with the same club.
Of course the change in clubs might be ex-
plained by the difference in the nature of the
turf over which one was putting if the games
were being played on different links, but one
is quite as apt to see the change in putting
take place two or three times during the
progress of a championship match on an
eighteen-hole course, as on different days on
different links.

All good golf depends more or less upon
having one’s eye ” right,” but this is very
much more true of putting than any other
stroke in the game. It is no uncommon thing
for a professional or even a high-class ama-
teur to take his stance, swing a driver two
or three times over an imaginary tee, then
blindfold himself, have a caddie tee up a
ball on the spot over which his club swung
before, and then drive away practically as
good a shot as he would have done had his
eyes been open. No one could hole a two-or-
three-foot putt with eyes blinded, however,

146 GOLF FOR WOMEN

no matter how many times he or she had
previously holed the putt from a certain
stance.

The reason of this is, of course, the abso-
lute accuracy required to putt the ball over
a piece of turf, filled as are even the very
best of putting-greens with miniature in-
equalities, and have it going with sufficient
velocity to reach the cup surely, but yet not
so swiftly that it will not be caught and held
by the lip of the cup.

This cup is so small (it is barely 2^ inches
in diameter) that unless the ball strikes abso-
lutely the center of the back of it, it will roll
around the rim and run out, a performance
which is one of the most annoying and exasper-
ating things in the \diole catalogue of such
things, and of which it sometimes seems that
the entire game of golf is completely com-
posed.

It is a very strange, yet a very true, fact
that hardly one golfer in ten realizes the
Important part which putting plays in the

‘T ‘ ‘

1 v^i 1 1.^ JLiLiV^WvI

Al’ “‘. l.^^’:X AND

PUTTING 147

game of golf, from the fact that, if one has
become a fair master of the mashie and mid-
iron, one may play along for a half-dozen
holes or so and never be called upon to play
a putt of more than six or seven feet, and
this distance at a casual glance seems so in-
significant as compared to the distances to
be covered with drives or irons that the un-
thinking player immediately decides that the
longer shot is of die more importance. A
moment’s reflection, however, shows most
emphatically that it is not.

A player of average ability should reach
three- fourths of the putting-greens in the
average course in two strokes, and the other
one-fourth in three strokes. Now, on the
other hand, there are no players, even of the
very highest class, who hope to hole out after
reaching the putting-green in less than an
average of two strokes, and there are quite
as many times when three will be necessary
as there are when it will be necessary to take
three strokes to reach the green itself.

148 GOLF FOR WOMEN

As it is sad, but emphatically the fact, diat
a putt of two inches counts just as largely in
one’s score as a drive of zoo yards, it will be
seen that the number of putts required in an
average game will be quite as great as the
number of strokes of all other kinds com-
bined required to complete the round.

If more golfers realized this there would
be much more practicing done on the putting-
green than there is to-day.

As a matter of fact, I think it is quite
safe to say that many players, even among
those who practice driving and approaching
most conscientiously, never diink of taking a
putter in their hands, except during the course
of a match. Among the first-rank players,
however, the reverse is quite true. The few
moments’ practice with the wooden clubs and
long irons suffices them, and then they will
put in an hour holing out putts of from
eighteen inches back to the edge of the
green.

There is a term often used in the news-

PUTTING 149

papers and among golfers which frequently
puzzles those whose knowledge of the Royal
and Ancient game is perhaps more confined
to ** hitting the ball ” than studying the fine
points of the game. This term is ** the ortho-
dox two putts,” and comes from the fact that
in figuring a par or a bogey score the player
is allowed two putts after reaching the put-
ting-green, whether the ball is on its extreme
edge or whether it is within a foot of the
hole.

The reason for this is, that in figuring par
or bogey play it is customary to figure that
one should be able to lie dead to the hole,
-—or, in other words, so close to it that the
next stroke will certainly put the ball in in
one shot, leaving the other for the accom-
plishment of the few inches which remain
to be covered.

There is no less chance of winning a stroke
on the way to the putting-green than there is
once the green has been reached, for most
of the average players will reach it in two

ICO GOLF FOR WOMEN

or three or four strokes, as the case may be,
as well as the most expert, the difference being
in the nearness one reaches to the hole; and
whether one reaches the green in a drive and
mashie, or drive and brassey, and whether
one is ten feet from the cup or twenty makes
very little difference if one can putt.

Good putting goes by streaks. On certain
days one cannot miss holing every putt for
ten feet down, and occasionally one from the
extreme edge of the green, while putts of a
yard or two which formerly have frozen his
heart with terror at the mere thought of
trying to hole them, have become like de-
lightful old friends of whose kindness and
regard one is always sure. Miss them?
Never; and the happy golfer cries, ” Eu-
reka I I have discovered the secret 1 No
more will I mentally weep and gnash my
teeth at the missing of the putts. The world
is mine I Hurrah I ‘* On such glad, glorious
days as these even the putts of between
eighteen inches and three feet, which are ac-

THE PUTTING GRIP.

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Al’ • Lr-\”:X AND
: ^Oi.N f^CUNDATlONS,

PUTTING 151

knowledged by all players of quality to be
the hardest to hole, lose their terrors.

To digress for a moment more: it is a
fact, and a most curious one, too, that after
a player attains a fair degree of proficiency,
it is much harder for her to hole a putt of
this length than it has been when she was
much less expert in her general play.

It is a case of when too much knowledge
is a dangerous thing, although not one of
” where ignorance is bliss ’twere folly to be
wise.”

The reason for this apparent anomaly is
that in holing a putt of a yard or less there
is no particular credit. Everyone expects
you to do it. You expect to do it, and you
know everyone else expects so, too. It really
looks so very easy, and in the early days of
one’s apprenticeship it would be, because one
would go out with serene confidence that it
would be impossible to miss it. After one
has become something of a golfer, however,
a long line of sad experiences which go to

163 GOLF FOR WOMEN

prove that it is quite possible, nay, even
probable, that one will miss it, takes away this
bland and cheerful confidence; and as one
reflects on the putt, the resultant laughter
which will follow if one misses, and the
anger which will fill one’s own mind, one
becomes nervous, and unless one takes one’s
courage in hand at once and plays the putt
boldly, disaster ts sure to follow.

CHAPTER Xr

PUTTING (concluded) and TOURNAMENT

PLAY

NEXT to having one’s eye ” right,”
the most essential thing for suc-
cessful putting is confidence, and
this is the explanation of the high average
that one can score when out on a green, prac-
ticing alone; so much higher, alas! than the
best one can do in a regular match or compe-
tition of any kind.

The fact that there will be dire conse-
quences ensuing if the putt is missed has a
most nerve-wrecking effect, and the more a
player ponders over the shot, the more ner-
vous she will become. However, I do not
by any means advocate hasty or careless
putting.

One of the truest and best-known axioms

168

164 GOLP FOR WOMEN

of the game owes its origin to the putting-
green, and it is, ” Never up, never in.”

This is absolutely true, for, while the ball
may go to the cup, it can never come to the
ball. Consequently the first principle to im-
plant firmly in one’s mind when one reaches
the green is always to be ” up,” or, in other
words, always play the stroke strongly enough
to run past the hole, if the ball does not go
in. It is really surprising how fast a ball
may be traveling and yet be caught by the
rim of the cup, if it strikes it directly in the
center; and playing boldly for the back of
the cup is one of the never-failing distinctive
earmarks of the ” class ” golfer.

When the putt to be negotiated is a yard
or less long, one should hit the ball with
sufficient force to send it about six inches to
a foot past the cup, while from a longer dis-
tance one should play to overrun from two
feet to a yard.

The advantages of this policy are many.
In the first place, you will hit the ball with

TOURNAMENT PLAY 165

more confidence the harder you strike it, and,
as I said above, confidence holes quite as
many putts in a round as does skill. Then,
again, a ball rolling swiftly is much less likely
to be deflected from a true course by rough
places in the turf than is one which is going
slowly, and the hard-hit putt consequently
goes down many times, when the gently
tapped ball would be turned to one side by
a bit of earth or a spear of wire-grass, and
perhaps rim the cup.

Besides all these points, there is a glow
of satisfaction which steals over one as the
ball is heard banging against the back of the
cup and dropping down with a thud. The
feeling is not only an extremely satisfying
one at the moment, but induces an accession
of confidence at the next shot, and many
more thereafter. And this is worth a good
bit in a hard-fought match.

With all the above facts and fancies re-
garding the theory of putting inculcated, the
next thing to do is to try to make the shot.

IM GOLF FOR WOMEN

There are two prime essentials in the put-
ting stroke, — one the grip, and the other the
stance. To take up the former, the accom-
panying illustration shows clearly what I have
found to be the best method. The club should
be held firmly, but not so tightly that the
muscles are rigid, and it may be held at either
extreme of the leather on the handle, or at
any intermediate place. Just as it is a wise
plan to change the putting stance and the club
itself when one finds that everything is not
going as well as it ought, so it is a good plan
to change occasionally the spot where one
grasps the club.

There are three ways in which one may
stand to negotiate putts, and each in turn de-
serves recognition. The first is standing with
the main portion of the weight on the left
iFoot; the next, with the greater amount on
the right foot ; and the third, with the weight
resting equally between the two feet.

When the first mediod is used, the ball is
placed nearer the left foot, and inversely

TOURNAMENT PLAY 167

when the second is employed, it is nearer the
right.

With the grip and stance satisfactorily ar-
ranged, the next problem is how to hit the
ball so that it will go into the hole. The first
thing to consider is whether or not the lay of
the ground between the ball and the cup is
such that it would roll in, if it were hit with
absolute accuracy. If this were usually so,
putting would be robbed of half its terrors.
Unfortunately, such is not the case. There
are few putting-greens over which one does
not have to calculate more or less for the un-
dulation of the ground, and here is where
some of the finest headwork called out in the
entire game is displayed. Many players go
to the opposite side of the hole from that at
which the ball is lying and study its line from
there, supplementing this scrutiny by another
observation from the back of the ball, along
the line to the hole. I believe, except in ex-
ceptional circumstances, that this is quite
8uj£cient| and that trying to study the line

158 GOLF FOR WOMEN

from the other side only confuses one,
and thus destroys the advantage already
gained.

In calculating a putt, where it is necessary
to allow for anything except the force and
straightness with which one hits the ball, the
best plan, I have found, is to take a small
piece of grass or something similar, play di-
rectly for that, and trust that the lay of the
ground will send the ball down into the
cup.

In all putting, and particularly in such in-
stances, judgment plays an important part.
Little things, like remembering to play a
putt on a rolling hill-side so that if the cup
is missed the ball will stop on the downward
instead of the upward side, from which it is,
of course, easier to hole; using a putting-cleek
with a loft to it instead of a straight-faced
putter when the green is particularly fast;
and there are a dozen other similar nuances
serving to distinguish the good player from
the bad one.

TOURNAMENT PLAY 159

One of the most prominent is the question
of playing for the hole or for a half, and
many a match has been won or lost by good
or bad judgment here. If one has only one
stroke for a half, then by all means take any
chance to hole the ball. For if the chance
comes off, you are saved, and if not, you are
lost anyhow. But when one has one to win
or two to halve, and the match not at a des-
perate score, it is much better to get a sure
half than try wildly to win, and end by not
even getting a half. All that can be done is
to point out similar instances, and leave the
actualities to the player herself. And in
speaking of judgment, the quality and nature
of the greens to be played over are quite as
important factors in deciding whether or not
to change the putter as is the fact that one
is putting badly.

On a really smooth and true green, with
any keenness at all, the regular putter is quite
as good a club as any, although many players
prefer a putting-cleek under any and all cir-

160 GOLF FOR WOMEN

cumstances. The advantage of it lies in the
fact that it has a slight loft, and as this loft
imparts a little bade spin or cut to the ball, it
can be hit harder, with less chance of over-
running the hole, than if it were struck with
the ordinary straight-faced putter. No mat-
ter what the club head may be, however, one
should see that the shaft is stiff, as it is there-
fore much easier to gauge the amount of
force required.

Wooden putters I consider distinctly in-
ferior to metal, both from the fact that one
cannot hit so hard with them, and greater
delicacy of touch is therefore necessary, and
from the fact that a ball is more liable to be
deflected from its course off one of them than
it is from a metal club. But some players use
them with good effect for what are really
short approach shots.

Putting, after all, is really a question of
hitting the ball with the club face absolutely
at a right angle to the hole, for if the ball
strikes the back of the cup directly in the

TOURNAMENT PLAY 161

center, it will stop and go in, even if running
with a pretty fair speed, and it is for this
reason that one sees good players always
rest the club for a second in front of the ball
before putting, it being, of course, easier to
get a line, without the ball to interfere with
the line of vision.

Of course, the old injunction of “keep
your eye on the ball ” still holds its impor-
tant position in the categories of golf, and
likewise the injunction not to move the head.
The body, also, for the first time should be
held immovable, for, in putting, the whole
stroke should be made with the arms and
wrists, and principally the latter. Still they
should not be allowed to predominate so
greatly that there is anything like a jolt in
the striking of the ball.

It should be a distinct hit, not a shove, but
the club should follow through after the ball,
and on a straight line along the line of the
putt desired. The elbows should be held in
well to the sides, as this makes it easier for

162 GOLF FOR WOMEN

die club to follow through straight. The
eyes should be fastened at a point just a frac-
tion of an inch back of the center of the ball,
and great care taken not to look up for at
least a second after the ball has been struck
by the putter, and it is really remarkable
what a difference in one^s putting this last
point makes. In putting, I think a vast
majority of players have a tendency to
slightly pull the ball, just as in driving, the
majority have a tendency toward a slice ; and
if one finds such is the case, try to hold the
left elbow closer to the side.

STYMIES

So much for putting when there are only
die ordinary troubles of ground and space
to overcome. It is hard enough, even then,
to put the ball into the cup ; but when to these
difficulties is added what is known as a stymie
the problem becomes difficult indeed. A
stymie is that condition when the balls on
the putting-green are direcdy in the line of

TOURNAMENT PLAY 163

play and more than six inches from each
other.

There are three ways of getting your
ball into the hole under these circumstances.
One is to loft your ball over the other in a
straight line; the second to roll it along the
ground, and put a bias on it so that it will
curve to one side of the other, go around
the obstruction, and into the hole ; thirdly, by
striking the offending ball hard enough to
knock it out of the way, and let yours follow
on and go down.

Lofting the stymie is the more common
way out of the difficulty, and the club with
which to attempt it is a mashie, and the one
with the most loft of any you own. The
shot must be made entirely with the wrists,
and the club cut under the ball without touch-
ing the turf. It is one of the most difficult
of all shots, but as stymies must be played in
all match-play tournaments, it is well worth
cultivating.

The curve putt is made by turning the

164 GOLF FOR WOMEN

face of the putter considerably to either the
right or left, according as to which side the
curve is desired, and hitting the ball so that
the club is either drawn in or forced out, as
the case may be, thus producing the desired
” English ” and its consequent curve.

TOURNAMENTS

No better fun, to my mind, can be im-
agined than playing in a tournament, whether
it be a ‘* picked-up ” afiair, arranged in five
minutes, with a half-dozen starters, or a na-
tional event, which has been planned about
and thought about for months, nor is there
anything which will be of more benefit to
one’s game than participation in tournament
play.

It gives a zest to the matdi which a man
perhaps may enjoy by wiagering his opponent
on the number of strokes or holes he will be
up or down, but which a woman can obtain
only in this way, and it also has a steadying
effect on nerves.

TOURNAMENT PLAY 166

After playing in a few tournaments, the
feeling of nervousness, which is bound to
come to the most stout-hearted players in
their first close match, wears away, and
nothing more is thought of it.

The ” gallery,” as the crowd which follows
the more important matches in big tourna-
ments is called, is apt to have a very de-
moralizing effect on the player unaccus-
tomed to spectators, but this is soon for-
gotten.

I do not believe that a woman should sub-
ject herself to any especial preparation for
a tournament, except to get plenty of rest
and sufficient practice in the two or three
weeks before the tournament, so as to be at
the top of her game. Such practice should
consist of the usual routine, but should never,
under any circumstances, be continued up to
the very day of the tournament. Even if
you should feel that you are in woeful need of
practice, it is best not to touch a club for at
least two days before the tournament. The

166 GOLF FOR WOMEN

reason for this is that if you play each day up
to the beginning of the tournament, by about
the twentieth or thirtieth day of it you have
become overgolfed, and this means certain
defeat.

One should always endeavor to play in
practice against a stronger player, for in this
way one becomes accustomed to being
” down ” throughout the match and outdriven
from the tee. Consequently if one meets
these conditions in a match, it is accepted
as a matter of course, while if accustomed to
being always the leader, it has a demoralize
ing effect to play someone who is as good as
or better than one’s self.

Tournaments in America are almost in-
variably arranged to begin with an eighteen-
hole (or, for men, sometimes a thirty-six
hole) qualifying round at medal or stroke
play, the makers of the best eight or sixteen
or thirty-two scores, as the case may be, con-
tinuing on at match or hole play.

This is, all in all, the best way to conduct

TOURNAMENT PLAY IW

a tourney, I think, for It not only gives a
chance to as many as wish to compete, but it
makes it necessary for a player to be adept
at both medal and match play. There are
many old-fashioned persons who maintain
that only match play is golf, and that it is the
only form of the game which should be con-
sidered, but I do not agree with them. No
one can be considered a really high-class
golfer who cannot play well at either form of
the game.

In tournaments it is popularly supposed
that the players are drawn by chance to play
as partners on the qualifying round, but the
Goddess of Fortune usually receives a little
aid from the tournament committee in making
her selections. This is quite as it should be,
for the entry list contains players of every
imaginable amount of ability, and to force
a first-class player to play with a fourth-rank
enthusiast, who has entered in hopes of a
miracle happening, is manifestly unjust to
both, — ^to the best player, because the poor

168 GOLF FOR WOMEN

play of her partner makes her play carelessly^
and a little sympathetically, as it were, while
the poorer player, after a few holes, becomes
demoralized at the superior play of her
partner, and “presses” in a vain attempt to
hold the same pace, with the consequence that
she returns a score several strokes worse than
it should be.

The question of whether or not the draw
for the match play should be ” arranged ” or
left solely to chance has many good argu-
ments on either side. Those who advocate
that it should be left to chance point to the
fact that sometimes one player will have a
series of desperates matches to reach the final
round, while the other contestant will have
a very easy time. A case in point is the na- .
tional championship tournament of 189Q,
when Mrs. Caleb Fox, the runner-up, in order
to reach the finals, had to meet Miss Beatrix
Hoyt (the title-holder) , Miss Marion Oliver,
and Miss Anna Sands, playing extra-hole
pith the two latter, while Miss Un-

TOURNAMENT PLAY 169

derhill, the ultimate champion, had a very
easy time reaching the final.

Another argument against the ” arrang-
ing” of the draw is that there are no two
women in America, who stand so pre-eminent
that it would be fair to put them at opposite
ends of the draw, and give them as easy a
path as possible to the finals. Such being the
case, it seems to me that the partners for the
qualifying round should be selected so as to
give each person as equal a partner as possi-
ble, but that in the match play chance should
decide the drawings.

In a tournament I believe that the best
way to do is not to try and defeat your op-
ponents by an overwhelming score, or to
strain every effort to leading the field in the
qualifying round, but to play along with the
greatest ease consistent with winning the
match or qualifying. In this way, when the
crucial test comes, you will be able to play
at your very best, whereas, if one has ex-
hausted one’s energies in breaking records

170 GOLF FOR WOMEN

and endeavoring to win by lo up and 8 to
play in eighteen holes in previous days, this
will be impossible.

To be a successful tournament-player, no
matter how skillful one may be, it is essential
to be able to use the occasion, and *’ play
better than one knows how,” as the sporting
papers say when the occasion demands it.
Women, I am proud to say, show a relatively
greater degree of nerve in golf than do men,
and particularly is this so when on the putting-
green.

CHAPTER XII

HAZARDS AND GENERAL REMARKS

IN the instructions which I have given in
die foregoing chapters I have written
upon the supposition that the ball is
lying upon the fair green and not in any
hazard. The definition of the latter is, to
quote from the rules of the United States
Golf Association, ” Any bunker, water (ex-
cept casual water), sand path, road, railway,
whin, bush rushes, rabbit scrape, fence, or
ditch. Sand blown in the grass, or sprinkled
in the course for the preservation, bare
patches, snow and ice are not hazards. Per^-
manent grass within a hazard shall not be
considered part of the hazard.”

It will thus be seen that playing from a
hazard carries so many conditions that ability

to play out of one with the loss of but a stroke

171

172 GOLF FOR WOMEN

at most, or perhaps without any loss at all,
is a most valuable acquisition to one’s game.
As if the adverse natural conditions existing
in a hazard were not enough to handicap the
player the rules of the game provide that
notfiing in a hazard — such as a loose piece of
dead wood, a stone, or anything which inter-
feres with the performance of the stroke,
and which, when existing on the fair green,
can be moved — can be touched.

In other words, no matter how bad the
lie, the ball must be played as it is found.

And the point which adds difficulty to the
playing out of a hazard is that die rules pro-
hibit the soling of one’s club, the great ad-
vantages of which one does not realize until
one is deprived of the benefit of so doing. It
gives a steadiness to the stroke, an assurance
to one’s swing, and, above all, a confidence
which is worth a great deal. The most im-
portant consideration, when one finds the ball
in a hazard, is to get it out.

Of rourse if you can play it on the green,

GENERAL REMARKS 173
or if it is a hazard a long distance from the

cup, get a shot of considerable length on
the line to the hole, so mujch the better, but \i
this is impossible to do, be satisfied to get well
out. It is much better to get well out, playing
the ball in a directly opposite direction to the
hole, than to play it straight for the hole and
run a risk of not getting out. This applies
only, of course, as a general thing. There
are cases when it is do or die, and then every
chance must be risked.

As an instance, suppose you are in a bunker
before a hole and playing 2 more than your
opponent, who is on the green, and prac-
tically sure to go down in 2 more.

Your only chance is to get on the green
from the bunker, and trust that you can get
down in another, so that your opponent will
miss her putt and give you a half.

If playing medal play it would probably
be better to play back, and surely get on in
the next, than to run the risk of not getting
over, for by that time you would have played

174 GOLF FOR WOMEN

so many more that the hole would surely be
lost. That is, supposing you are playing
match play.

An alternative to either playing back or
directly from the hole is to play over at an
angle.

If, however, there are reasons, — such as
hazards on either side, or whatsoever it may
be, — that cause you to decide not to try and
play off at an angle, and you are going to
play back, be sure that you go back far
enough.

It makes no difference whether you have
to play a mashie-shot of ten or of twenty-five
yards; and if you hit at the ball with a deter-
mination to go the latter distance, you are
pretty sure, even if you foozle, to go the
former, while a foozle from a shot meant for
the lesser distance will probably fail to get
out of the hazard.

It is also well to remember this point if the
green is a long way off, for if one plays back
far enough to use a driver or brassey instead

GENERAL REMARKS 175

of a mashie, the extra distance the wooden
club will give will more than make up for the
extra distance back one must play in order to
be sure of clearing the bunker with it

Playing from a bunker requires a very
different sort of stroke than does playing a
ball lying in the fair green.

For a bunker shot it is not desirable to
hit the ball cleanly, as it is when in the fair
green. On the contrary, the point is to hit
behind it and cut through the sand.

In playing a bunker shot it is usually diffi-
cult to get a firm stance, for the soft sand
gives under your feet as the weight of the
body swings over to the right, no matter how
firmly one may think one is standing. It is
well, therefore, after obtaining the stance
wanted, to work one’s feet into the sand, and
get as near the foundation of the bunker as
possible. It is also advisable to place the feet
a little further apart than usual if one can
feel natural and at ease when so doing, but if
not, then use the regular stance.

176 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Grip the club firmly with both hands, for
the stroke to be made is one of brute force.
All finesse and delicacy of touch are forgotten.
One must ” club ” the ball, and the more
vertical the swing the better.

It is because of this that many men who
have been baseball players, and then taken
up golf, play this sort of shot better propor-
tionately than they do any other, for the
swing is just like the one they learned when
playing baseball.

As it is the object to hit the sand behind the
ball and not the ball itself, the eye should
be fixed on a point an inch or two behind the
ball.

It is a good idea to hold the dub for a
second directly over this spot, being very
careful not to let it touch the ground, and
then swing it back as straight up as possible.
In learning to play bunker shots, the natural
tendency will be found to hit too near the
ball, if not the ball itself, for the one great
point which the learner has been trying to

GENERAL REMARKS 177

observe is to hit the ball, and therefore she
will instinctively keep on trying to do so.
Therefore it is better to try to strike the
ground a couple of inches back of where one
really wishes the club to come in contact with
it, in order to allow for the instinctive and
at first uncontrollable tendency to hit the
ball.

All the above points apply to bunker shots
when there is a cop two or three or more feet
high within a yard or so of the ball. When
it is lying in a trap bunker, as are called those
which are merely shallow sand pits without
cups around them, a rounded swing, more
like that used for a fair-green shot, may be
used. One may also return to the original
principle of hitting the ball instead of back
of it, except that it is well to sclaff a little.
When the ball is in long grass the same prin-
ciples should be employed as when it is in a
bunker, — that is, the straightest possible
swing should be used, and the ground struck
a few inches back of the ball instead of the

178 GOLF FOR WOMEN

ball itself. The reason for this is that if the
rounder and longer swing is used, the grass
is apt to catch it and break its force, and even
if the force is not broken, to deflect it from
its course. Another point to remember for
use in an emergency, both when playing from
a hazard, and at any other time, is that by
turning the face of the club the ball can be
made to fly at an angle, even when played
with a straight swing, and this knowledge is
often handy when there are trees or fences or
other obstructions which make it impossible
to play a full stroke in the direction in which
it is wished to send the ball.

Another point which most beginners seem
to find impossible to comprehend is that the
loft which its maker gave to a mashie or
niblick is quite suflicient to loft the ball when
it is struck with the ordinary stroke. Why
this is such a difficult matter to understand
I cannot imagine, but it Is a fact that nine
out of every ten players make the mistake.
That it is one, a moment’s reflection will

GENERAL REMARKS 179

show, for if the club’s face were not made
as it is for just this purpose, why should it
be changed from the straight face of a
cleek?

Under no circumstances, therefore, try to
make a swing which will aid the ball to rise
— all that you need to do is to play the stroke
correctly and see that you hit the ball.

Of course if you are within a couple of
feet of the high bunker, and it is surely a
case of ” lost hole,” unless you clear it, it is
advisable to turn the club in your hand so as
to lay back its face a little, and to stand a
little further behind the ball than usual, but
under ordinary circumstances the club’s face
will do all that is required, provided you hit
the ball squarely

CADDIES

The question of a caddie is a serious propo-
sition, and it bears a very prominent relation
to one’s game. This is true of masculine
golfers as well as feminine, in a measure, but

180 GOLF FOR WOMEN

its importance is much greater with the latter
than with the former.

The reason for this is merely a question
of temperament. Men by all the laws of
nature and science are much more independ-
ent and self-reliant than women, and conse-
quently they are much less apt to be influ-
enced by the actions of their caddies.

The duties of the caddie, to quote from
the formal language of the United States
Golf Association rulings, are simply to carry
one’s clubs ; but besides this he may give ^
advice.

There has been considerable discussion
aroused at the National Women’s Golf
championship of the past two or three years
over the question of caddies, but it seems to
have worked out its own salvation. The ar-
gument first started over the fact that a
number of the contestants in the tournament
had excellent amateur golfers to carry their
clubs and act as advisers. This was all very
well for those who had plenty of friends at

GENERAL REMARKS 181

their call who could play good golf, but not
every contestant was in so fortunate a posi-
tion, and some of those who were not tried
to equalize matters by hiring professionals.

I can see no reason why this was not quite
as fair as it was to have a first-class amateur
act in that capacity, for, while the professional
might be a little better player, he would be no
better coach and have no better judgment
than the amateur. As a matter of fact, he, in
all probability, would not have the ability to
inspire anything like the steadiness and con-
fidence which the amateur, from his superior
intelligence, would, and so would not be so
useful at a most essential part of the duties
of a caddie. Very few of the players seemed
to realize this, however, and some rather
severe criticism has been hurled at those who
have had professionals to carry their clubs in
tournaments. The chief accusation seems to
be that it was taking an unfair advantage.
This it might be were only one player to do
so, but when more than half of the chief con-

182 GOLF FOR WOMEN

testants are doing it, I must confess I cannot
acknowledge the justice of the insinuation.
If everyone would agree to abolish every kind
of caddie except the regulation small boy, who
is merely useful as a means of propelling
one’s bag of clubs over the links, well and
good, but until there is some such agreement,
I think the matter is one of individual choice,
and all players should be left to decide the
point for themselves. Precedent certainly
indorses the employment of professionals, or
anyone else whom the player wishes.

There has never been a question raised in
America as to a man’s using a professional if
he so desired, and it has been done very fre-
quently. Why, therefore, it should be con-
sidered unfair or unsportsmanlike for a
woman to have her clubs carried by the best
caddie she can obtain I cannot understand.
Not only in tournaments, but in general play,
does the caddie play an important part. If
he is a good one he is of much service, but I
would much rather, and I think that nearly

GENERAL REMARKS 183

all players will agree with me, play a round
with no caddie at all in preference to having
a poor one. There really are no good
caddies in this country except professionals.
The average caddie on an American course
is a boy ranging from ten to sixteen years of
age, who looks upon the carrying of clubs
as an irksome means of making money, and
a thing which must be shirked as much as
the good nature or ignorance of the player
for whom he is carrying will permit. He
knows nothing of the game. He is unable
to tell you whether the distance of any shot
is such that you should use a mashie or a
driver, and, above all, he never knows how
many strokes your opponent or even you
yourself have played.

He insists upon lagging about ten yards
behind you, and annoys you not only by his
indifference in this respect, but never under
any circumstances handing you the club neces-
sary for the shot, even if you tell him yourself
which one you want.

184 GOLF FOR WOMEN

The simplest part of his duty, building
your tees, he cannot do properly; and if you
are foolish enough to try to have him do it,
he will either build you a miniature mountain
of sand, or else put down such a tiny pinch
that you will be forced to sclaif badly in order
to hit the ball at all. As for finding your ball
after a shot, the average caddie never thinks
of such a thing. If you are fortunate enough
to have driven it straight down the fair
green, where it is in plain sight, this negli-
gence of his will not prove costly, but if a slice
or pull or a bad bound has sent it off the
course into long grass, or any other place
where it will be difficult to see readily, the
caddie will be the most absolutely helpless
and ignorant person as to its whereabouts of
anyone on the entire links. I have never had
the pleasure of playing golf across the ocean,
but from what I hear, the caddies over there
are the exact opposite of the boys who make
life for the American golfer a round of
misery. There the caddies begin to carry

GENERAL REMARKS 186

clubs when they are as young as our Ameri-
can caddies, but, unlike them, they do not
give it up at the end of a year or two. On
the contrary, many of them have spent their
entire lives carrying golf clubs, and they
know every inch of the distance and every
spear of grass on the courses. They know
even better than you, perhaps, what club you
should use for each and every shot, and they
are as keenly interested in your play and as
jubilant over a good score as you ever could
be yourself. A lost ball with one of these
old Scotch caddies is an almost unheard-of
occurrence, while I do not suppose there was
ever one known to annoy his employer by
lagging behind during the round. How to
obtain a class of caddies of this caliber is
one of the great problems of American golf,
and until it is solved the game will lack the
very highest acme of enjoyment.

Conditions might be very much improved
If the professional of each club would hold
a sort of school for fifteen or twenty minutes

186 GOLF FOR WOMEN

each morning as soon as the caddies reach the
clubhouse. He could explain to them just
what their duties were, what they should do,
and how they should do it, and if every club
would adopt this idea, there is no doubt but
that the caddie service would soon reach a
much higher plane than it has at present.

BALLS

The evolution of the golf-ball has been

rapid and radical in its development. For

a great many years golf-balls were made by

taking a round leather cover and stuffing it

1 of feathers, pounding them down so that

‘eral quarts of feathers were compressed

o a globe about an inch and a quarter in

[meter.

After using this kind of ball for years and
irs, someone discovered that gutta-percha
luld make a much more lively and mudi
»re durable ball than the one of compressed
ithers; and although its introduction was
terly opposed by the best players of the

GENERAL REMARKS 187

time, its qualities were so superior that it
quickly won its way, and for a long period
of time was the standard ball. There were
a great many makes, and they were made
with different varieties of ” nicks,” and all
were about equal in desirability and excel-
lence.

No one thought that there could ever
be an improvement made upon the gutta-
percha ball, but during the last three years
Yankee genius has invented one which is as
much superior to the ” gutty ” as the
” gutty ” was to the old feather ball. It is
made by taking a rubber core, and winding it
with a thread of pure rubber until it is very
nearly the size required. (The regulation
ball is of 27J^ pattern, but there are some
used 27 size and a few 28.) After the thread
of rubber, tightly stretched across, has been
wound around the rubber core (the process
being done by machinery, of course, to secure
absolute mechanical accuracy), the ball is
incased in a thin shell of gutta. This shell is

188 GOLF FOR WOMEN

not more than about one-sixteenth of an inch
thick, as its only object is to furnish a surface
upon which the nicks, necessary in order to
obtain the greatest flight to the ball, can be
made. Another consideration is that it may
save the rubber thread from being cut by a
stroke of the club, and by the stones on the
course. The difference between this ball and
the regulation ” gutty ” is, of course, in its
resiliency.

Experts who have used both balls differ as
to whether they can get a longer one from a
driver by using a ” gutty ” or the new rubber-
filled ball, but all agree that one can obtain
from ten to twenty-five yards farther with
the new kind from an iron-shot. For the
mediocre player there is no doubt that the
new ball is a distinct advantage. She
can drive . it much farther, whether she is
using a wooden or an iron club; it will roll
nearly as far after a topped shot as though
it had been struck truly; and, best of all, it
has a happy faculty of bounding along the

MISS RHONA K, ADAIR, PUTTING.

THE NE. .iV

\0RK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR. tENOX AND
TruDEN FOUNDATIONS

GENERAL REMARKS 189

ground and jumping over the bunkers, which
rejoices exceedingly the heart of a player
who is accustomed to spending a large por-
tion of her time in sorrow and sadness, striv-
ing to play the aggravating ball from the
hazard. It is not, however, so pleasurable a
ball to use as the *’ gutty,” if one is playing a
fairly good game, for a cleanly hit full shot
from the latter gives a click, as the ball and
club come in contact, which is the sweetest
of music to a golfer; on the other hand, the
rubber-filled ball flies off the club with a
soft, squashy sound, as though one had hit a
lump of putty. Still, it requires much less
effort to drive it than does the ” gutty,” and
as endurance plays a considerable part in
golf matches, this is a strong point in its
favor.

No matter how much cut is put on a high
approach shot, it is impossible to make the
rubber-filled ball drop dead, and on some
greens it is almost impossible to play it with-
out running away past the hole. However,

190 GOLP FOR WOMEN

its advantages much more than counterbal-
ance its disadvantages to my mind, and par-
ticularly so for women. All golf-balls should
be kept for some time before being used, the
” gutty ” ball from eight or nine months to
a year, and the rubber-filled ball a little less,
and all balls, no matter what kind, arc im-
proved by being remade. This can be done
by any golf-dub maker, or molds can be
bought for a few dollars in which a player
can remake the balls herself. Sometimes the
paint will chip off when the ball has been kept
for a long time, but this may be remedied by
dipping the ball in fairly hot water for a little
while, in order to moisten up the paint. Care
should be taken not to allow the ball to be-
come soft by staying in the hot water too
long, however, and in summer, during the ex-
tremely hot weather, it is a good idea to keep
one’s golf balls in as cool a place as may be
convenient.

After a ball has been used for a
:le while, the most satisfactory thing to do

GENERAL REMARKS 191

and the most economical as well, is to send it
to a professional or to one of the big ball-
making manufactories, and have it remade.
Any ball manufactory will do it for one dollar
to two dollars a dozen, or they will exchange
old balls for new ones. If, however, one de-
lights in trying to do things for one^s self, a
can of paint prepared especially for renewing
the whiteness of golf-balls may be purchased
at any golf-goods store, and the player can re-
paint them herself. The ball should first be
soaked in a solution of potash or lye until the
old paint has been entirely removed. Let
them dry for a day or so, and then they can be
painted, either with a brush or by taking some
paint on the palm of one’s hands and rolling
the ball around in them. About four coats of
paint will be required, and I think that one
experience at trying to become a golf-ball
maker will be all that anyone will require to
satisfy herself that this is a department of the
game better left to those who make a business
of it

199 GOLF FOR WOMEN

COURTESY

The etiquette of golf suggests many little
points of courtesy which any player of experi-
ence would, from instinctive good breeding,
recognize, but there are some little points
which, through carelessness, are not always
observed, and it would add much to the en-
joyment of those playing on the same links,
and detract nothing from their own pleasure,
if their attention should be called to them.
Of course any woman playing in a match
whose opponent lost her ball, would, from in-
nate courtesy, try to help her find it, and like-
wise, no one would think of leaving the tee,
having had the honor, before her opponent
had played, nor would anyone think, no mat-
ter how careless she might be, of moving or
speaking while her opponent was preparing
or making her shot.

All these and many more matter-of-course
courtesies are extended from one opponent to
another, but there are some courtesies due to

GENERAL REMARKS 193

the players directly behind one, and also di-
rectly preceding one, which are frequently not
accorded, and it is to these that I wish to call
attention.

If you are playing in a match, in which
your opponent is a very slow player, or if you
are one yourself, or if, for any reason whatso-
ever, you find that you are falling behind the
player just preceding you, and are, in conse-
quence, delaying all those behind you, it is
only the courteous thing to allow the player
behind to pass. So annoying and disastrous
to good play is it to all those behind that I
really think a rule should be framed providing
that any player playing so slowly as to compel
the player behind to wait, should be compelled
to give way, and let the fastest players go on.

As conditions are now, few players like to
request permission to pass a player ahead of
them, no matter how slowly the former is pro-
ceeding, and many players are offended at
such a request, thinking, most unnecessarily
and unjustly, that such a request is almost in

194 GOLF FOR WOMEN

the light of an insult, or at least a reflection
on their playing ability. Such is by no means
the case. It is simply a recognition of the fact
that some people naturally play faster than
others, and if by the luck of the start a slow
player begins her round early, she should be
considerate enough to allow anyone who plays
faster to pass her.

If the conditions are reversed, and you and
your partner are the faster players, you would
naturally appreciate such courtesy, but, on the
other hand, you should remember the feelings
of those in front of you. The rules of the
game provide that a player must not play a
shot until the players preceding have played
their second, but, unfortunately, this rule is
very frequently forgotten, or at least over-
looked.

CORRECTING FAULTS

No matter how good a player may be, there
will inevitably come a time when she will get
off with some club or another, and for a cer-

GENERAL REMARKS 196

tain time will be absolutely unable to make a
shot with it. The very best way to regain
one’s skill, when this unfortunate state of af-
fairs happens, is to take a complete rest and
not touch any club for several days, or, if one
feels that it is necessary to play, endeavor
not to use this particular club. If a little rest
does not put one back in form, take a dozen
old balls, and practice that one particular shot
for half an hour. In this way one will gener-
ally be able to discover what is wrong, and
this is not only the best way to practice to ob-
tain skill, but it is by all means the best way of
correcting faults.

CHAPTER XIII

GOLF COURSES FOR WOMEN

GOLF In America has spread to such an
astounding degree in the compara-
tively few years of its existence that
the links over which it is played are laid out
on any and all sorts of ground. In Scotland
and England the great majority of courses are
laid out on flat sandy ground, and one does
not have to use up the best part of one’s
strength in the physical exertion of climbing
up and down hill. Owing to the varying char-
acteristics of country in the United States,
however, many popular links are laid out,
from necessity, on ground which is so much
up and down hill that a woman is really tired
out from the exertion of walking before half
the course is played. Even for a man, it is

decidedly unpleasant to play over hilly links.

196

COURSES FOR WOMEN 197

For a woman it makes the sport so arduous
that it is only the most intense enthusiast who
will play very steadily or for a very long time.
In choosing, therefore, land on which to lay
out a golf links, the first consideration, in my
opinion, is to select ground over which it will
be easy to walk.

The ideal soil on which to lay out a golf
course consists of a sandy subsoil, with a
quick, thickly growing turf, a turf which will
give at the impact of a club and which will
grow again very quickly. This is the kind of
soil which is found in almost every instance in
England and Scotland, and it is only on ac-
count of the recuperative powers of the turf
there that permits of the really wonderful
amount of play which goes on all over the
foreign links. In this country Garden City
approximates more nearly the ideal turf than
does any other links, but the Chicago Golf
Club at Wheaton, the Apawamis, Nassau,
Morris County, Baltrusol, Glenview, and
Midlothian Clubs also have splendid turf.

198 GOLF FOR WOMEN

To my mind, turf is a secondary consideration
to a level or slightly rolling country, and I
should, therefore, place it in the secondary
point of consideration when fixing upon a site
for a course.

For the really scientific and high-class play-
ing of the game of golf it is absolutely essen-
tial that the distances and hazards of the
course be so arranged that every good shot is
rewarded and every poor one penalized. Un-
fortunately, there are very few courses in
America on which this is invariably the rule at
each hole, although the number of properly
laid out links is increasing every day. To a
certain extent the rubber-filled ball which has
come into prominence and popularity within
the last year or two is responsible for this state
of affairs, for playing with it, anyone gets a
longer shot, and this is particularly empha-
sized in the case of a woman. Consequently a
hole which, ^rfien laid out to be two full shots
with a wooden club, playing with the old
gutta-percha ball, becomes, when played with

COURSES FOR WOMEN 19d

the new one, a drive and iron shot, which, of
course, is a bad hole, for the reason that if the
drive is a bad one, one can still reach the green
by using a driver or brassey for the second
shot, instead of the iron, and thus be exactly as
well off at the end of the two shots as though
the first one had been played perfectly and the
second played with an iron. It is this sort of
thing which breaks a good player’s heart. She
says to herself, ” What is the advantage of
my making a drive forty yards further than
my opponent, if the latter can be on the green
in two, just as well off as I am, even though
she may have used a driver, while I played
with a mashie.” In laying out a course, there-
fore, the first thing to be considered is that
each hole should be one, or two, or three, or
four, as the case may be, full shots from tee to
green. In considering what distance a full
shot should be counted one must endeavor to
strike the distance which a first-class player
averages to drive. For a woman, i6o or 170
yards is a fair distance, and for a man 20 or

900 GOLF FOR WOMEN

30 yards may be added to that. In deter-
mining the distances of the holes, however,
the natural lay of the land must be taken into
consideration and, as in everything else, an
arbitrary rule must give way to common sense.
For instance, if the line of play is over a slight
down grade one can count on ten or fifteen
yards’ roll for the ball, while if it is over a
slight up-grade a similar distance must be
subtracted from the number determined upon
as the average full shot to counterbalance the
fact that there would be little less flight and
much less roll than if a shot were played on
an absolutely level piece of ground.

HAZARDS

The distances of the holes, however, are not
the only requisites for the laying of a first-
class golf links. The proper placing of the
various hazards which lend a spice and variety
to the performance of the shots play a very
important part in the construction of a scien-
tific course. In the first place, there should

COURSES FOR WOMEN 201

never be a hazard placed so as to endanger a
good shot, let alone trap a phenomenally good
one. This would seem to be the most ordi-
nary of common sense, but I have frequently
seen bunkers and hazards so placed that the
exceptionally long player was worse oif than
the short driven The fundamental principle
of arranging the hazards is to punish every
poor shot without placing any good shot in
jeopardy, and if this principle is kept firmly In
mind there will be comparatively little trouble
in arranging the course properly. A hazard
does not need to be formidable to have all the
effect which is its purpose. The moral effect
of a hazard is usually quite as great if it is
a bunker three feet high as if it is ten, and
as the moral effect is quite as important as the
material difficulty to be surmounted, the
smaller one is consequently quite as useful as
the other.

In my opinion it is not necessary or even
advisable to have hazards on a course from
which it is extremely difficult to get out.

803 GOLF FOR WOMEN

I think that one shot lost is quite penalty
enough in medal play, and, as for match play,
if one can’t win the hole after receiving the
advantage of a stroke, then one deserves to
lose it. In my tournament experience I have
seen so many first-class players fail to qualify
in a medal play round simply because one bad
shot landed them in a hazard so difficult that
it required six or eight strokes to get out on
the fair green again, and their chances for the
entire tournament or championship were lost
just through this one bad stroke. It was a
misfortune of this kind which caused Miss
Frances Griscom, then the title-holder, to fail
to qualify in the Woman’s National Cham-
pionship of 1 90 1, and many other nearly as
notable instances will be recalled by anyone
who has followed the tournament play of
American women during the past few years.
Not only should bunkers be made small
enough, so that a really good player can get
out in one stroke, but they should be turfed
over, and then a rule made that the ball should

COURSES FOR WOMEN 203

be played from where it lay, and not dropped
back a club’s length. Another point is that
for at least five or six feet back of the bunker,
in the direction from which the shot is to be
played, the turf should be taken up and the
hole filled in with soft sand, in order that one
can cut deeply under and behind the ball, and
thus get over the bunker, a thing which is
practically impossible when the soil is hard or
turfed.

The following table of distances should, in
my opinion, form an almost ideal course for
women’s play, although, of course, the nature
of the ground might cause some alterations to
be necessary:

I. — ^365 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
2. — ^340 yards, driver, brassey, 2 putts.
3. — 179 yards, driver, 2 putts.
4. — ^395 yards, driver, brassey, half-iron, 2

putts.
5. — ^320 yards, driver, mid-iron, 2 putts.

204 GOLF FOR WOMEN

6. — 465 yards, driver, brassey, mid-Iron, 2

putts.
7. — 280 yards, driver, half-iron, 2 putts.
8. — ^375 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
9. — ^400 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
ID. — 167 yards, cleek, 2 putts.
II. — ^335 yards, driver, cleek, 2 putts.
12. — 300 yards, driver, mid-iron, 2 putts.
13. — ^378 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
14. — ^350 yards, driver, brassey, 2 putts.
15. — 180 yards, driver, 2 putts.
16. — ^425 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
17. — 387 yards, driver, brassey, mashie, 2

putts.
18. — 343 yards, driver, brassey, 2 putts.
Total, 5984 yards. Bogie, 77.

IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICAN GOLF

BY MISS RHONA K. ADAIR

AM afraid that this is a pretty big subject
to write about, for, to tell the truth, my
individual impressions are not quite so
keen as they might have been had they not
been fogged a bit by the wave of pleasure and
all-round jollity into which I was plunged al-
most the moment I put foot on the steamship
dock.

Perhaps the best starting point is by a com-
pliment which I can pay with the utmost sin-
cerity to the American woman golfer. It is
one equally deserved by Mrs. Charles T.
Stout (who is, I consider, decidedly the best
American woman player I have seen) , and by
the poorest player that has been at any of
the courses over which I have played.

This is in regard to their pluck. Never in

a05

206 GOLF FOR WOMEN

all my experience have I seen such universal
grit, sand, or what I believe you call ” nerve ”
as is displayed by every woman golfer in
America. It is really astounding. I don’t
believe that there is a bad sportswoman in
America. Certainly, if there be one, I have
not seen her. In England it is very uncommon
to find a woman playing out a hole if she has
been bunkered, or was driven out of bounds,
or is for any reason whatsoever playing sev-
eral strokes more than her opponent. I find in
America, that with the never-say-die spirit
which I have always heard was typical of all
America, they keep right on playing until their
opponent’s ball is actually in the hole. Nor
does this apply to one hole only of a match. I
have seen women with a score of four down
and five to go staring them in the face tee
up with quite as much pluck and cheerfulness
as they showed on the first tee, and in a good
many instances with much more. That is the
spirit which wins golf matches, and while I am
loyal to the last to my home and friends, I

AMERICAN GOLF 20^

must in fairness admit that American women
seem better able to rise to a bad situation and
play ” better than they know how ” when such
a feat is demanded by the exigencies of the
score, than either English, Irish, or Scotch
women.

It may be that I have been particularly for-
tunate in the friends whom I have made in
America and in the atmosphere into which I
have been drawn at the tournaments I have
attended. But it seems to me that there is a
much greater degree of good-fellowship and
sociability connected with your meetings than
there is on the other side. During a match
there it is quite as unusual for opposing play-
ers to chat during the round as it seems to be
unusual here for them not to do so, and in this
way one, of course, gets much better ac-
quainted than is possible when a round is
made in silence, except for the formal cour-
tesies and speeches of the game. Then, too,
over here girls become better friends in a
week’s tournament than they would in Eng-

208 GOLF FOR WOMEN

land in two or three such meetings, and this,
it seems to me, is one of the most charming
features of American tournaments.

A point which seems most curious to me is
the difference shown in dress when golfing by
American women. At home we wear about
the same things whether the weather is pleas-
ant or unpleasant. Over here, it seems to me,
the girls pay rather more attention to their
clothes and general ^’ get-up ‘* when the sun is
shining than we ever do. But they also go to
the other extreme, and when the weather is
unpleasant they simply do not care what they
wear.

In England, dowdy and careless in
dress as we are supposed to be, I have never
seen women in such unbecoming and careless
and rough costumes as I have seen here. So
far as the nature of dress for play is con-
cerned, I think we all dress about alike. A
heavy pair of boots, any kind of a short skirt,
and a waist which leaves one free for a good
full swing are all that are necessary, and they

AMERICAN GOLF 209

are alike the world over. It is more common
for women to wear gloves on the other side
than it is here, I think, and that little detail
is simply another link in the chain of plucki-
ness of which I spoke above, the inference
being that the American woman would rather
take the trouble to massage and manicure out
the grime which she is bound to accumulate
without gloves than to run the risk of spoiling
a shot by a glove slipping in her grasp. So
far as clubs are concerned, I don’t see any ap-
preciable difference in those made here and
those made on the other side, although per-
haps we at home use a slightly lighter club
than the average woman here. < After all,
though, a good club's a good club, and must
be suited to its owner and no one else.

Of the American courses I have nothing
but praise. They far exceed what I had been
led to expect, and while improvements could
be suggested, one or two at which I have
played rank quite on a par with the best links
abroad.

210 GOLF FOR WOMEN

Of course the nature of the soil is different,
and so are th^ turf and putting-greens, but
the latter average to run quite as true as ours
at home, although they are not, as a general
thing, so large. I think that the average of
putting should be better here than in Eng-
land, for the reason that your greens are much
slower than ours, and the slower the green the
harder one can hit the ball.

I have been simply astounded at the excel-
lence of links which I have been told were
only three or four years old, for we believe
that a course must have been played over
several years more than that number to reach
its greatest perfection. Should some of the
links I have seen improve in the next few
years as much as they have in the past, they
will be the best in the world.

American men may have an advantage over
our masculine players through using a rubber-
filled ball, but our women have adopted it al-
most altogether, and I think that its use not
only improves one's game, but adds a deal of

AMERICAN GOLF 211

enjoyment to playing, as with it one is not
compelled to exert anything like so much
strength to achieve the same results.

This is a valuable point in any country,
but particularly so in the United States, where
I find that the climatic conditions are such
that physique plays a very important part in
one's golf. I think it is no exaggeration to
say that it takes more strength to play an
eighteen-hole round in the United States than
to play thirty-six holes at home, and this is
due solely to the atmospheric pressure and not
to any appreciable difference in the lie of the
land.

Despite this fact, however, I do not think
that there is much difference in the length of
carry one obtains from a shot, the ball fly-
ing to all practical purposes as well here as at
home.

It is because of the fact that thirty-six
holes of tournament play are too much to
ask of a woman in America in one day that I
think that the qualifying round, as you play it

218 GOLF FOR WOMEN

here, is a decidedly necessary adjunct to tour*
naments. I thoroughly believe that matdi
play is the truest golf, and hope that at home
we shall always decide our tournaments by
it exclusively; but with the big fields which
you turn out here, one of three things must be
done in the decision of tournaments. Either
there must be two rounds of eighteen-hole
matches each day; tournaments must last two
weeks, or there must be a qualifying round,
and this last is, by all odds, the best alterna-
tive.

There are, of course, other arguments in
favor of the qualifying round aside from the
one of time-saving.

In the first place, it teaches carefulness and
steadiness, and steadiness is what the Ameri-
can player lacks more dian any one other thing.
Match play, widi all its advantages, does in-
duce a degree of carelessness in play when one
feels that a hole is hopeless from the fact that
one says, " Oh, well, one hole — ^what does it
matter?" while in medal play, with every

AMERICAN GOLF 213

stroke counting, a moment's carelessness may
mean loss of the medal or tournament.

One great fault, which it seems to me is
very prevalent in America, is in the fact
that American women devote too much time
to perfecting themselves in one stroke, and not
enough to the all-round development of their
game. I have found, in consequence, that the
women here can average a much better drive
than they can any other shot, for, as driving
is the most pleasurable part of the game, they
have developed their skill at that, without re-
gard to iron-shots or putting.

American women really drive quite as well,
if not better, than do English women, and,
for this reason, I am convinced that the time
is not far distant when the standard of skill
will be as high on'this side of the ocean as it
is on the other. If a team of six or eight
American women come abroad next year, as I
hope they will, I expect our team to defeat
them, but from what I have seen here we shall
have to bring out our very best players and

214 GOLF FOR WOMEN

have them at the very top of their game to do
so.

By all odds the best woman player in the
United States whom I have seen is Mrs.
Charles T. Stout. I consider her, all things
taken into consideration, a wonder, while
Miss Margaret Curtis is a phenomenal driver,
and at times an extremely brilliant player.
She is so erratic, however, that she can-
not be considered as being in Mrs. Stout's
class.

In fact, Mrs. Stout, I have been told, was
considered by all good judges here to be quite
in a class by herself, and from what I have
seen I am quite prepared to accept their ver-
dict as being true. Never have I seen a player
display more ideal form than does she in every
particular, and, in my opinion, she is quite the
equal of any woman golfer in the world. Her
play is a worthy model for every woman to
pattern after, and, should she come abroad
next year for the Ladies' English champion-
ship, she would have a chance second to no

AMERICAN GOLF 215

one's of winning it. Besides the beautiful
style in which she plays, the main beauty of
her game is that it is so evenly developed, and
not one stroke perfected at the expense of
others.

Of the American Amateur champion, Mr.
Walter J. Travis, I can only express admira-
tion. His game, while not as good relatively
to that of our best amateurs, as is Mrs. Stout's
to our best women's, is one which deserves the
highest consideration in any company, and
when I was told that he did not begin to play
golf until several years past thirty, I was more
than amazed.

I have seen very few other of the high-
class amateurs play here, but from what I
have heard of the way Mr. Travis outclasses
them, I do not think that they rank so well
relatively with our amateurs as do the women.

SHOT MOST NECESSARY

In considering such a point as this, it must
not be overlooked that on any links, and under

216 GOLF FOR WOMEN

any circumstances, it is putting which wins the
match.

In America, as I said above, it strikes me
that women and men, too, pay far too much
attention to driving, sacrificing everything to
it, while at home, if any stroke is practiced to
an undue proportion, it is putting. From the
nature of the majority of the links over which
I have played in America, I should say that
ability to play a low, roUing-up approach shot
would be as useful a shot as anyone could
name. I had been told before my arrival that
I would have to pitch up all my approach
shots, and .endeavor to have them drop dead,
but I found that a running-up approach suf-
ficed in most instances.

CADDIES

Really, the only thing in which I found
America much behind us at home was the
caddies. \

Much as I hate to seem unpleasant or cap-
tious, I must say that I consider the genus

AMERICAN GOLF 317

caddie, as found on American links, the worst
fraud ever perpetrated. They know nothing;
they are lazy and indifEcrent, and it is almost
as much trouble to make them keep up with
one on the journey round the links as it is to
caddie for one's self. Generally they do not
know one club from another.

At home the caddies are usually men who
have been bom and brought up on the links,
and are really almost as much use to a player
as a professional is here. They are uniformly
faithful and courteous.

'1 ^ " :

^ .- ¦ A - ^

Hints to Golfers

By NIBLICK

Tall i2mo. Illustrated with Marginal Sketches and Diagrams

Nety $1.25

FOR SALE NOW AT ALL BOOKSTORES

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IFHAT PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS SAT

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THE LIFE STOR Y OF TWO ROBINS

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Golf Seminar: Golf For Women- Mabel S. Hoskins- 1916

coolhq — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:32:13 +0000

GOLF FOR WOMEN

A WOMAN GOLFER

Mabel S. Hoskins

1916

PREFACE

It might seem at first thought that, consid-
ering the great number of books on golf that
have ah*eady been written by the most famous
masculine players and students of the game,
a book especially for women is unnecessary,
and cannot hope to compare in usefulness
with the dicta of the great ones who have so
amply set forth the facts concerning their
theories and their practices. There is an-
other aspect of the subject, however, that has
for some time appealed strongly both to my
reason and to my imagination and has led me
finally to write this book.

There can be no doubt that all beneficent
development comes from within. It is the
will to learn and the will to do that are the
real basis of advancement. The words of a
Solomon falling on ears that are accustomed
to another language have no enlightening
effect, but the simplest explanation made in
a familiar tongue will accomplish what reams
of incomprehensible wisdom could not.

Like most analogies this presents the case

Til

viii Preface

in an extreme form, but it is nevertheless true
that men and women do not speak entirely
the same language, and that their minds and
methods run along in quite different channels.
It is for this reason that what men write for
women, in the real];n of sports, is so often un-
satisfactory to a woman.

To-day women are thinking for themselves,
acting for themselves and writing for them-
selves. They have entrusted their problems
to the minds of men for generations, but they
have now awakened to the fact that what is to
be done well for oneself must be do^e by
oneself.

Thus it follows that now, more than ever,
women must help one another and, by helping
one another, help themselves. They are
grappling problem after problem and, as time
goes on and their experience and strength
grows greater, they are approaching each one
with a clearer eye, a saner mind and a more
firmly established sense of proportion. One
of the most significant signs of women’s ad-
vancement is the fact that they now realize
their limitations as well as their capabilities.
The mistakes of some of the enthusiasts dur-
ing the earlier period of the feminist move-
ment are now things of the past, and must be

Preface ix

regarded merely as stepping stones to the
firm rock of mental poise and practical ef-
ficiency.

The foregoing may seem to be a digression
from the subject immediately at hand but it
serves as the real explanation of why I am
writing this book. I feel that, as a woman,
I understand a woman’s needs better than can
any man and can, therefore, I hope, be of
real assistance to the ever growing number of
women golfers in this country.

That the game of golf is taking a more and
more prominent place in the list of women’s
sports each year there can be no doubt.
Women are both playing and studying the
game more seriously than ever before. The
fact that the English women players on the
whole excel the players of the United States
should be an encouragement to the women on
this side of the water, because the English
women have been at the game longer than we
have and, therefore, show us what may be ac-
complished. Before long, perhaps, we may
be able to overtake their lead; in fact, I think
there is very little doubt that this will be the
case.

There is one advantage that English
players (and with them I mean to include

X Preface

both fhe Irish and the Scotch) have over
Americans and that is the climate of their
country. I have never heard any one make a
point of this fact, but I think there can be no
question but that the atmospheric conditions
in the British Isles are more conducive to
good play than they are in this country. Our
clear, brilliant sunshine, our intense heat in
the summer and nipping cold in the autumn
do not offer such favorable conditions for
golf as the more dull and equable climate
across the water. Every one knows that it is
easier to play on a gray and misty day than
in dazzling sunlight, but our “gray and misty”
days are rare, while they are so comimon as to
be almost the rule in the islands embraced by
the Gulf Stream. While this peculiarity of
climate is probably partly responsible for the
excellence of the English players, both men
and women, it is not of such importance as to
be an insuperable advantage and should not
cause us any discouragement.

I predict that it will not be many years be-
fore matches between men and women on an
even footing so far as sex is concerned will
be quite common. It will naturally follow
that a system of handicaps will be arranged
for men and women that will be based on the

Preface xi

player’s score regardless of sex. When this
comes to pass it will be seen that many women
will give their husbands a few strokes, and
many brothers will have to take a stroke or
two from their sisters. This state of affairs
will add interest to the game, because any
sport that men and women enjoy together
increases the pleasure of all concerned.
There will probably always be a few men who
regard golf as their especial prerogative, and
who will always resent the presence of women
on the links no matter what their qualifica-
tions as golfers may be. Fortunately, how-
ever, their nimiber is growing less.

I must say here that I believe that a
woman’s greatest handicap in the game of
golf, a handicap far more important than the
lack of physical strength that is so often
urged against her, is her lack of interest in
mechanical principles. Golf is, after all, an
extremely scientific game in which satisfac-
tory results can be obtained only by knowl-
edge of the actuating causes and consequent
results of each stroke. Women, on the
whole, are much more interested in effect than
in cause and, therefore, will play on, blindly
striving to accomplish certain things, without
taking the time or thought necessary to

xii Preface

analjrze the methods by which such results
must be obtamed.

It is to beg women to understand more
clearly the purpose underlying the construc-
tion of each club, the effect of each club upon
the flight of the ball, and the reason for each
one of the series of movements by which she
herself accomplishes a shot, that I am writing
this book. If I am able to clear away any
problem that has troubled a player’s mind
and to show her that what she had thought
difficult to understand is, after all false
notions have been relegated to the rubbish
heap, quite simple and comprehensible, I
shall feel that I have not written in vain: if,
further than this, my suggestions and my
reasoning should awaken any woman’s intel-
ligent interest so that she decides that she
will in future think out her problems for
herself, I shall feel that this book has accom-
plished its real purpose.

CONTENTS

FaBVAcx vH

CHAPTER PAGU

I Beginning the Game 1

II Putting 22

III Approach Shots 65

IV The Mid-iron and Cleek 84

V In and Out of Trouble 109

VI The Wooden Clubs 121

VII Special Shots 172

VIII Irregular Stances 107

IX What Produces Bad Form …. 207

X Some Women Golfers and Their Plat . 230

ILLUSTRATIONS

Mrs. Clarence H. Vanderbeck Froniiipieee

FACINO

Mrs. Ronald H. Barlow 10

Miss Elaine Rosenthal 20

Mrs. W. J. Faith 30

Mrs. Blake 30

Mrs. J. £. Davies 50

Mrs. Ronald H. Barlow 50

Miss Marion Hollins 60

Miss Cecil Leith 70

Miss Lilian Hyde Feitner 80

Miss K. Harley 80

Mrs. Ronald H. Barlow 00

Mrs. W. J. Faith 100

Miss Muriel Dodd 110

Mrs. Dorothy Campbell Hurd 110

Mrs. C. H. Vanderbeck 120

Miss Marion Hollins 130

Miss Cecil Leith 140

Miss Marion Hollins 150

Mrs. Anthony J. Drexel 160

Mrs. Clarence H. Vanderbeck 170

Mrs. Dorothy Campbell Hurd 170

Mrs. Ronald H. Barlow 170

Miss Eleanor Gates 170

Elaine Rosenthal ..180

Illustrations

FACING PAOK

Miss Lilian Hyde Feitner 190

Miss Muriel Dodd 200

Mrs. H. A. Jackson 210

Mrs. George J. Goidd 220

Mrs. Lilian Hyde Feitner 230

Miss Marion Hollins 286

Mrs. Ronald H. Barlow 242

Mrs. Clarence H. Vanderbeck 248

Miss Marion Hollins 254

Miss Gladys Bayenscroft 25S

GOLF FOR WOMEN

BEQINNINO THE GAME

NOT being a psychologist I cannot ex-
plain the reason, but I am sure that
every one has had the same exper-
‘ ience in regard to things that are committed
to memory in childhood and those learned in
later years. A proverb, a rule of grammar,
a poem memorized in our school days will re-
main fixed in our minds all through life, but
it is only those of us who have particularly
well trained minds that can, when we have
reached mature years, read a verse and, decid-
ing that it is worth remembering, repeat it in
its literal form after a few days have passed.
So it is that the things learned in childhood
seem to become part of one’s self, while
things learned during mature years are a sort

2 Golf for Women

of superstructure that may easily tumble
down. For this reason it is well to lay the
foundation of all games early in life when
the imitative faculty is strong, and when mind
and muscle fall easily into habits that, if per*-
mitted, cling all through life. Although it
is desirable to begin at an early age to learn
any game, it is especially advantageous in
learning to play golf. Golf is a game that
requires very exact coordination of the mind,
the eye and almost all the muscles of the
body. In other words, there are so many
things to be done at once that, if one had to
think of them all, it would be practically
impossible not to neglect something impor-
tant, and everything is important as there are
no trifles in golf. It is, therefore, necessary
to commit all the physical motions to muscu-
lar memory, if I may use the expression, so
that the mind may be left free to concentrate
on the one factor of prime importance, hitting
the ball.

Every one has seen caddies, sometimes lit-
tle fellows only nine or ten years old, surrep-

Beginning the Game 8

titiously swinging their employers’ clubs, and
has noticed the almost perfect form in which
fhey do it. When one realizes that almost all
the greatest professionals have been caddies
and have acquired their early training watch-
ing and imitating the best of the players that
have employed them, one can appreciate the
value of beginning early.

For a woman I believe the best age at
which to start a golf career is about fifteen.
The mind still has the imitativeness and
adaptability of childhood and the muscles the
flexibility of youth, while nervousness and
self -consciousness, two formidable foes, have
not yet made their appearance in the personal
make up. Unfortunately every one is not
able to begin at this early age and not doing
so does not preclude the possibility of acquir-
ing a good game, especiaUy if the beginner,
no matter what her years, will make a deter-
mined effort to approach the game ”as a little
diild” in spirit and will add that indispensable
factor of perfect golf, her own mature intel-
ligence.

4 Crolf for Women

The grown woman who wishes to start
playing, should immediately put herself into
the hands of a good professional teacher. It
is far better to go to some one whose business
it is to teach and who has had experience
along that line than to heed the instructions
of well meaning friends. It has been demon-
strated over and over again that even the best
players are frequently absolutely unable to
describe accurately theiy method of making
strokes, so it is not at all safe to suppose that
because a person can play well he or she has
also the faculty of imparting information to
others. The novice should select a teacher
who has had experience in teaching women
and should, if possible, observe some of his
pupils in order to judge the results of his in-
struction. She should keep in mind also the
fact that there are two sides to teaching golf:
one, the ability to demonstrate clearly what
should be done; and the other, the ability to
see the pupil’s faults and to correct them.
Many mstructors can tell a pupil what to do,
but when the pupil appears not to be getting

Beginmng the Game 5

the desired result, cannot perceive where the
fault lies and so correct it. Odce having
chosen an instructor, the pupil should put her*
self entirely under his tutelage and obey his
behests as well as in her lies. She should not
dispute with him at every point and above all
should never say or think “I can’t,” but, on
the other hand, she should not hesitate to ask
any question that comes to her mind. She
should know the “reason why” for every move
she makes, and no false shame at display-
ing ignorance should prevent her from ask*
ing even what may seem a foolish ques-
tion.

That the business of teaching women the
game of golf is not one without its difficulties
from the point of view of the instructor is
apparent from the rather rueful statement of
a well-known professional who says, “They
are hard to teach as from the first they per-
sist in forming theories of their own, which,
needless to say, are far from being correct.
. . . They are full of strange fancies, and
having once made up their minds on a certain

6 Golf for Women

point it takes the tact of a court chamberlain
and the diplomacy of a Bismarck to make
them alter.” This poor man apparently has
had many troubles, and his remark, though
probably not intentionally so, is rather a re-
flection on his pupils. There is no reason
why women should require at the hands of
their teacher diplomacy of any kind, and cer-
tainly ”strange fancies” have no rightful place
in a player’s mental equipment.

It is rather amusing to note what some of
the most famous professionals say about
teaching women. J. H. Taylor in **Taylor
on Golf,” page 106, says: “Ladies, however,
I fear are not always absolutely obedient to
the dictates of the tutor. They have prob-
ably spent more or less time upon the links
watching other players, and so have formed
opinions of their own as to how this or that
particular stroke should be played. Then,
generally speaking, the idea of a novice is al-
together wrong, and it becomes neqessary to
explain it away. This is always a di£5icult
task for an instructor, but it has to be done.

Beginning the Game 7

and once this feat is accomplished, the pupil
becomes terribly keen upon improving her
game by the regular methods. Once a lady
can be induced to think out what will be the
results of a certain method of playing a
stroke, it is quite certain she is more open to
conviction than a man, and she should im-
prove quite as rapidly in her play.”

Harry Vardon, in “The Complete Golfer,”
page 201, speaks rather more cheerfully of his
women pupils when he says: ‘” • • . I am
bound to say that for the most part I have
found them excellent pupils — ^better gener-
ally than the men learners. They seem to
take closer and deeper notice of the hints you
give them, and to retain the points of the les-
son longer in their memories.” So far so
good, but a little later, page 204, Vardon, on
further consideration of the peculiarities of
womankind, unfortunately feels it necessary
to add, “But it must be confessed that in too
many cases they do not treat the difficulties
of the game with sufficient seriousness, and
are inclined to think that they can get on best

8 Crolf for Women

in their own way and by the adoption of their
own methods.”

Throughout the chapters ^^for the ladies”
that are inserted in many of the books of the
most famous golf players and teachers, it is
apparent that the writers are somewhat vague
and troubled in mind as to what they should
say or leave unsaid. It is evident that they
wish to speak a kind and helpful word for
women, but it is equally evident that they
do not in the least know how to go about it,
and that they close the chapters with a feeling
of relief. Let us hope that they teach with
more conviction than they write; otherwise
their ^’learners” must have rather a discourag-
ing time of it.

When a woman engages the services of a
professional teacher her whole mind and at-
tention should be given to finding out every-
thing she can in the time at her disposal. If
she will do this assiduously and will practice
between lessons what she has learned, she will
soon become well grounded in the rudiments
of the game. When she has reached this point

Beginning the Game 9

she must keep on practicing patiently and in-
telligently, returning now and then to her
teacher for advice and criticism if she finds
she has unconsciously fallen into errors that
she cannot correct by herself. Golf is a game
that requires a great deal of practice at all
stages, even when one ranks as a really good
player. It is so easy to fall into careless
habits of stance or swing that there must
never at any time be any mental slackness
while playing, for, if there is, a carefully built-
up form will fall to pieces in a few days.

Speaking of form brings to mind an error
that many players make. They regard ^^good
form” as the goal to be striven for, whereas,
as a matter of fact, ”good form” is merely the
outward and visible sign of strokes made cor-
rectly as to stance, grip, swing, and timing.
If one learns to stand, to hold her club, to
make her swing and to time her stroke cor-
rectly, she will find that she has achieved
good form without being aware of it, but no
one can obtain *’good form” by trying to cul-
tivate it for its own sake.

10 Golf for Women

The first requisite in beginning to play is, –
of course, to have the proper clubs and balls.
In the selection of clubs it is best for the pupil
to be guided by the advice of the instructor
as he will know from his experience what
lengths and wei^ts will be most suitable.
It is well, however, for the pupil to have in
mind the fact that her clubs should be well
matched, and, for that reason, she should, if
convenient, get them all at the same time and
at the same place. This is not necessary, of
course, but, if the player wishes to buy her
clubs separately, she should have with her the
clubs she already possesses when selecting a
new club so that she can compare the new
with the old and match them accordingly.

For the player who is not under the im-
mediate tutelage of a professional I wiU make
a few general comments about the different
varieties of clubs and for what qualities they
should be chosen. The essential clubs are
the driver, the brassie, the cleek, the mid-iron,
the mashie, the niblick, and the putter.
These are the clubs most in use and are all

MRS. RONALD H. BARLOW
Stance and address for approach.

Begirmng the Game 11

that are really necessary, although as the
player becomes expert and feels the need of
other clubs for special situations there are the
spoon, the driving iron, the light-weight
mashie, the jigger, and various rather hybrid
dubs.

It is commonly supposed that a woman
shorter than the average should have clubs
correspondingly short and that a tall woman
should have clubs proportionately long.
This is just the reverse of the truth, especi-
ally as regards the wooden clubs from which
the greatest distance is expected. A mo-
ment’s consideration will show that a woman
shorter than the average will need a longer
club in order to give her a length of swing
that wiU enable her to compete with a taller
opponent, and, conversely, a woman with
long arms can weU afford to use a shorter
club. The average length of a driver, the
longest club, is from forty-one to forty-three
inches. The shaft should be slightly springy
and the “lie,*’ or angle between the head of
the club and the shaft, should be such that,

12 Golf for Women

when the player is addressmg the ball, the
sole of the club will rest evenly on the ground.
The face of the club should be slightly lofted
and should be neither very long nor very
short, as either extreme is apt to develop dif-
ficulties for the player.

The brassie should be of the same general
construction as the driver, the differences
being that the shaft is a little stiffer, the face
a little more lofted, and the club head, of
course, soled with brass. Braid says that the
shafts of the two clubs should be the same
length, but I believe that for a woman it is
just as well to have the shaft of the brassie
an inch or so shorter than that of the driver.

The iron clubs, beginning with the cleek
and proceeding in the order I have mentioned,
grow shorter as to shaft and more upright
as to lie until the extreme is reached in the
putter. It is advisable to select iron dubs
with the shorter and broader type of head
rather than the long, narrow one. Some per-
sons feel that a narrow-headed club gets under
the ball more easily and therefore raises the

Beginning the Game 18

baU more surely and also puts more back spin
on it than will a broader faced club. This is a
mistake, however, as the narrow-headed club
is inclined to cut under the ball entirely, while
a broader-faced club, if sloped back properly,
will raise the ball sufficiently, especially if
weighted correctly along the lower edge.
All iron clubs should have their faces scored
with some horizontal lines or squares as a
certain roughness of surface enables the club
to get a better grip on the ball and so put
on the desired spin. It is said that some old
Scotchmen deliberately allow their cluHs to
become coated with heavy rust in the belief
that they thereby obtain a better hold on the
ball, a practice that is followed by some play-
ers here.

This leads to the much-disputed question
of the marking of golf balls. Many persons
maintain that the brambly ball on account
of its rough surface wiU take more spin from
the club and will also hold its course more
accurately while in the air than a ball with-
out excrescences. It is a well-known fact.

14i Golf for Women

and one that has never heen satisfactorily
explained, that an absolutely smooth ball
will not maintain the course of its fli^t
so well as a rough one, but it has been dem-
onstrated recently that the brambly ball is
not the best solution of the problem. The
ball with indentations or dimples has been
found more satisfactory for several reasons.
Strictly speaking, the place of contact be-
tween a sphere and a plane is one point, but
as the sphere under consideration is resilient
and the plane generally meets it with decided
force, the point of contact, in the case of ball
and club, grows to a spot of some definite
size. It may easily be seen that a ball cov-
ered with excrescences will not leave the club
so smoothly as will a ball with a lined or dim-
pled surface.

During its flight through the air the bram-
bly ball does not excel the dimpled one in
holding its course, and, once on the green, it
develops a new shortcoming. The tendency
of the lumpy ball to rest on three of its points
may, especially on a hard, close-cut green.

BegimUng the Game 15

cause it to come to a stop before the dimpled
ball would in the same circumstances. Al-
though the difiPerence in length of roll be-
tween the two balls may be only the slightest
fraction of an inch, yet that little inequality
may mean the difference between dropping
into the hole and hanging on the edge. So it
is that the dimpled marking for golf balls has
become generally accepted as the most satis-
factory, although whether or not dents have
any superiority over transverse rings, such
as were scored on the old guttie balls, is open
to some question.

It is unfortunate that the manufacturers
of golf balls have not produced as yet a me-
chanically perfect sphere. The rubber-core
ball, the one generally in use, is made by wind-
ing on a small rubber core hundreds of feet
of rubber stretched under tension. The
sphere made in this way is then covered by
two hemispherical, gutta-percha shells which
are pressed on and cemented together. The
facts that a cube is often used as a founda-
tion, that the subsequent winding is not al-

16 Golf for Women

ways done sjnmmetrically and that the cover
is frequently of uneven thickness, result in the
balls being unbalanced.

It is especially important for putting that
a ball should be correctly centered because
otherwise it is certain to wander off its course
in a greater or less degree, depending upon
how unbalanced it is, with what force it is hit,
and the conditions of the green. For accu-
racy in rolling the old guttie balls are better
than the modem balls because, as they were
made of a solid lump of compressed gutta-
percha, they are practically sure to be evenly
balanced. They lack the resiliency of the
rubber-core ball however, and because they
will not spring off the club so elastically and,
therefore, cannot be driven quite the distance
of this new favorite, they have been relegated
to the background.

There is one subject on which it should be
unnecessary to speak even to beginners at
the game of golf, but which is neglected alike
by old players and those who are just starting
their golfing career : this is, having a thorough

Beginning the Game 17

and exact knowledge of the rules of the game.
Probably because counting the score is so sim-
ple and there are not so many “faults’* to be
considered as there are, for example, in the
game of tennis, players start out, and fre-
quently continue, without learning the well-
defined restrictions and regulations that are
laid down in the rules. Women are prob-
ably greater offenders in this respect than
men. There have been many instances when,
in a tournament, a woman has been humili-
ated by having her score questioned or re-
jected on account of an entirely unconscious
breach in the observance of some general or
local rule. The fact that the fault commit-
ted was a mistake of ignorance does not in
any way mitigate the mortification of the un-
fortunate offender, but it should make her de-
termine firmly never to be placed again in
such a position; strangely enough such a reso-
hition is not always carried out. It surely is
a simple thing to buy a copy of the rules of
the game and to study them carefully. Some
women I have known carry a copy of the rules

18 Golf for Women

in the pocket of their golf bags so that if any
discussion arises it may be settled immediately
without trusting to memory. This is a very
sensible practice and if, added to this, a
woman, when visiting a club strange to her,
will look over the local ground rules which
are printed on the back of her score card, the
possibility of a mistake on her part will be
eliminated.

There is, in a great many clubs, a rule that
women shall not play on Saturday afternoons,
Sundays, or holidays, except during such
hoiu^ as make the rule practically prohibi*
tive. This regulation is made on the theory
that women can play at any time, while men
have only their holidays and week-ends. It
follows that the links are crowded at these
times, so the women should keep away.
There is some justice in this position taken
by men, but it works out unfairly to a great
many women. There are, on the one hand,
an increasing number of women who work
during the week and therefore cannot play,
and there are, also, many husbands and wives

Beginning the Game 19

who are prevented by this rule from playing
together. It seems to me that it would be a
far more equitable arrangement if women
were allowed to become active dub members
by paying f uU dues, and to have the rule read
that any woman whose average score is under
a hundred or even one hundred and ten should
he allowed to play at any time. That would
eliminate any woman that could possibly be
accused of “^cluttering up’* the links. If it
is found that a club’s links are too congested
for comfort on certain days, I think it might
not be a bad plan to have a certain qualifica-
tion as to score required of men players.
This would probably raise a frightful howl
among the disqualified ones, but certainly an
arrangement by which poor players were
eliminated during crowded hours would be
much fairer than a prohibition based on sex.
In glancing over the index of this book it
may surprise some of my readers to find that
I have reversed the usual order of things and
have started with putting instead of with
driving, which is the customary method of pro-

20 Golf for Women

cedure. I am doing this for certain, well-
defined reasons, and I believe that, upon con-
sideration, almost every one will agree with
me that in learning to play golf the most sen-
sible and logical course is to do first that
which is the most simple and to progress by
natural stages to the most difficult. There
are now many professionals who are teaching
golf in this way and they are thoroughly con-
vinced by results that it is the most practical
system.

In no other sport does the beginner aspire
to accomplish the most difficult shots before
having learned the simpler ones, but there
is a certain fascination about swinging a
driver that lures one away from the less ex-
citing putter. Putting seems rather dull
sport When taken by itself and the beginner
is apt to get tired of it very quickly and to
long to get on to something else. If, how-
ever, one can muster sufficient patience and
self-control to practice on the green until a
fair amount of accuracy is achieved in mak-
ing short puts and long puts and puts on all

MISS ELAINE ROSENTHAL
Putting, stance and address.

Beginning the Game 21

varieties of slopes, a foundation will be laid
that will make the more complex strokes seem
easy as they are taken up one after another.
Putting compels concentration of mind»
delicacy and firmness of touch, a nice calcula-
tion of distance and slope, and, last, but per-
haps most important of all, it forms the habit
of keeping the eye on the ball. While put-
ting, the eyes of the player are immediately
above the ball and, as the body is held still
and the stroke is made principally with the
wrists and forearms, there is not the tempta-
tion to move the head and consequently the
eyes that there is in making the more ex-
tended strokes. In this way the habit of at-
tention, which is the greatest essential of the
game, is f ormed«

PUTTING

IT is surely time for the foolish attitude
of many good players toward putting to
be abandoned once for all. It reminds
me of the hysterical damsel who begged her
companion to protect her from “that horrible
creature with horns,” and, when her com-
panion pointed out to her the fact that the
horrible creature was nothing but a peacefully
grazing mooley cow that did not have any
horns, grew very indignant and said that all
cows had horns and that she had never heard
of one that did not.

In like manner many players, metaphoric-
ally speaking, throw up their hands when they
reach the green and act as though the
smoothly rolling turf and the innocent white
ball had conspired to defeat theur best en-
deavors. When they are reminded that put-

Putting 28

ting, after all, is rather a simple process, they
fall back on the assertion that some putters
are ‘lucky” but ding to their distrust of the
seemingly guileless ball and green.

Why the very best players have hypnotized
themselves into this helpless and hopeless
state of mind about putting is difficult to
understand, but their own writings testify
that they are suffering from some hallucina-
tion on the subject. J. H. Taylor, in “Tay-
lor on Golf,” page 88, says: “And here I
may say at once it is impossible to teach a
man to putt. Even the leading professionals
are weak in this department of the game. Do
you think they would not improve themselves
in this particular stroke were such a thing
within the range of possibility? Certainly
ihey would.” Later on he says: “Putting,
in short, is so different to any other branch
of the game that the good putter may be said
to be bom, not made.”

If one were to take Taylor at his word one
might as well give up putting before begin-
ning unless one discovered oneself to be that

24 Crolf for Women

phenomenon^ a bom putter. There would
then be occasion for great rejoicing because
against such an especially favored mortal the
conspiracy of the green could have no effect.

Harry Vardon believes that every one is
endowed by nature with a certain putting
style and it is quite useless for a teacher to
try to do more than help him cultivate his
own particular method. In ”The Complete
Golfer/’ page 148, after having referred to
his teaching of other strokes, he says: ”I have
no similar instruction to offer in the matter
of putting. There is no rule, and there is no
best way. . . . The fact is that there is more
individuality in putting than in any other de-
partment of golf and it is absolutely impera-
tive that this individuality should be allowed
to have its way.”

On another page he says: ”The heart that
does not quail when a yawning bunker lies
far ahead of the tee just at the distance of a
good drive, beats in trouble when there are
but thirty inches of smooth turf to be run
over before the play of the hole is ended.”

Putting 25

Truly, putting must be to him a fearsome
operation. It is remarkable that, after hav-
ing made these most discouraging statements,
these eminent players proceed to do the very
thing they say is impossible— tell their read-
ers how to put — ^yet they do this and fill many
pages with advice and instruction. Perhaps,
though theuLselves lacking in faith as to the
efiicacy of such teaching, they think that a
book on golf would seem somewhat deficient
if the subject of putting were ignored and
so seek to give the public what it wants,
whether or not they believe the public will be
benefitted thereby.

Whatever may be the opinions of these
well-known men, however, makes no differ-
ence to me in my present purpose. I believe
that any woman with sound faculties, mod-
erate intelligence, and patience may be taught
to put if she has the desire to learn and the
willingness to work at it. Of coiu*se there
are some women that pick up putting more
easily than others, just as some have more
aptitude in learning any game than their

26 Golf for Women

less-gifted sisters, oad these are the ones that
have in them the stufF of which exceptional
putters are made, but one does not need to
be an exceptional putter to play a very credit-
able game of golf. There are some sports,
such as shooting, for example, that seem to
require some special faculty that is difficult
to cultivate if one is not bom with it, but
putting demands only ordinary application
and a great deal of practice.

There are two qualities that a woman who
wishes to put well must make up her mind
to cultivate at the start, concentration and
self-confidence. It is a curious fact that
players, after having gone through all the
necessary preliminary motions, allow their at-
tention to wander when they are just about
to hit the ball. It is not that they actually
begin thinking of something else, but that
they ”let up” just at the crucial moment and
therefore make a weak, futile shot. That
this is true in putting more than in any other
stroke in the game is due to the fact that the
put is made slowly and deliberately, and that

Putting 27

it requires a distinct effort to keep tKe atten-
tion absolutely fixed from the taking of the
stance to the end of the follow through.

Probably it would not be necessary to make
a particular point of self-confidence if it were
not for the fact that there has been so much
silly talk about the strange and peculiar dif-
ficulties of putting that the average player is
in the state of mind of a child who has been
sent to bed alone, and who is afraid of the
dark; she is constantly dreading an indefin-
able something. It does not make a vital
difference if the player’s hands are a few
inches higher or lower on the shaft of the
club, or if her left foot is a little nearer to, or
farther from, the ball than usual, but the spirit
in which she undertakes to roll the ball into
the hole will make all the difference between
its getting there or not. The woman who
says to herself, ”I am going to make this put,”
will probably do so, whereas the woman who
says, ‘*Oh, dear, I shall never be able to do
this,” has practically failed already.

Do not think that I mean to say that it is

28 Golf for Women

easy to become a good putter. It is not.
The principles of putting are simple enough
and one can readily learn all the theory of it
in a very short time, but to become anywhere
near perfect in execution takes practice and
care and care and practice until one’s patience
is stretched almost to the breaking point.
However, although perfection can never be
attained, a sufficient degree of skill and ac-
curacy may be reached by any one who desires
it strongly enough.

There is an encouraging thought that
should cheer the player while she is f aithf uDy
practicing putting, and that is the fact that
she is meanwhile laying a sure foundation on
which to build up her other strokes. The
habits of close attention, keeping the eye on
the ball, firmness of grip, and accuracy of
swing and follow-through will become a part
of her golfing self and wiU make the subse-
quent, more complex strokes easy additions
to the structure of her game.

Putting 29

SELECTING THE PUTTEE

A chapter of considerable length could be
written on the different styles of putters that
have been put on the market and the various
theories of the people who have advanced
them. There is no other club about which
there is so much difference of opinion among
players and about which an individual player
changes her opinion so frequently. When a
player is putting badly, after she has blamed
every conceivable disturbing element for her
lack of success, she generally ends by decid-
ing that there is something wrong with her
putter. Grcnerally there is some well-mean-
ing friend at hand who suggests that she try
some other variety of club, which she straight-
way does. For a few weeks afterward she
will loudly proclaim the merits of her new
club, but later she will become dissatisfied
again and will try something else. This is a
very common coiu^e of procedure and one
which does not get a player any farther on
the road to consistently good putting.

80 Golf for Women

Of course, if a player is convinced that her
putter is wrong, the only sensible thing to do
is to cast it aside and get another, but the new
one should be selected with care and thought
so that it will surely meet with the player’s
requirements, and then it should be cherished
long and affectionately. Constant changing
of clubs cannot fail to unsettle one’s play and
to result in confusion of mind and inaccuracy
of stroke.

On the whole the putter that has the most
good qualities to recommend it is that with an
iron head of sufScient weight to feel firm in
the hand, the blade rather broad with the face
just lofted enough to be visible, and the lie
fairly upright. The length of the shaft de-
pends, of course, on the height of the player,
but it is well not to have it so long that in
playing short puts, when the hands are placed
somewhat down the shaft, there is so much
of the grip between the hands and the body
as to be awkward.

Some players maintain that a good piece
of the shaft extending above the hands acts

MRS. BLAKE
Playing a chip shot.

MRS. W. J. FAITH
Finish of put.

Putting 81

as a sort of counter balance and steadies the
club when a short put is being played. Oth-
ers daim that each player should have two
putters, one for long puts, and one for short
puts. Neither of these theories is altogether
correct. It is true that, when the hands are
down the shaft of the club, the club feels
lighter and more easily controlled, but carry-
ing this to an extreme cannot help resulting
in the projecting shaft becoming a nuisance.
On the other hand, there is great danger in
changing frequently from one club to an-
other when the conditions are very nearly the
same. The necessary physical and mental
readjustment is apt to give the player a feel-
ing of strangeness that will impair the deli-
cacy of her stroke.

Some time ago I had the opportimity of
observing closely a class of jewelry makers.
The novices were surrounded by rows of
shiny, new tools, and as they worked they con-
stantly laid down one tool and picked up an-
other. The master of the class, an old Ger-
man who had been making handmade jewelry

82 Golf for Women

for many years, had a few well-worn imple-
ments and he would rarely change from one
to another miless the character of his work
changed. It occmred to me then that the
finest workmen do not burden themselves
with a superfluity of tools and I believe that
the same principle holds good in golf. It is
better to have a few clubs, carefully chosen so
that they may be made to meet all possible
requirements, and to learn to use them ex-
pertly than it is to have a great number, each
for one specific situation, and to keep con-
stantly shifting from one to another.

In the past decade the character of the club
heads has changed somewhat. Both the iron
and wooden clubs have shorter and broader
heads than was formerly the custom. This
change is a marked improvement in club
structure. Taking the putter as an example
it is easy to see that a club of this class with a
narrow blade, even though it has very little
loft, strikes the ball below its center and so
has the tendency to give the ball back spin
which is exceedingly undesirable in putting.

Putting 88

If the blade is narrow and also has a decided
slope back it may even cause the baU to hop
off the grass. As the object in putting is t9
keep the ball close to the green and to roll it
smoothly into the hole, a narrow-bladed put-
ter is decidedly unreliable. Probably the best
way to determine the proper width for a put-
ter is to compare it with a ball. If the width
of the blade is the same as the diameter of the
ball, or even a trifle more, then the center of
the blade will meet the ball at the point far-
thest from the hole and the ball will be rolled
evenly forward.

There has been a certain vogue for wooden
or aluminum-headed putters, and many play-
ers claim that they find them very steady and
that the ball rolls off them more smoothly
than it does from the regular iron-headed va-
riety. Whether or not these qualities exist
is a question open to discussion, but there is
no doubt that there is a very decided objec-
tion to all broad-soled putters. The objec-
tion exists in the fact that the wide sole im-
mediately penalizes the slightest error at the

84 Golf for Women

moment of contact of ball and club, and in
beginning of the follow-through. If, for ex-
ample, a slightly faulty stroke is made with
an iron putter and the club is too much on the
rise at the moment of contact with the ball,
no serious trouble, in all probability, will re-
sult, but, if a wooden putter is being used, in
such a situation the back edge of the sole will
drag the ground. So, also, after the moment
at which the ball is hit, if the club is on an up-
ward sweep, the breadth of sole will cause the
club to be grounded. In other words the
broad-soled putter makes it necessary for the
sole of the club to be kept parallel with the
ground before and after the ball is struck;
this, of course, should be done, but the broad-
soled club leaves much less room for error
than the iron one.

TAKENTO AIM

The lie of the putter should be fairly up-
right so that the often cited, pendulum-like
motion may be maintained as nearly as pos-
sible. It is a physical impossibility to put

Putting 85

this simile into practical use in an exact form
as, if it were attempted, the hands would come
between the eyes and the ball, and a strange
and unnatural grip would have to be adopted.
It is obviously necessary that the hands must
be nearer the body than the ball and that the
body must be slightly stooped. Any extreme
of this stooping position may weU be avoided,
since an attitude that approaches a crouch will
certainly cramp the muscles of the entire
body and result in stiff and awkward play.
The slope of the shaft of the club away from
the perpendicular should, roughly speaking,
correspond with the slope of the body from
the hips upward so that as the player stands,
club in hands, her eyes will be directly above
the balL This last is a very important point
and deserves special consideration. If the
eyes are above the ball, then the eyes, the ball,
and the hole will lie in the same plane of vision,
and it will be comparatively easy to get an
accurate aim. Mr. P. A. Vaile, in “Modem
Golf” calls this the “triangle of vision,” and
I can think of no other phrase that expresses

86 Golf for Women

the idea so well. So far as I know there is
no other writer who has dwelt especially on
this method of insuring a true aim, but it is
so important that I must speak of it f uUy
even at the risk of appearing to borrow from
him. After all, a true aim is the most es-
sential quality of a successful put. The ball
may be tapped, orchipped, or pushed, in short
it may be hit any way at all and, if the di-
rection is correct, it has a good chance of go-
ing into the hole, but if the direction is faulty
the most perfectly executed stroke possible
will be futile. It is supremely worth ^ile
to take every precaution that will insure the
ball’s starting its journey in the line that will
lead it to the cup. *

The accompanying diagrams will show per-*
haps more clearly than words the usefulness
of the ‘^triangle of vision.” Let us look at
the green from a bird’s-eye view and consider
C the cup, B the ball, and A the eyes.

*•• •

Putting 87

In Figure 1 the eyes are beyond the ball
so that the player look’s back toward her feet,
down the line AB to see it, and then away
toward the hole, down the line AC. This
necessitates her looking down two different
lines, AB and AC, and makes the calculation
of the third line BC difficult. If, however,

Q f Ji^^ • — ^..^

^^ B

fhe eyes are directly above the ball as in Fig-
ure II the player is able to look along the in-
tended line of run of the ball instead of at
it, thus having a much better chance of get-
ting a true aim.

THE STANCE

Aside from emphasizing the importance of
having the eyes above the ball, there is not a
great deal that need be said about the stance
while putting. A great deal of latitude is
allowed for each person’s physical and mental
peculiarities. I might say that this latitude
is allowed by necessity because the players

88 Golf for Women

take it anyway. Nowhere in the game of
golf are so many mannerisms exhibited as on
the green, but so long as they are harmless
it is no use trying to correct them. It is, after
all, the results that count, and if players dif-
fer somewhat as to their methods it is of no
consequence so long as good results are ob-
tained. However, there are certain “don’ts”
that must be observed by any player who seri-
ously wishes to be a good putter. They may
be briefly stated: don’t cramp yourself; don’t
sway the body; don’t move the head; don’t
tap or shove; don’t forget to follow through;
don’t take your eye off the ball. If the ar-
ray of don’ts is carefully observed, the exact
position of the feet and body is not of im-
portance.

I believe, of course, that there is a “best
way” to stand as there is generally one best
way for doing anything, but because it is
most expedient for the majority does not
mean that it must be followed by all individ-
uals. It is well to notice, however, that the
greater number of good players stand with

Putting 89

feet far enough apart to give a firm base, the
left foot a little farther from the line to the
hole than the right, and pointing somewhat to-
ward the hole. This is a fairly open stance
and gives the player ease and freedom of
, movement. The ball should be a little nearer
the left foot than the right in order to avoid
the possibility of striking down upon it.

While speaking of the position of the body
to be adopted for putting, it may be weU to
add a suggestion that applies not only here
but to all the strokes of the game and that is
the fact that it is well at all times to keep
the line of the shoulders almost parallel to
the line in which the ball is to travel. Each
arm has a tendency to act as a check or pull
on the other, and, if the shoulders are out of
parallel, the inclination of the player will be
to pull the club in across the ball when the
left shoulder is too far back, and to thrust it
out across the ball when the left shoulder is
too far advanced. In order to overcome the
difficulties that arise from playing with two
hands supported from points approximately

40 Crolf for Women

eighteen inches apart, some players advocate
using the left hand as the master hand, others
advocate using the right. The fact remains,
nevertheless, that we have two hands to use
and that we use them both in playing golf.
It seems much more reasonable to use them
together as nearly as possible as one, so that
we may have the advantage of the double
strength where strength is needed, and a
nicely adjusted balance where delicacy is
needed, than to abandon at least part of the
usefulness of one or the other.

THE GRIP

It would appear that to hold a golf club
in the hands would be the simplest and most
natural act in the world, but from the endless
discussion that there has been on the subject
it seems that it is not. For reasons best
known to themselves, many persons have
spent a great deal of time trying to exagger-
ate the difBculties of golf. There is no one
who will deny that golf is a difficult game,
but it is the practice and not the principles

Putting 41

of the game that brings despair to the aspir-
ing player. A very little thought and study
will make any even fairly intelligent person
thoroughly conversant with all the simple
science of standing, holding, and swinging the
club, and hitting the ball. It is the skill to
put the theory into effect that is difficult to
acquire. After a player has read a helpful
book on golf, or has culled the best points
from several books, she proceeds to the links
feeling within herself the ability to play as
never before. When she finds that her score
is i>erhaps not so good as it was on her previ-
ous round she feels disgusted and discour*
aged. If she has changed her method of
playing in some respect, having been con-
vinced by her reading that she had been play-
ing wrongly, she is apt to declare that the
old way suits her and that she cannot do dif-
ferently even though her reason tells her she
is mistaken. Nothing is more fatal to one’s
game than to keep changing about, trying
first one thing and then another, but, on the
other hand, when the test of pure reason has

42 Golf for Women

been applied to a principle and it has been
found goody it is foolish to stick to mistaken
methods because, through habit, they have
becomei easy. If every player would apply
this test of reason to every theory she hears
or reads about and would discard all those
that do not bear the test triumphantly, she
would lighten her mind of much useless junk.
After having freed my mind to a certain ex-
tent by this digression we shall now consider
the grip of the club. It may be well to state
here that what I say applies to all other
strokes as well as to putting, as I believe that
any obvious change in the position of the
hands, while changing from one dub to an-
other, has an unsettling effect on the play.
The only variation in the usual grip that may
be advantageous for the shorter and more
delicate put is the dropping of the shaft a lit-
tle more into the fingers than is proper for
shots requiring strength for distance. This
variation is merely a suggestion and its adop-
tion may well be left to the inclination of the
player.

Putting 48

The grip that is used by most professional
players and is most generally advocated
among men is the overlapping or Vardon
grip. This grip is accomplished by holding
the shaft of the club, not in the palm of the
hand, but well down toward the fingers, the
right hand overlapping the left so that the left
thumb is buried beneath the right palm and
the little finger of the right hand hooks over
the forefinger of the left. It will be seen
that thus disposed, the hands act practically
as one and the wrists are brought so closely
together that they will of necessity bend in
imison. These are the two great points of
advantage in the Vardon grip, but there is
an objection to the Vardon grip that has pre-
vented its adoption becoming universal.
This objection is that the right hand is pried
away from the shaft of the club by the under-
lying left, and consequently the hold of the
right hand is considerably weakened. A man
with exceedingly powerful hands may be able
to spare a little strength, but not all men can
afford the loss and few, if any, women.

44 Ctolf for Women

Such well-known players as Mr. Harold
H. Hilton and Mr. John Ball do not use the
overlapping grip. James Sherlock says of
it that, ^’Its effectiveness depends entirely on
the strength of the fingers and forearm. It
would be useless for players to attempt it
who have no more power in their wrists and
fingers than I have.” Further on, “New
Book of Golf,” page 190, he adds, “There is
no need to think, however, that the overlap-
ping grip has any particular value over any
other grip.”

It is interesting to note that whereas Sher-
lock frankly admits that his hands and wrist
are not strong enough to make it desirable for
him to use the Vardon grip, Greorge Dimcan
insists that it should be adopted by women
players. In his second article on “Golf for
Women” in “Golf Illustrated,” he says:
“The overlapping finger grip will give aU the
power that is needed, and it has the over-
whelming advantage of allowing the player
to hold the club firmly without stiffening the
wrist and the forearm. In my opinion, there-

PufHng 45

fore, it is impossible to attach too much im-
portance to this particular point.” ^

When eminent players disagree about such
a fundamental point in the game as this, it is
rather discouraging to the beginner; sur-
rounded by so much diversity of opinion she
does not know where to pin her faith. The
majority of professional players among men
use the overlapping grip, but, on the other
hand, a number of very successful ones do
not. Among her own sex there is Miss Rav-
enscroft, the famous iEnglish golfer, who
places her hands on the club shaft in such a
way that they hardly touch each other at all.

In order to consider this problem of the
grip intelligently it is necessary to decide first
what is the prime essential of a correct hold
upon tiie club. There can be no doubt that
having the hands close together and the fin-
gers so disposed as to give them the advantage
of all their strength is absolutely necessary to
women players. To this end a modification
of the Vardon grip may be adopted. All
four fingers of the right hand must be firmly

46 Golf for Women

placed upon the club, and the little fingers im-
mediately against the forefinger of the left
hand. The thuTnb of the left hand, however,
may safely remain under the ri^t hand as
there is a natural groove at the base of the
palm that wiU allow the presence of the thumb
without loosening the hold of the right upon
the club. By careful study of this method
of holding the club it will be seen to have prac-
tically all the advantages and none of the dis-
advantages of the overlapping grip, and I
would strongly urge its adoption by aU women
who do not at present use it.

OBSERVING THE CONDITION OF THE OKEEN

We have now considered the stance for
putting, the grip, and the relative position of
the ball to the player, but there is one more
point to be thought of before the player actu-
ally makes her stroke; this is the condition of
the green. Whether the grass is short or
long, and whether the ground is damp or dry
makes a great difference in the amount of
distance the ball will cover, given a blow of

Putting 47

a certain force. It is a common occurrence
to hear players complaining of the fastness
of the greeii when their balls overrun the
hole, or of its heaviness when they find them-
selves “not up.** Such complaints should
never be made as excuses because, when a
player first sets foot upon the smooth turf,
she should carefully observe its condition.
In fact, if she has a short approach shot, she
would do weU to look at the green before her
ball is actually upon it, because a weU made
approach may often be run down in one
stroke, and thus one stroke of the traditional
“two on the green” may be saved.

TAKING THE LINE

The process of taking the line to the hole
is accompanied by a great deal of useless and
annoying delay by fussy players, but a cer-
tain amount of time may permissibly be spent
in standing or crouching behind the ball and
looking over it to its destination. The habit
of looking from the hole to the ball is one
that, so far as I can see, has little to recom-

48 Golf for Women

mend it. The different line of view does not
seem to have any particular advantage, while
the time spent in looking this way and that
tends to make the player self-conscious, and
certainly does not tend to make her opponent
more amiable.

SOLING THE CLUB

Having made herself aware of the kind of
grass over which her ball must travel, and hav-
ing aUowed a conception of the distance that
her ball lies from the hole to sink into her
consciousness, the player takes her position,
club in hands, and is about to play. But there
is one thing more before the put can be made:
that is soling the club so that the head of it
will be at a right angle to the ball’s intended
line of run. There can be no doubt that the
center of the face of the club head, considered
both longitudinaUy and vertically, is the point
at which it should meet the balL In putting,
any attempt to play off the toe or the heel of
the club is foolishness, and should not be con-
sidered for a moment. In ord^r to. get an

Putting 49

unobstructed view of the imaginary T made
by the face of the club and the line of run,
many players first sole the club in front of
the ball. Doing this is an unobjectionable
habit and, if it makes the player feel more
confidence in her aim, there is no reason why
she should not indulge in this practice. On
thinking it over, it would seem that the added
accuracy of aim that would be gained by
this unobstructed vision would be counter-
acted by the fact that the player must lift
the club over the ball before she makes her
stroke, and in so doing runs the risk of mov-
ing the club head ever so little out of its care-
fully arranged position. This question of
whether the club shall be soled before or be-
hind the ball, is, however, unimportant, and
may weU be left to the player’s inclination,

THE STBOKE

The line having been taken and the club
soled, the time has now arrived for the all
important put to be played. It has been
said so many times that the motion of the

50 Golf for Women

club head in putting is like the swinging of
a pendulum that no sooner does one think
“putting” but “pendulum” comes into the
mind as an immediate corollary. As I have
said before, this simile has been greatly over-
worked, and, at best, it does not bear too
close following. It is at fault in two ways:
one, that the wrists cannot be directly over
the club head in a manner corresponding to
the position of the point of suspension of a
pendulum over the weight; the other, that the
arc of a pendulum would graze the horizontal
plane over which it is suspended at only one
point and, being an arc, could at no time be
parallel to that plane, whereas the head of the
club during the correct putting stroke should
be carried along a line almost parellel to the
ground immediately before and after the ball
is struck. Thus it follows that this simile,
like so many others, is fallacious when ap-
plied too exactly; it serves better in convey-
ing to the mind the idea of smooth and even
motion, which is necessary to the proper ex-

MRS. J. E. DAVIES
Finish of an approach shot

g?^

., ^^^^^^H
^^^^^^1

I^^^^^HI^^^^^^^v^

MRS. RONALD H. BARLOW
A good tee siiot.

Putting 51

ecution of the put, than in giving a true pic-
ture of the stroke itself.

The factor of prime importance is that the
club should travel along the intended line of
run of the baU, and that line projected, both
before and after the ball is hit. The hands
should hold the club firmly yet delicately, the
body should be kept motionless, and the eyes
should be fixed upon that portion of the baU
which is furthest from the hole. The head
of the club should be drawn back near the
ground for several inches, the arms should
be steady, and the wrists allowed to do most
of the work. If the put is a long one, so that
there must be an extended backward swing,
the forearms must come further into play
during the movement of the wrists. It is ob-
vious that the put cannot be, as Vardon as-
serts, purely a wrist stroke, because if it were
the club would rise into the air immediately
after it leaves the ball, or, if the arc of the
club’s head should be in a plane more nearly
paraUel to the ground, the club, after having

52 Golf for Women

retreated a short distance from the baU, would
begin drawing in toward the body. Plainly
the forearm must be used if the club head is to
be kept in a straight line, both during the
backward swing if it is a long one, and es-
pecially during the follow-through, when the
arms must go out after the ball and the club
head keep in the line to the hole as long as
possible. I do not mean to say by this that
the putting stroke is in any way an arm mo-
tion. Accuracy and steadiness are gained
by keeping the arms as still as possible; the
wrists should be used first, then as much fore-
arm as is necessary to keep the club head in
a straight line, and, last of all, and this only
in case of an exceedingly long put, the upper
arms may come slightly into action. To be-
gin a put with the idea in her mind that every
part of the body must be kept rigid but the
hands and wrists, means that the player will
be cramped and awkward. It is better to
start with body comfortably disposed and
quiet and then to make the stroke with only
such motions as are natural and necessary.

Putting 68

Contrary to what a great many expert
players say when writing, George Duncan in
his article on putting for women in “Golf
lUustrated” does not speak of the put as a
pure wrist stroke. In fact, from what he
says it seems that he considers it, especially
in long shots, almost entirely an arm stroke.
Let us see what he says. “For approach
putting I advise the following methods to be
adopted. . . . The club should be taken back
with the left hand and arm, and the club head
must be kept as close to the ground as pos-
sible. The right wrist must not be allowed
to bend. The player will now hit naturally,
follow through, and finish with the hands in
a line with the club head.”

It seems extremely doubtful that, if the
right wrist is not allowed to bend, the player
can hit naturally; certainly she must hit ex-
tremely awkwardly, and with her whole arm
from the shoulder down. Duncan’s idea ap-
pears to be that the left hand and arm shall
do the putting and that the right shall act as a
check or brace to keep the club head in a

B4 Golf for Women

straight line. The fact that such an excellent
putter as George Duncan could formulate
such a theory led me to examine the photo-
graphs of him in Mr. P. A. Vaile’s “Modem
Golf.” In plate 15, the caption of which is
“swing back for approach put,” we have a
frontal view of Duncan, and it may plainly be
seen that his right wrist is bent back so much
that the back of his hand is almost at a right
angle to his arm. Possibly he thinks it best
to advise women to use another method of
putting from that which he himself practices,
but it is difficult to understand why he should
do so.

Underneath this picture Mr. Vaile has
written, “In this case, as the put is a long one,
the swing back is considerable, but observe
that neither the forearms nor the body
have moved. This is the secret of good
putting. . . .”

Notice that he commends the fact that in
the swing back for this long approach put
the forearms have remained motionless, yet he
says on page 66, “The Soul of Golf,”

Putting 55

“We are frequently told that a put is the
only true wrist stroke in golf. As a matter
of fact there is no true wrist stroke in golf »
for it is evident that if one played the put
as a true wrist stroke with a club whose lie is
at a considerable angle to the horizontal • • •
the instant the club head leaves the baU it
must leave the line of run to the hole, and
equally as certainly will it leave the line of
run to the hole immediately after it has struck
the baU. Now this is not what we require,
so it has come to pass that the put at golf is
to a very great extent a compromise,”

So it is that even the best of golf writers
will contradict themselves and the student of
the game must make the best of it she can.

To retiu-n to Greorge Duncan’s article, a
little later he says, “For puts inside three
yards one or two alterations sliould be made.
The ri^t hand should do all the work: the
left elbow should point more at the hole: and
the feet should be a little closer together.”

From this one is led to believe that, on
reaching the three-yard limit, one should

56 Golf for Women

abandon tiie left hand and transfer the work
of putting to the right. If one must shift
from aoe hand to the other in this way, it
would seem more sensible to do the long puts
with the stronger hand, whidi with the ma-
jority of people is the right, and leave the
lighter work for the left.

PUTTING WTTH ”DBAtf’

In the same article we read, ”The dub head
should not come back so dose to the ground:
it should come back more abruptly, so that
the player can hit slightly down on the ball
(which should bite the turf a little) .’*

This admonition of Duncan’s to ”Hit
slightly down on the ball” would result, if
followed, in “drag” or “back-spin.” Many
players advocate “drag” in putting on the
theory that a baU with back-spin keeps to the
ground closely and is not apt to rim the cup.
That is, in general, the explanation they give
for advocating this style of putting. State-
ments to that effect are so niunerous and so
familiar that it is hardly necessary to quote

Putting 57

them. They all have this fundamental mis-
take: a ball with back-spin has a tendency to
rise and it is the baU with ‘”top” that clings
to the ground. If one thinks for an instant
of a drive that has been under-cut and remem-
bers how the ball rose in the air and abruptly
fell again, then recollects how a “topped”
drive resulted in the ball’s jumping from tee
to earth, there to roll a httle way to its in-
glorious end, one will readily comprehend
that the inclination of the ball on the
green is the same as that of the ball in
the air*

“Drag” is obtained either by hitting down
on the ball, or hitting it below its center, or
by using a putter that is heavily weighted on
its lower edge. “Top” is obtained by hitting
the ball when the club is on the rise, or by
striking the ball at a point above its center.
A ball played with “drag” will be under the
injQuence of two contending forces, the back-
spin that has been placed upon it and its own
natural forward roll. As a result of this con-
flict of forces the ball “skids” along until the

58 Crolf for Women

back-spin is beaten and it may then proceed
in its regular way.

On account of the friction of the grass a
ball cannot hold its backward rotation long,
so, unless the put is a very short one, the ball
is rolling forward by the time it reaches the
hole. It is seldom, therefore, that when it
arrives at the hole, a ball really has the back-
spin that is going to insure its dropping in
neatly. The question that arises is, why
try to put with “drag” if the “drag’* won’t
last all the way to the hole? Or, in case of
a short put, why resort to an unnatural
method when the natural one should be per-
fectly easy?

I believe that, as a matter of fact, the rea-
son so many players, especially men, favor
imparting back-spin to the baU is psycho-
logical. All through the fairway they have
been making shots that required a certain
amount of physical force. On arriving at
the green the problem is changed, roughly
speaking, from that of distance to aim, from
strength to delicacy of touch. The mental

Putting 59

Teadjustment is difficult. The put played
with “drag” may be hit much harder than one
without it, consequently the player favors
this method because, unconsciously, he has
more faith in himself while delivering a fairly
strong blow than he has while making a gentle
swing at the balL As having confidence in
oneself is the greatest possible help in putting,
gaining this advantage may be sufficient ex-
cuse for advocating the put with back-spin.
£xcept on some such ground, however, there
is no reason why it should be considered su-
perior to a regularly rolled up put.

I would certainly not advise women play-
ers to cultivate this way of getting the ball
to the hole. A firmly hit blow, with the cen-
ter of the club face meeting the portion of
the ball that is farthest from the hole, and
a clean f oUow-through, is the safest and sanest
method of putting. It is far better for a
player to master this simple and natural
stroke so that it is completely at her com-
mand than to be led away by the factitious
advantages of backward rotation. At best.

60 Golf for Women

the putting stroke is difficult to perfect in
spite of its apparent simplicity. Possibly in
its very simplicity lies the explanation of why
it is not easy to accomplish. To aim straight,
to hit the ball with the center of the face of
the club, to carry the dub head in the line
from hole to ball as far as possible, to use
the proper amount of force — ^there is noth-
ing complicated about any of these acts; yet
consistently to make what might be called
thoroughly harmonious puts requires an in-
finite amount of patience and practice.

THE LENGTH OP THE BACK-SWING

The problem of gauging the force of the
blow by the length of the backward swing is
in itself a difficult one. The longer the put
the longer the swing is practically axiomatic
in golf, but facility in carrying this into eflFect
is not easy to acquire. It is generally agreed
that one should not rely on “muscular mem-
ory” in putting, and it is, therefore, with
some amazement that one reads in Mrs.
Ross’s (formerly Miss May Hezlet) contri-

”f;i

MISS MARION HOLLINS
Finish of a long drive.

Putting 61

bution to “The New Book of Golf,” page
803, the following statement:

”The club head is taken back some distance
even for short putts, and the length of the
shot is regulated by the force with which the
club is brought forward again. A putting
stroke in this way differs from all other
strokes in golf, as in driving and iron play
the length of the shot is regulated by the dis-
tance back the club is taken, not by the pace
of the swing,”

If, as Mrs. Ross a’dvises, the club head is
taken back some distance for a short put it
is certain that the descending swing must
be very slow and gentle so that the ball shall
not run too far. It is also certain that a slow
and cautious swing will soon degenerate into
a loose and wobbly one, and that proper con-
trol of the club and the ball will be gone.
There is no reason why the putting stroke
should differ in this respect from all other
strokes in golf. The underlying principle is
the same whether one has a driver or a putter
in one’s hand.

62 Golf for Women

The judgment that is required to estimate
correctly the amount of force necessary to
carry a ball a certain distance comes only with
long practice. It is essential not only that
the distance be gauged, but also that the con-
dition of the turf and level of the green
be taken into consideration. The one warn-
ing that can be sounded is: “Always be up.”
If the ball is “up” or overruns the hole, it
has a chance of dropping in, but a ball that is
“short” is doomed from the beginning.
Women, especially, are inclined to be over cau-
tious in putting, and their fault is rather
being too gentle than too strong. This is a
failing that must resolutely be overcome at
the very beginning. Firmness and deter-
mination are qualities that must be cultivated
constantly by any woman who aspires to be-
come a good putter. If a player finds that
she is consistently falling short of the hole, it
is a good plan to aim the ball at the farther
side of the cup, or to a point six inches or so
beyond.

Putting 68

gLOPIKG GREENS

The foregoing remarks in this chapter have
been made on the supposition that the green
on which the player finds herself is level, and
that the ball may be aimed straight at the
hole. Sadly enough all greens are not laid
out in this convenient way, and one finds one-
self confronted by hills and dales, himmiocks
and arenas, that are none the less terrifying
on account of their being miniatures. It is
not possible for one person to give another
any satisfactory instruction how to surmount
these difficulties. Each player must meet the
problem as it presents itself to her and solve
it to the best of her ability. Her natural in-
stinct and the judgment gained by experience
are her best guides, and any advice given by
another person must be entirely inadequate
as it is impossible to cover a fraction of the
situations that may arise. In general it may
be said that it is better to allow too much, both
as to length and direction, than too little, but
beyond that any remarks are apt to be inade-

64 Golf for Women

quate to cover the many situations that may
arise.

It might seem that a chapter on putting
would not be complete without some com-
ment on playing stymies. As I have said
before, it is my purpose to take up the vari-
ous factors in the game of golf as they pre-
sent themselves to the beginner. The play-
ing of stymies is a difficult undertaking and
should not be attempted until one has mas-
tered the more usual strokes of the game.
We may, therefore, well leave stymies alone,
and be content for the present with getting
the ball into the hole when its course is un-
obstructed.

Ill

APPROACH SHOTS

ESTIMATING roughly, those shots
that are made from any spot within
one hmidred and twenty yards of the
green may be called approach shots. A well-
directed stroke with the brassie from, say, one
hundred and seventy-five yards from the pin,
may deliver the ball upon the green, but, in
such a fortunate circumstance, the player has
not in reality made an approach shot; she
has luckily or skillfully eliminated the neces-
sity of making one.

There is no more exasperating shot in the
game of golf than the very short approach.
When the ball lies within ten or fifteen yards
of the green it would seem that almost any
player could get it not only on the green but
also within easy putting distance of the hole.
That such a feat is not nearly so easy as it

66 Golf for Women

appears, even experienced players will testify.
With the possible exception of the short put,
there is no shot in the game of golf so easy to
miss as the short approach. The fact, that,
on the whole, women are much more inac-
curate in playing this stroke than men proves
again to us that lack of strength is not
women’s greatest handicap, but that her be-
setting sin is lack of firmness and exactness.
From observation of the average woman
golfer, I should say that, in playing these del-
icate and difficult approach shots, her great-
est fault lies in making a too extended back-
ward swing. As in putting, the length of
the swing should be determined by the dis-
tance of the ball from the hole. When a
player carries her club back too far she must
bring it forward very gently in order to avoid
ovemmning the green, and this enforced
gentleness invariably becomes looseness and
uncertainty. Approach shots must be made
with great firmness and decision or the player
loses all control of the ball. Like everything
else in golf, the attainment of even a fair

Approach Shots 67

amount of accuracy comes only after much
practice, but the woman who has carefully
built up her short game will find herself
amply rewarded for her trouble. The feel-
ing of satisfaction that comes from seeing
the ball rise in the air, soar over a bunker
and drop dead within a few feet of the pin is
greater, I believe, than that which follows
a long and beautiful drive. Certainly the
fact that a player has such a shot at her com-
mand is a better guarantee of a low score than
the fact that she can drive a long ball. Too
much importance cannot be placed oh the
necessity of playing a good short game.
There is nothing more disheartening than to
arrive within twenty yards of the green, after
having made a fine drive and good brassie
shot, and then to fall short of the green by a
miserable approach shot. The likelihood of
making the hole in f oiur is gone and it is more
than probable that, in such a situation, the
player will take two puts and hole out in
six. It is on and about the green that strokes
are mercilessly added to the player’s score.

68 Crolf for Women

and it is for that reason that the short game
is the test that differentiates the expert player
from the ordinary performer.

Approach shots may be divided into three
classes: the run-up; the pitch-and-run; and
the pure pitch. I have used the terms “run-
up,’* “pitch-and-run,** and “pure pitch,”
rather arbitrarily. Unfortunately the ter-
minology of golf is somewhat deficient in
clearness. Writers of golf books and articles
frequently ascribe to a word or an expression
quite different meanings, and from this lack
of uniformity arises a certain confusion in the
reader’s mind. In order that there shall be
no misapprehension in this case I should, per-
haps, define what I mean by the terms that
I have adopted. According to my classifica-
tion of these shots a “run-up” approach is
one during which the ball is not intended to
leave the ground; a “pitch-and-run” is one
which combines the ball’s flight through the
air with a calculated run; and a “pm*e pitch”
is one in which the ball rises into the air and
drops with as little run as possible.

Approach Shots 69

Which of these shots the player shall em-
ploy must be decided by hei; own judgment.
The factors to be taken into consideration are
the distance to be covered, the character and
condition of the ground over which the ball
must travel, the peculiarities of the green,
and the presence or absence of wind. There
can be no hard and fast rule laid down on
this subject because there are so many condi-
tions that must be taken into account. The
goal to be striven for is that the player shall
have all three shots absolutely at her command
and use the one that seems best in the circum-
stance in which she finds herself.

The clubs that are used for these shots are
many and various. Beginning with the put-
ter, they proceed through all the degrees of
slope-back and weight until the extreme is
reached in the niblick. The club most fre-
quently used is the mashie in one or another
of its numerous styles. The putter, the jig-
ger, the cleek, the light mid-iron and the
niblick all have their places and their uses,
so it depends greatly upon the individual

70 Golf for Women ‘

player to decide which dub meets her re-
quirements best and with which she can do
the most effective work. If the ball lies a
few yards off the green, and the turf before
it is smooth and even, the player may take her
putter and treat the situation as though she
were running down a long put. If, on the
other hand, the ball has a bad lie, must cross
a bunker, or must rise abruptly to a plateau
green, it is very probable that the niblick is
the club that she will select to help her out of
the difficulty. The important point is that
she shall know the possibilities of each club
and use the one that is best adapted to the
work at hand. Too much cannot be said in
urging the necessity of knowing at all times
exactly what to expect of each dub, and espe-
cially when an approach shot is to be made.
If the ground is examined carefully, the kind
of shot determined, and the club selected
wisely, then the difficulties of approadiing are
well on their way to solution.

The question of whether the running-up
style of shot or the pitch shot shall be used

MISS CECIL LEITH
A ftne follow-through.

Approach Shots 71

must be left to individual decision. No really
good player invariably uses either the one or
the other, but, given a situation where legiti-
mate reasons for using either one can be
urged, some players will invariably favor the
run-up and others the pitch, according to their
personal predilection. The wisest plan is to
be master of both but slave to neither. Pos-
sibly a player is unconsciously prejudiced in
favor of the stroke that she can manage best
and in doing which she feels most confidence
in herself. However that may be, it is in-
teresting to observe that Braid is very seri-
ous in urging that the run-up or pitch-and-
run should be employed in aU cases except
where it is manifestly impossible, and that
Vardon and Taylor, with almost equal vigor,
maintain that the pitch shot should be used
except in such cases where it is obviously im-
practicable to use anything but the run-up or
pitch-and-run. Having considered the gen-
eral aspects of these two strokes, let us pro-
ceed to the study of the principles that imder-
lie the execution of each one.

72 Golf for Women

THE PITCH SHOT

If the player has adopted the modified ov-
erlapping grip, or if she is using the Vardon
grip, she will find that no change is neces-
sary for the approach shot from that which
she used while puttfaig. For the shorter shots
she will naturally slide her hands down the
leather grip of her club in order to keep con-
trol of the club during the abbreviated swing,
just as she did while on the green. The posi-
tion of the body should be somewhat stooped
with the knees bent a little, and she should
stand fairly close to the baU. It is a gen-
eral principle that, in the shorter shots, the
player should “get down to the ball” more
than in the longer shots where a full or three-
quarter swing is used. The arms should be
kept close to the sides and the hands held low.
The stance should be fairly open, with the
left foot pointing toward the hole, but the
actual arrangement of the feet is, within
certain limitations, not so important as the
fact that the player must be firmly settled.

Approach Shots 78

Although the body bends forward there must
be no sensation of tipping forward on one’s
toes, in fact the forward pull of the body must
be counter-balaneed by the weight being
adjusted evenly along the soles. During a
short swing the left heel should not leave the
ground, and even when a three-quarter swing
is made the heel should be no more than loos-
ened from its position in the turf. The ob-
ject to be attained is that the body shaU be
kept steady, and that there should be no pos-
sible suggestion of swaying from side to side.
In making the pitch shot the ball must be
raised in the air and, if possible, back-spin
must be put upon it, so that when it drops to
the ground it will not run forward but wiD
stay where it falls as closely as possible.
Either a mashie or niblick may be used, de-
pending upon the distance to be covered and
the sharpness of the curve that mui^ be de-
scribed by the ball’s flight. There is a club
called the mashie-niblick that finds favor with
some players, as it combines the sharp lower
edge of the niblick with the weight and gen-

74 Golf for Women

eral formation of the mashie. It is possible
to do very good work with this club as its
thin edge allows it to cut clean under the ball»
and thereby impart considera})le back-spin
without raising it in the air as abruptly as
would a stroke made with a regular niblick.
The choice of clubs, however, must be left
to the player’s own preference and judgment.
Such a variety of situations arises in making
approach shots that it would not be practi-
cal to try to cover them aU in making sug-
gestions as to the use of different clubs.

In making all approach shots the player
should act very deliberately. There must be
nothing hasty or impulsive in her movements,
and nothing that might suggest banging at
the ball. As calculation of distance and of
the ball’s trajectory are necessary, the stroke
must be accomplished by careful thought and
execution. Some players go so far as to say
that there should be a slight but perceptible
pause at the top of the swing. I believe,
however, that it is unsafe to try consciously
for this ; the idea of having to pause may very

Approach Shots 75

easily result in a momentary relaxation of the
muscles that would cause the stroke to be wob-
bly and uncertain. The better idea is to play
only just so slowly as is entirely compatible
with firmness and decision.

The ball should be nearly in line with the
left heel, and the weight of the body should
be mainly on the right leg. The club should
be drawn back from the ball with an upright
swing, the length of which should be deter-
mined, of course, by the distance the ball must ‘
travel. The stroke must be firm and decisive,
and the foUow-through upright and snappy.
This snappy finish must not be tried for by
any conscious motion. It is gained auto-
matically. It is the upright swing and fol-
low-through, combined with the loft of the
club’s face, that cause the ball to rise in the
air. The club and the manner of the stroke,
together, are planned to lift the baU. There
must be no attempt on the part of the player
to scoop up the ball or to urge it upward by
lifting the body or hands.

A mashie shot played in the fashion just

76 Golf for Women

described will have very little forward run,
but to insure the ball’s stopping dead where
it falls (except for the kick which cannot be
avoided unless the green is extremely heavy)
a mashie shot with cut is employed. This
shot is difficult and requires much practice,
but it must be mastered by any player who
wishes to be expert. The difiPerence in play-
ing this and the straight mashie shot lies in
the fact that the club head in the backward
swing, instead of being drawn back in the line
between hole and ball produced, is carried
outside that line. It f oUows that as the club
is brought down the club head will meet the
ball with a glancing blow, and will give it, not
pure back-spin, but a rotary motion that is
oflF the true perpendicular to the baU’s line
of flight. This cut stroke is very much like
the sliced drive and has the same tendency
to swerve to the right. To counteract this
tendency, especially if there happens to be a
wind blowing from the left, the player must
aim her ball to the left of the hole.
Vardon says, “How to Play Golf,” page

Approach Shoti 77

145, “From the nature of the upward swing,
the club is necessarily coming down across
the ball, but everything should be done to ac-
centuate that effect. Do not be afraid to
make a distinct attempt to draw the mashie
sharply and clearly across the ball at the in-
stant when the two come into contact/’

Possibly Vardon, after his many years of
golf experience, is able to see the instant the
club head hits the ball and can think quickly
enough to draw the club inward during that
fraction of a second, but it is extremely doubt-
ful whether the average player has such in-
stantaneous control of her faculties. If she
has not, it would be very unwise for her to
attempt an action that must be done at such
lightning speed. As a matter of fact, to
make a sudden movement at the last instant
is sure to spoil the shot completely. If the
backward and forward swing and foUow-
through are in the line already described,
across the line of the ball’s intended flight,
and the stroke is made with sharpness and de-
cision, and the ball hit truly, then the desired

78 Golf for Women

cut will be accomplished. It is certainly dif-
ficult enough to do all of this without adding
to one’s mind the totally imnecessary burden
of doing something more the instant the ball
is hit.

The average player is generally happy
enough if she finds that her ball has come to
rest on the green without cavilling at the par-
ticular portion of the green it has chosen to
occupy. It is only the expert who can, with
any degree^of consistency, lay the ball within
a short distance of the hole. The fact that
she cannot accomplish a thing, however, does
not relieve the player of the responsibility of
trying for it, so it is well, early in one’s ca-
reer, to form the habit of picking out the most
advantageous portion of the green for the
ball to occupy, and to aim for that. It is by
no means the proper play always to aim for
the pin, in fact it may happen that it is not
wise to aim for the green at all but, perhaps,
for example, a steep bank that rises beyond
it. The characteristics of the green itself and
of the ground inmiediately surrounding it.

Approach Shots 79

must be carefully considered, and the shot di-
rected in such a way that it will benefit by any
peculiarity that is advantageous and wiU avoid
any that will bring trouble. There is even
more necessity for this caution in a run-up
shot than in a pitch shot, because, when the
ball travels on the ground it is, naturally,
more subject to disaster from any irregular-
ily in the ground’s conformation.

THE EUN-UP AND PirCH-AND-EUN SHOTS

There are not many occasions when a player
will use the pure run-up shot. As its name
indicates, such a shot causes the ball to make
its journey entirely by running over the
ground. It is, then, practicaDy an extended
put, and is admissible only when the ground
to be traversed is smooth and free from ob-
struction that will divert the course of the
ball’s run. A putter is frequently used for
this shot although many players prefer a light
iron. If a club with a lofted face is selected
the player takes her stance so that the ball
is nearer the right foot than the left, and the

80 Golf for Women

hands are held in advance of the club head
so that the plane of the club’s face is perpen-
dicular to the ground. This arrangement has
the effect of holding the ball to the tiu*f .

For the pitch-and-run shot there are so
many different kinds of clubs used that the
question of choice of club seems to come down
to the preference of the individual player.
Braid uses an approaching cleek which he says
he finds invaluable, both because its face has
very little loft and because it is weighted
along the back through that portion that is
directly opposite where the club-head meets
the ball. Vardon describes his favorite club
for this purpose as a straight-faced mashie.
He says it is a mongrel club, but one that
serves him exactly. However, some style of
cleek, mashie, or iron having been selected,
the method of playing the stroke remains un-
changed.

As the object now is to raise the ball very
little and to send it on its way with a low skim-
ming flight followed by considerable run when
it strikes the ground, the upright swing of the

MRS. LILIAN HYDE FEITNER
Playing from a bad lie.

MISS K. HAKLEY
Finish of a brassie shot through the fairway.

Approach Shots 81

pitch shot is abandoned and a flatter swing is
adopted that will keep the ball close to the
ground. Not only is the style of swing
changed but the position of the player in re-
lation to the ball is shifted. Instead of stand-
ing so that the baU is near the left foot, the
player advances so that the ball is nearly op-
posite the right heel. The feet are the dis-
tance apart that will give the player the feel-
ing of the greatest firmness, and the left toe is
pointing in the direction that the ball is to go.
The hands are kept low and are a little for-
ward of the ball. Great care must be taken
that the ball is addressed accurately, as it is
of the utmost importance that the ball be hit
cleanly and truly. The club-head is carried
back through a flattened arc as far as the dis-
tance to be covered by the ball warrants. The
descending swing is made firmly, with the
head and body steady# and the eyes never for
an instant leaving the ball until after it is
struck. While making approach shots, play-
ers seem to be particularly prone to raise
their heads and consequently their eyes; this

82 Golf for Women

failing is one that must be oyercome early in
one’s career, and relapses must be guarded
against at all times.

Like the backward swing, the follow-
through is low, and the club head is allowed
to go out after the ball. The finish of this
stroke is very important as everything must
be done with the idea of keeping the ball close
to earth.

Unless the shot is played up-hill, or against
a bank, or over very smooth ground, it is very
difficult to calculate the distance the ball will
roll when it arrives on the green. Frequent-
ly the ball will seem to have scarcely enough
motive power to reach the green, and the
player will watch it anxiously to see whether
it is going to stop too soon, when, suddenly,
on reaching the hard, smooth turf, it will seem
to become imbued with new life, and will go
bounding merrily forward at quite an unex-
pected rate of speed. In this lies the danger
of the pitch-and-run shot. To estimate the
amount of force required to carry the ball
across lumps or rough grass into the desired

Approach Shots 88

position on the green, but not across it, re-
quires nice calculation that can only be ac-
quired after much practice. It is simple
enough to understand what should be done,
but the doing of it is quite another matter.
This is the secret of the fascination of the
game, and what, instead of discouraging the
player, inspires her with ever-renewed deter-
mination to conquer.

THE MID-ntON AND CLEEK

THERE is no club that can be made to
serve in so many different situations
as the mid-iron. Standing as it does
in the middle of the list of clubs it can be
pressed into use as a substitute for any club
from the putter to the driver. Naturally,
I do not mean to say that it will do the
work of any one club so well as the club
especially designed for the particular situa-
tion at hand, but, if a player were forced
to play a complete round of the course with
only one club, in nine cases out of ten she
would select her mid-iron as the one that
would best accommodate itself to the dif-
ficulties of the game. The mid-iron is a sub-
stantial club a little longer as to shaft and less
lofted as to face than the mashie, but not so
uncompromisingly severe as the cleek. If

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 85

one may be allowed to ascribe to it human
qualities, it might be said to have a kindly and
obliging disposition that endears it to the
hearts of golf players as a safe and reliable
friend. It is possible to put quite well with
this club, if the player holds her hands well
down the shaft, and stands rather in advance
of the ball so that the face of the club is
brought into an upright position; from the tee
it will carry the ball a respectable distance
and^ in fact, it is occasionally selected as the
proper club when, for example, the distance
to the hole is short and the green is in an
elevated position; through the fairway it is
generally useful, and, perhaps, may pick a
ball handily out of a shallow sand trap.

Although I have mentioned first what may
be done with the mid-iron to show the possi-
bilities that lie in the club, it is not to be sup-
posed that a player would use it in any un-
natural way from choice. It is only in a
“one-club” match that the player could be
forced to use the mid-iron in a bunker, but,
as I have said before, in case the player did.

86 Golf for Women

perchance, engage in one of these rather ec-
centric contests, it would be the mid-iron with
which she would set forth to do or die.

Properly, the mid-iron is used in making
approach shots when the distance is too great
to be covered by a mashie (and I may say here
that it is extremely foolish to try to force a
mashie beyond its natural capacity) ; on the
fairway when the lie is not good enough for
a cleek or brassie, or where the ground rises
abruptly; and in the rough grass, if the ball
happens to be in a particularly unentangled
position. It is dangerous to believe that the
mid-iron may be used often when the ball is
“in the rough.” On account of its longer
head and less sloping face it is far less safe
than the mashie or niblick, but, if the ball hap-
pens to lie in an open space, it may be used.
On account of the greater distance that can
be gained by using the mid-iron it is a temp*
tation to favor it in place of the mashie, but,
if there is any doubt at all in the player’s
mind, it is far better to play safe. “Play
safe” is a good rule to follow in general, al-

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 87

though there are, of course, occasions in
match play when the player sees that the win-
ning or losing of the hole depends on one shot,
and then it is necessary to take a risk.

In pla3ring both iron and cleek shots, the
question that first arises is where to stand in
relation to the balL I say “the question’* be-
cause I believe that only experienced players
address the ball with the conviction that they
are standing in exactly the right place. A be-
ginner, or a woman who has not become firmly
settled in her habits of play, is inclined to
change her stance from time to time if her
shots are not going well. When she has
“topped” the ball, she will probably say to
herself, “‘I must stand back of the ball a lit-
tle more,” and when she sends it too high in
the air she will say, “I must move forward
and try to keep the ball down.” In this way
she will change from one position to another
endeavoring to correct her faults, but with no
clear understanding of what really causes her
bad strokes. That there is no absolutely fixed
rule about where to stand in relation to the

88 Golf for Women

ball while making iron shots is easily per-
ceived when one reads what different expert
players say on the subject. Taylor, “Taylor
on Golf,” page 281, says: “In playing the
ordinary stroke with the cleek the ball is in
a position fairly equidistant between the two
feet. There is no hard and fast rule in this
respect; it is a matter to be settled by the in-
dividual player; but the distance should, in
the majority of instances, be as I have just
stated.” In speaking of the mid-iron, page
238, he says: “In playing with the iron the
stance is different from that taken in the case
of any other club. The right foot must be
advanced, and the left thrown back, with the
ball on a line that will be nearer the right foot
than in the playing of a stroke with the cleek.”
Vardon, “How to Play Golf,” page 122,
maintains that: “For a cleek or iron shot, as
for a stroke with a wooden club, the ball
should be on a line with a point a few inches
inside the left heel.” It is hardly worth while
to give more quotations because to do so would
simply be repetition of the same differences.

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 89

The opinions given by the group of players
who have written books on the subject of golf
seem, on this subject of the relation of player
to ball, to advocate the ball being nearer the
left heel, equidistant between the feet, or
closer to the right, according to the manner
that each writer has f oimd the best. Prob-
ably the reason for this diflFerence of opinion
lies in the fact that no two human bodies carry
out the action of swinging a club and hitting
a ball in exactly the same way. The ball is
a fixed object, lying quite still upon the turf
until it is struck; the player, therefore, must
take her position opposite the ball in such a
way that, allowing for her personal peculiari-
ties of movement, she will hit it squarely and
cleanly. It is easy to concede that what
would be the best position for one player
might not be equally good for one playing
in quite a different manner, so it must be left
to each player’s own decision where, within,
of course, certain limitations, she will stand
in relation to the ball. Her decision, it is
hardly necessary to add, should be based on

90 Golf for Women

a close observation of how she obtains her
best shots.

Greorge Duncan, in his article on ”Iron
Club Play” in “Golf Illustrated” makes the
following statement: “We now come to the
much-discussed ‘push’ shot, which should be
used for every shot with an iron club from the
three-quarter shot with the cleek down to a
chip shot with the mashie. All these shots
should be played with one object — ^that is, to
put back-spin on the ball, which is the only
way to make it fly straight and at the same
time to get stop on it after its pitch.”

The method of making the “pui^” shot has
been described over and over again, and it is
not my purpose to say anything about the
stroke in detail at the present time, although
I shall discuss it in a later chapter, but this
extremely positive and unqualified assertion
of Duncan’s that it should be used at all times,
especially when we remember that he is writ-
ing for women, can hardly be allowed to pass
unchallenged.

The “push” shot is difficult to accomplish

MRS. RONALD H. BARLOW
Iron shot from a roadway.

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 91

and, although it is most useful in some cir-
cumstances and should be at the command of
every first-class player, it is obviously ridicu-
lous to say that it should be used at all times
and with all iron clubs. The ball played with
“push” flies straight and low xmtil the force
of its forward impetus begins to slacken; at
this point the influence of the back-spin be-
comes apparent in its flight and the ball rises
in the air and finally drops and rolls but lit-
tle. It is a beautiful shot but it is not the
one required at all times with any iron club.
In this description of^how to play the
“push” shot (following the statement just
quoted) , Duncan says, “In the correct stance
for this shot the right foot is a little in ad-
vance of the left, with the ball more nearly in
a line with the left heel than with the right,
and the hands in a dead line with the ball.’
If we turn to “Modem Golf,” by Mr. P. A.
Vaile, and look at plate 40, we see Duncan
addressing the ball for the “push.” A very
accurate description of his position is printed
below the picture; I will quote from that.

92 Golf for Women

“The ball is nearer the right foot than for an
ordinary cleek shot, that is to say, the player
is more in front of the ball than for an ordi-
nary shot. It will be observed, however, that
his hands are in front of the ball, that is, they
have not moved back to keep in line with the
head of the club/’

If it were worth while to follow the text of
Dimcan’s article further, and to compare
what he says with what his picture shows him
as doing, it would be possible to perceive other
contradictions besides the ones just noted con-
cerning the relative position of the player to
the ball, and the position of the hands; but
enough has been said to show that Dimcan
does not himself do what he advises women to
do. It is difficult to account for this but such,
nevertheless, is the case. Without wishing
ta criticise Duncan in any way, it goes to
prove what I said in the preface of this book —
that what men have written for women about
golf is very unsatisfactory. I might add that,
in this article that has been under considera-
tion, Duncan has not really described the

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 08

“push” shot, as the reader is led to suppose,
but the regular iron or cleek shot.

As a general rule for ordinary strokes with
the iron, the ball should be equidistant be-
tween the two feet or a little nearer the left,
and the left foot should be drawn back some-
what so that the player faces a little toward
the hole. The value of the open stance be-
comes apparent after the ball has been struck,
because, in making all straight shots with iron
clubs, the club should follow through in the
line to the hole, and not finish above the left
shoulder as it does after a drive. Sometimes,
after an iron shot, the club-head finishes high
in the air and sometimes pointing toward the
pin, but, in either case, the fact that the feet
are placed with the left drawn back makes
it easy for the player to turn toward the hole
after the ball is struck, and to allow the club-
head to follow through in the proper direc-
tion. Care should be taken in addressing the
ball that the sole of the club shall rest truly
on the ground. The grip should be very
firm, and at no time should the hands relax,

94 Golf for Women

as the slightest looseness may result in the
club’s head becoming turned. The hands
should be held so that they are in a line with
the ball, that is, that the line between the
hands and ball should be at right angles to
tlie ball’s intended line of flight.

Some players maintain that the hands
should be slightly ahead of the ball for mak-
ing all iron shots, but I believe that the posi-
tion of the hands depends upon the position
of the player in regard to the ball. If the
player is standing so that the ball is nearer
her left heel than her right, or if the ball is
equidistant between her feet, the hands should
be in a line with the ball as already described.
If, on the other hand, a low ball with back-
spin is desired and the player stands so that
the ball is nearer her right foot, then the hands
will be held in advance of the ball. The dan-
ger in holding the hands forward is that the
player is very apt to “top,” or, if her faults
lie in another direction, she may bring her
hands through so far ahead of the club that,
when the club-head hits the ball, its face is

The Mid-Iron and Cleeh 95

turned back and out, and the ball shoots off
to the right.

The question of taking turf after iron shots
is a somewhat vexed one. It is maintained
by some that turf should always be taken, but
it seems that that is a hard duty, especially
to impose upon women. If we consider for
a minute the theory of iron shots, we can
easily clear away this uncertainty. In order
to get the benefit of the slope of the club^s
face it is necessary to get well under the ball;
in other words the face of the club should
meet the ball at a point midway between its
lower and upper edges or a little higher. To
accomplish this, and, also, to put back-spin
on the ball by striking it with a descending
blow, the stroke is made so that the lowest
point of the arc described by the club’s head
is an inch or two ahead of the spot on which
the ball lies. The ordinary grass on the fair-
way generally allows enough room for this
without necessitating cutting the grass out by
the roots, so, in ordinary circimistances, it is
not incumbent upon the player to try to dig

96 Chlf for Women

up a section of turf. If, however, she does
take up a divot after the ball is hit, well and
good; no harm is done unless she digs so
deeply as to ground her club and prevent a
proper follow-through.

The backward swing should be steady and
comparatively slow with no slackness in the
hands or wrists. The length of the swing
should be determined, as always, by the dis-
tance the ball must carry. With a mid-iron,
a half or three-quarter swing usually serves
the piirpose; if greater distance is required
than can be obtained by a three-quarter swing
it is well to use some other club. It does not
follow that a player must never make a full
swing with a mid-iron, but the mistake to be
guarded against is that of forcing the club be-
yond its natural limitations. If the player
tries to get the last possible foot of distance
of which the club is capable, she will probably
over swing and lose control of the club. Be-
ginners at the game, especially, are apt to
make the mistake of over swinging; they make
too great an effort, use too much strength.

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 97

One of the most difficult things in the game of
golf is to learn exactly where to check the
backward swing, and, as it is impossible for
one person to teach this to another, each
player must learn for herself by practice and
observation of her strokes.

When a full shot is being played the club
should not go back of the shoulders as it does
when wooden clubs are used, but the swing
should be fairly upright in character. The
shaft of the club at the highest point of the
swing should be above the player’s head, or,
mare strictly speaking, above the back of her
neck. The peculiarities of the construction
of iron clubs demand this type of swing, and’
it is well that they do because it is much more
accurate than the flatter one employed for
wooden clubs.

As the club is carried back the body must
necessarily turn at the same time. It seems
useless to state dogmatically just what por-
tion of the body should begin to move at cer-
tain fixed points in the club’s journey. All
of the joints of the body are capable of being

98 Golf for Women

twisted with the exception of the knees and
the elbows. From the ankles to the neck the
body may be screwed around, but, as the knees
refuse to screw, the left knee must bend in
the only way it will go. There is nothing dif-
ficult or complicated about all of this — ^a child
will do it quite naturally and gracefully. It
is because, as our bodies mature, we are in-
clined to become stiff and awkward that so
many instructions about how to turn the body
have been considered necessary. In the long
run these directions are confusing, and tend
to make the player more stiff and self-con-
scious than she was in the beginning. For
this reason I do not intend to go into the sub-
ject at all beyond emphasizing two funda-
mental principles. These are that the head
must be kept steady and that the body must
not sway from side to side. If the player
will absolutely obey these instructions, she will
not go far wrong in swinging the dub. Ease
and grace will come, if they come at all, by
practice and self-confidence. It is better to
keep in mind the thing that must be done

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 99

rather than the way in which the thing must
he done. In the case under consideration
the club must be carried back only far enough
to insure the ball’s going a predetermined dis-
tance after it has been struck, and it must
be brought forward again so that the ball shall
be hit fairly and squarely as planned when the
ball was addressed. If the player does these
things, she need not worry about the turn
of her body. As I have said before, good
form is a means to an end, not the end in
itself.

THE CLEEK

Whereas the mid-iron is universally popu-
lar with the rank and file of golfers, the cleek
is generally viewed with much misgiving. As
a rule, it is the expert player who really en-
joys using a cleek, and who has thorough con-
fidence in his or her ability to manage it suc-
cessfully. There is a certain uncompromis-
ing quality inherent in the cleek that demands
that it be treated with great respect. It is
not a club to be trifled with and, consequently.

100 Golf for Women

as is frequently the case, excessive respect pxo-
duces in the heart a suggestion of fear and
trepidation. It is unfortunate that tibis
should he true, and a golf player who earn-
estly desires to become proficient should early
in her career rid herself of this somewhat su-
perstitious awe of this exceedingly useful club.
On account of its straight head and the mod-
erate slope of its face, the cleek does not adapt
itself readily to unfavorable conditions^ but
there are certain times at which the cleek is,
without doubt, the only club to use. At such
times the player should be able to take it
from her bag with absolute confidence in the
success of the shot she is about to make.

In general the stance and the swing for the
cleek are the same as that employed for the
mid-iron. The question of whether or not
a full swing of the kind that is used with a
driver and brassie should be used with a cleek
is one on which there is much difference of
opinion. Many players say that a full shot
should never, or almost never, be played with
an iron club. It is true that in a half or three-

■’« %

t 2

The Mid-Iron and^ Cleek 101

quarter shot there is less room for error than
there is in a full shot. On the other hand
it requires very strong forearms and wrists
to make the ball carry very far when a greatly
curtailed swing is used. Discretion and com-
mon sense must guide each player in deciding
this question for herself. As a definite rule,
it can be said only that it is unwise to try to
force a club at any time. It is better to play
a three-quarter cleek shot than a full shot with
a mid-iron; if there is any doubt about the
mashie’s carrying the ball to the green, the
player should take a mid-iron and use a short-
ened swing. On the other hand, to cite an-
other possible case, if the player wishes to
send a long, low ball against the wind, there
is no reason why she should not take her cleek,
swing the club around back of her neck and
hit for all she is worth. One of the distin-
guishing signs that differentiates an expert
player from an ordinary one is the skill and
accuracy with which she can make half shots
with her iron clubs. It is far from easy to
learn just how far back to carry the club, and

102 Golf for Women

to leam to keep the body and club under abso-
lute control during the stroke, but steadiness
and accuracy in iron shots must be attained if
the player is to raise herself above the level of
ordinary slashers. Women, on the whole, are
inclined to over-swing with their iron clubs
and for this reason they should make a special
effort to practice half and three-quarter shots
long and diligently. Patient work in this di-
rection will bring its reward in the sureness
and finish it will give to the player’s game.

In using iron clubs it is a common fault
among women to make the ball rise too hi^
in the air and, by so doing, to lose the distance
that the ball should carry and, also, to expose
the ball to the dangers of a crosswise or con-
trary wind. Usually it should be the earnest
endeavor of the player to keep the ball as low
as possible. Unless there is rising groimd to
be surmounted or a bunker to be cleared, there
is nothing to be gained by the ball’s abruptly
climbing into the air. I must except, of
coiu’se, such shots as pitched mashie shots
when the ball is played so that it will drop

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 108

dead upon the green; I refer now to ordinary
mid-iron or cleek shots. The reason a wom-
an’s iron club shots are inclined to fly high is
because she picks up the ball at the bottom
of the swing. In order to overcome this fail-
ing it is necessary to hit the ball while the club
is still on its downward journey. A slight
change of stance, so that the ball is a little
nearer the right foot than the left, will ac-
complish this result, and if a player finds that
she is regularly hitting the ball too high into
the air, it would be wise for her to try stand-
ing a little ahead of the ball in this way. It
follows naturally that when she is making
the address her hands will be a trifle in ad-
vance of the ball. Such a position is perfectly
correct; in fact, as I have said before, many
players believe that, in playing all shots with
iron clubs, the hands should be ahead of the
ball. The danger, which I must again em-
phasize, of this position lies in the fact that,
if it is at all exaggerated, the player may, in
making the stroke, bring her hands through
so much before the head of the club that the

104 Golf for Women

face of fhe dub will be turned out and the
ball will fly oflF to the right.

It is generally conceded that in iron play
it is better to aim at a point a little behind
the ball than at the ball itself. Theoretically
this advice is unsound, but practically it works
itself out as a convenient concession to safety.
If one were playing with an iron ball on an
iron floor, one would not take an iron club and
aim at the floor in order to hit the ball. The
resulting shock would hurt the hands, and, by
the time the club had rebounded from the floor
to the ball, there would be little force left in
the blow. With an outfit of iron such as I
have described the player would undoubtedly
aim at the ball and at nothing else, but — ^and
here is the point of this illustration — ^unless
she were a wonder of accuracy, she would al-
most as undoubtedly “top” the ball. It is for
this reason that, when a player has springy
turf or loose sand before her, she may safely
and wisely aim behind the ball and thus
greatly lessen the chances that a little unstead-
iness on her part will cause her to spoil her

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 105

shot by “topping.” Although the game of
^If is based on scientific principles, a few con-
cessions must be. made to the inexactness of
the movements of the human body.

THE DBTVING MASHIE ANI> THE SPOON

For those players who cannot feel them-
selves comfortable and confident with the
cleek, there is the driving-mashie that may
be used as a substitute. The slope of its face
is a little more upright than that of the mid-
iron and a little less straight than that of the
cleek. In this respect it stands between these
two clubs, but in general shape it resembles
the mashie. Like the mashie, the face is
rather broad and is decidedly wider at the toe
than where it joins the shaft. It is an easier
club to use than the cleek as it will more easily
pick a ball out of an indifferent lie, but it is
not so strong a club and it is not possible to
get so great a distance with it. However, it
has its uses. and its disadvantages and has
found favor with a great many players.

Another club that may be used instead of

106 Golf for Women

fhe deek is the spoon. The spoon is more
nearly similar to a brassie than any other dub
on account of its wooden head and brass cov-
ered sole. Its head, however, is not so deep
nor so broad as that of a brassie and its face
is more sloped back. On account of the fact
that its sole is curved from toe to heel, it can
readily pick a ball out of a cuppy lie, and
therefore it is an easy club to use in situations
where a brassie would be impossible. Re-
cently the club has come into quite general
popularity after having lain in oblivion for
some years. Before iron clubs were used at
all, the spoon, or baflpy as it was then called,
served the purposes for which the mid-iron
and cleek were afterward designed. With
the general acceptance of iron clubs the spoon
fell into disuse, and has been taken up again
only comparatively recently. It is not sudb
a difficult club to use as the cleek, and it will
get a long ball without a great deal of run.
,It cannot, however, be used to produce such
precise and accurate shots as can a cleek when
in the hands of an expert, but for the ordi-

The Mid-Iron and Cleek 107

nary player it is a very convenient club. I
have J. H. Taylor as my authority for the
statement that “A professional golfer is never
known to use the baffy.” If this is true, it
does not mean that the club must be banished
by less proficient players, but it may be taken
as a warning not to rely on the baflFy-spoon to
the exclusion of the mid-iron and cleek, be-
cause in the long run it will not prove so sat-
isfactory.

Against this remark of Taylor’s, we have
the fact that George Duncan has been usmg
his spoon very successfully, but whether or
not he will continue to favor it, is impossible
to predict. Among those professional play-
ers who speak of using a spoon it is possible
to detect a somewhat apologetic air. In
**The New Book of Golf,” page 197, Sher-
lock says: ”I must confess to a distinct liking
for playing my spoon. It has a fairly long
shallow face and a stiff shaft only two inches
shorter than that of my brassie. I swing for
a full shot with this club in just the same way
as I do with a driver. I frequently use it for

108 Golf for Women

short shots — checking the hax^kward swing —
and much prefer it to a cleek.” That this is
a sincere expression of Sherlock’s opinion no
one can douht. The spoon is a very conven-
ient cluh, it must be admitted, but it is not
wise to range oneself on the side of those
players who favor it above the iron clubs, nor
yet to stand with those who systematically
despise it. When the ball is in such a lie
that a spoon is required there can be no ques-
tion but that the spoon must be used, but it
weakens one’s game to force it into prece-
dence over the deck when the cleek is ob-
viously the club that is right for the particu-
lar shot that is to be played.

IN AND OUT OF TROUBLE

IN the game of golf, as in the game of life,
it is much easier to get into difficulties
than out of them. It is almost beyond
human capability always to proceed directly
down the fairway without straying a little to
one side or the other and becoming ensnared in
rough and tangled places: or, if the feet walk
straight toward the goal, the pace may be too
fast or too slow, so that the unf ortimate one
finds herself facing an obstacle difficult to
surmount, or entrapped in an unseen pit-
fall.

Fortunately, in the game of golf there are
well-known and clearly defined ways of re-
covering from unpleasant situations, and the
player has only to keep her head clear, her
eyes steady and her grip firm and, ten to one,
she will not come out too badly. It may be

109

110 Golf for Women

well to add that she must also carefully bear
m mind the rules of the game. Too much
stress camiot be laid on the necessity of a
player’s knowing exactly what she may and
may not do when she finds her ball in a bad
lie. Frequently players who have had sev-
eral years of golfing experience will be heard
to say, “May I move this stone?” or “I just
touched the grass and my ball rolled^ what
shall I do?” Such exhibitions of indifference
to learning the rules of the game cannot but
refiect discredit on the person who asks such
questions. She lays herself open to adverse
criticism not, perhaps, concerning her h esty, but certainly concerning her common
sense, or rather her lack of it. There should
be no doubt in a player's mind as to what she
is privileged to do, and she should waste no
time in discussing the subject with her oppo-
nent or her caddy.

There are times when a player's heart sinks
as she sees her ball drop into long grass or on
rough and bumpy ground, yet, on approach-
ing the spot, she may fiind that the ball has

MISS MURIEL DODD
Bunkered.

MRS. DOROTHY CAMPBELL HURD
A good bunker shot.

In and Out of Trouble 111

settled in a fairly open space comparatively
free from grass and surromiding bushes. In
such a case, she would probably take her mid-
iron and try to forget ever3i;hing except the
fact that her ball is lying clear, and that she
has room in which to swing her club. Such
fortunate accidents are not usual, however,
and it would be a great mistake to imagine
that a mid-iron may frequently be used in
long grass. The mashie-diblick and the nib-
lick are safer clubs, and, if there is any doubt
at all in the player's mind, it is a wise rule
always to consider safety first. Of course,
there are occasions when the only chance of
winning the hole is by making a long shot and
then risks must be taken, but "safety first" is
the motto to bear in mind along with '^keep
your eye on the ball."

It seems to me that, in this connection, the
words "keep your eye on the ball" are very
well in intention, but that they are really in-
exact in expression. When a ball must be
taken out of long grass or heavy sand, it is
not the ball that must be eyed but the spot

112 Golf for Women

behind the ball — ^in other words the spot that
the player expects her club to hit first. A
better admonition would be "look where
you're hitting and hit where you're looking."
Nowhere is woman's lack of powerful muscles
such a handicap to her in playing golf as it is
when a ball must be chopped out of thick
grass or excavated from heavy sand. It re-
quires powerful forearms and wrists to sepa-
rate the ball from its resting place and to send
it any considerable distance on its way to the
hole. For this reason it is foolish for a
woman to attempt too much; she should be
satisfied to get the ball well out^ and in such a
position that her next shot will be an easy one.
Sometimes, if, for instance, there is some ob-
struction such as trees or a steep bank that
prevents the swinging of the club, it may be
necessary to play to the left or the right or
even directly back, but it is far better to swal-
low all pride and be content to get the ball
clear, than to try a shot that is practically
doomed to failure from the start. Head work
counts a great deal in getting out of difficul-

In and Out of Trouble 118

ties, and women have no reason for admitting
inferiority when it comes to the use of mental
faculties.

When the ball is lying in grass so that the
player must use her mashie-niblick or nib-
lick to get it out, careful judgment is re-
quired to ascertain just how far back of the
ball the club head should strike first. If the
player aims too far back, the progress of her
dub will be checked and probably the face
turned outward by the tough grass blades; on
the other hand, if she aims too closely behind
the ball, there is great danger of topping.
Experience and observation alone can teach
the player the safest course, but woe to the
one who refuses to be taught and goes blindly
thumping and whacking among the bushes.
If such is her state of mind she may as well
give up at the start, pick up her ball, and
walk on to the next tee.

Firmly settled feet, a steady head, a tight
grip, an upright swing, and grim determina-
tion are the necessary requisites for chopping
a ball out of tough grass. No thought of

114 Golf for Women

"'sweeping" the ball anywhere must be al-
lowed to enter the mind, and the follow-
through must be left to take care of itself.
In all probability there will not be any follow-
through worth considering if the grass is very
imyielding. The one object is to hit the ball
and hit it hard. When the ball is lying in
sand a different set of conditions presents
itself to the player, but the player's mental
reaction* should be the same as when the ball
is in "the rough." If the ball is lying free
and clear, the player may forget the fact that
she is in a sand trap, and use her mid-iron
with the same stroke and the same confidence
that she would if the ball were safely on the
fairway. A little sand should be taken in
front of the ball in the same way that the
turf should be grazed in an ordinary mid-iron
shot. Soft sand, if the ball is lying free,
offers no difficulties at all.

The case, of course, is different if the ball
is partly buried, or has come to rest in a heel
print, or has a steep bunker before it. In
any of these situations tlie player would use

In and Out of Trouble 115

her mashie or niblick, probably her niblick
because, if there is any digging to be done,
the heavier club is far more effective. She
must be sure to settle her feet firmly in the
sand because it is of the utmost importance
that the body should be kept absolutely with-
out swaying while the shot is beii^g played.
It is advisable and quite permissible that she
wriggle her feet from side to side until she
feels that her position is fixed and comforta-
ble. There are occasions when the ball is
lying in such a position that it is impossible
for the player to stand evenly, and she must
adapt her stance to the circumstances as best
she can. Even though her position is awk-
ward, however, she must do her best to make
it so secure that, in swinging her club, she will
not inadvertently sway her body. Firmness
of stance and firmness of grip are two prime
essentials to play in bad ground. Never for
a moment must the player allow herself to
relax, nor to waver in her determination to
accomplish her shot and in her confidence of
doing it.

116 Golf for Women

The stance having been taken, the question
of where to aim again arises. In order to
get under the ball, it is necessary to aim back
of it and to take sand. The ball may be in
any one of so many possible positions that it
would be useless to try to make a rule that
would fit all cases. The only course for the
player to adopt is to bear in mind the fact that
she must not be afraid of taking sand, and,
also, that she must not overdo the matter and
cut completely under the ball or ground her
club. The fine line that lies between enough
and too much she must draw for her-
self.

If it is necessary to make the ball rise very
abruptly into the air to clear some obstruc-
tion, a variation of the ordinary niblick shot is
demanded. The player stands well bdund the
ball, with feet planted as firmly as the exigen-
cies of the situation permit, and holds the
hands low. The face of the niblick is turned
back and out, and the ball is addressed by the
heel of the club. The backward swing is very
upright, and the club is brought down sharply

In and Out of Trouble 117

so that the face of the club cuts under the
ball from right to left. This is a ''cut" stroke
and the ball will have a tendency to go to
the right. To counteract this, the aim should
be taken to the left of the direction in which
the player desires the ball to go. It is in-
valuable to a player to be able to use this
stroke with confidence and precision, because
situations frequently occur (such as when the
ball is under the edge of a bank or has a steep
bunker rising before it) when this is the only
stroke that will surely and safely extricate it.
Braid, in speaking of this shot, ''Advanced
Golf," page 124, says, "Grip the club firmly,
though not in an absolutely tight and im-
yielding manner, such as would be recom-
mended when playing from heather or gorse.
The reason for the distinction is just this,
that we want a little play in the wrists, and
some slackness of the muscles, in order to
nip the ball up and screw it out of its place,
as it were, at the moment of impact. This
screw- jerk, with very much the same kind of
wrist action as is employed when a man is en-

118 Golf for Women

gaged in uncorking a bottle with a cork-
screw, is a very necessary feature of the well
played niblick shot." If we take Braid at his
word and form a mental picture of him play-
ing a niblick shot as he here describes, we
would see him in our mind's eye coming down
behind the ball with his niblick, screwing the
' niblick around, and then jerking the ball out.
Such a course of action would be so absurd
that it is needless to say that no one ever saw
Braid in flesh and blood do this remarkable
feat. However, I have quoted this passage,
not so much to call attention to the fact that
Braid has been unable to find words ade-
quately to describe his own actions, as to em-
phasize again the point that students of the
game of golf must consider carefully not only
what they are told but also what they read,
and must apply to each statement the test of
their own intelligent reasoning. It is natural
to say to oneself, "If Mr. Open Champion
says so, it must be true," and let it go at that.
The danger that lies in this mental attitude
is that, although Mr. Open Champion is a

In and Out of Trouble 119

wcmderf ul player, when he tries to tell others
what he does he finds it difficult to describe in
words the motions that are easy enough for
him to perform. It follows that his words
are frequently misleading. I do not wish to
decry the usefulness of the books that have
been written by great players, but I wish to
urge the importance of each woman's sifting
out all instruction and advice, and keeping
for her own use only what her mind tells her
is sound.

These remarks may seem to be a digression
but, through the quotations from Braid, they
lead back to the execution of the niblick shot.
Nothing could be more disastrous to the
player getting her ball out of heavy sand be-
hind a bunker than any attempt to **screw-
jerk" it out. The niblick is a heavy dub,
with a sharp lower edge and a face much
sloped back. The player has only to hit
under the ball at the proper spot with suffi-
cient strength and the club will force the ball
put and up. To try to jerk up the ball leads
to that gravest fault in bimker play, raising

120 Golf for Women

the shoulders and head. Although it may be
the natural impulse to try to scoop the ball
out, the conditions under which the shot is
played demand that in order to hit the ball up
one must hit the dub down*

MRS. CLARENCE H. VAXDERBECK
Good form in the follow- through.

THE WOODEN CLUBS

IT is with some trepidation that I under-
take to write this chapter on wooden
clubs. When there is so mudi that may
be said on a subject it is sometimes difficult to
select the essential from the non-essential, or,
to express it differently, to push back into ob-
Uvion all the useless notions and fancies that
cling about this part of the game of golf, and
to present only facts that are really worth con-
sideration. Stripped of all entangling ideas,
the theory of driving a golf ball is simple
enough; the most elemental mind can readily
understand what must be done, but the doing
of it, involving as it does the coherent action
of the whole body, can be accomplished only
after the most conscientious practice.

The reader has now been led through all
the usual strokes of the game; she has started

121

122 Golf for Women

at the putting green and has proceeded, or
perhaps I should say receded, through the
broad fairway with its surrounding spots of
danger, to the tee. If she is a beginner and
has practiced her shots in the order in which
they have been discussed, she will have lud
such a foundation of experience and muscular
control that, when she has arrived at the point
where she is ready to take up driving, she will
have only a very little more to learn in order
to ^complete the structure of her game. If
she is a beginner, and is perverse enough to
insist on learning to drive first of all, she will
meet with much discouragement before she
has mastered this art. However, with pa-
tience and persistent trying she will get on.
The order in which a player masters the dif-
ferent clubs is not of vital importance but, as
it is the logical method to start with the easiest
and work up to the hardest, I have advised
that course. A player who has a different
mental conviction on the subject should fol-
low her own way of thinking. An honest
belief, even though a mistaken one, will not

The Wooden Clubs 128

do a player real harm. If she thinks enough
to form an independent opinion, she will
think enough to correct it when she finds
she has been wrong. So long as a player is
actively thinking for herself, she is on the high
road to becoming a good golfer. .It is the
woman who believes everything she is told and
drifts from one notion to another as she hap-
pens to read a book or to receive friendly ad-
vice, whose case is well nigh hopeless.

Undoubtedly the best way for a woman to
learn to drive, or to improve her driving if she
is already well along in the game, is to put
herself under the tutelage of a good profes-
sional teacher. It is possible to read and
study and to teach oneself, but it is a long and
difficult process. Where books fail is in the
fact that, while they can tell a player what to
do and what not to do, they cannot follow
each individual onto the links and see whether
she is obeying instructions. In an act such as
the golf drive, involving as it does the whole
body from the head to the toes, there are many
opportunities for unconscious error on the

124 . Golf for Women

part of the player. She may think she is do-
ing a certain thing and not really be doing it at
all. A professional teacher will immediately
point out to her her mistakes and she will
lose no time in correcting them, whereas, if
she is practicing entirely alone, she may easily
persist indefinitely in the same error with-
out nliscovering it for herself.

One may ask then, "What is the use of
books?" Unfortunately all players are not
so situated that they may engage a profes-
sional teacher as frequently as they would
wish, and, also, there is not always a good
professional at hand. Books may be read at
times of leisure when the mind is undisturbed
by the necessity of action, so that their words
receive more calm consideration than do the
words of the instructor. It is a wise plan to
read and to take lessons at the same time, as
it frequently happens that the teacher may
clear up some difficulty that has confronted
the player in her reading. If, however, the
book and the teacher seem to be at variance in
their statements, it is well for the pupil to

The Wooden Clubs 126

suggest that fact to her teacher rather ten-
tatively. If he clears up the seeming dis-
agreement, well and good; if, however, he an-
swers shortly, "I don't know anything at all
about that," it is wise for the pupil not to
pursue the subject further, but to think it
out for herself, otherwise the psychological
harmony between the teacher and the one
taught may be disturbed. No professional
enjoys having a book, metaphorically speak-
ing, hurled at his head.

Not only is it helpful to seek a professional
teacher for instruction in the art of driving,
but also for advice in the selection of a club.
It is not possible to say what the length of its
shaft, nor the weight, nor the lie of the club
should be because the club must be fitted to
the size and physical peculiarities of each in-
dividual just as her shoes would be fitted to
her feet. All advice on the choosing of this
club must be of the most general character
and may serve only as a guide if the player
is left entirely on her own responsibility in
this important matter. Duncan gives the

126 Golf for Women

proper length of the shaft for a woman as
forty-one and one-half inches. This length
is probably the average, and the player can
judge for herself whether she will need a
longer or shorter club. The shaft should be
springy when compared with the stiff shafts
of the iron clubs, but not so springy that,
when the club is swung, it will bend so much
as to endanger in any way the accuracy of the
shot. It is well to avoid extremes of any
kind, especially for a begiimer. The lie of
the club and the length and breadth of the
head should all be moderate. Too long a face
leads to inaccuracy in addressing the ball and
too short a face gives too much chance of toe-
ing or heeling. As in the length of the club's
face, so also in the depth, should a happy me-
dium be found. If there should be any pre-
determined preference about the depth of the
face of the club, it should be away from the
shallow type. They are apt to emphasize
one of women's most common faults in driv-
ing, that is, sending the ball too high in the
air and thereby sacrificing distance. For

The Wooden Cluhs 127

the same reason it is well for a woman to se-
lect a club whose face has only a very little
loft.

When a woman has been playing for some
time and has fallen into the habit of her own
particular style of play, she will, without
doubt, have certain changes made in her
driver when it is practicable to make the al-
terations she wishes, or she will buy a new
club that will meet her requirements as she
has come to know them. By that time she
will be able to judge for herself what pe-
culiarities of the club, if any, suit her own
individual method of playing.

THE STANCE

In dissecting the golf drive into its com-
ponent parts for the purpose of detailed con-
sideration we find that it naturally falls into
four divisions; the stance, the grip, the swing
of the club, and the action of the body during
the swing. Following our usual procedure
we shall first present the subject of the stance.
The reasons for beginning with the stance are

128 Golf for Women

that it is the easiest part of the act of driv-
ing, and that the somewhat complicated ac-
tion of swinging the club and twisting the
body cannot be properly executed if the feet
are not placed in the right position in rela-
tion to the balL It is difficult to follow the
reasoning of Mrs. Ross when she says. The
New Book of Golf, page 272, ''I am inclmed
to think tihat the grip should be attended to
first, then the swing, and lastly the stance.
The stance is the easiest problem of the three
to tackle, and may quite well be postponed."
Why not attack the easiest problem first and
clear it out of the way, especially when, as
in this case, the most difficult problem, which
is the complete act of swinging, depends di-
rectly upon the stance? There can be no
doubt that the arrangement of the feet has a
decided effect on the way in which the club
comes through to the ball and beyond it. The
slight turn of the body that is caused by plac-
ing one foot or the other in an advanced po-
sition makes itself felt from the shoulders to
the arms and so on down to the head of the

The Wooden Clubs 129

club. The movements of every part of the
body are so closely inter-related during the
drive that it is necessary, in order to piece to-
gether the whole action, to begin, literally,
at the ground and to proceed from there up-
ward.

It would be futile to attempt to state in
feet and inches just how far the player should
stand from the ball. Her height, the length
of her arms, and the way in which she holds
herself, whether erect or stooping, are all fac-
tors in determining where she should stand.
By drawing too near the ball the player
cramps her arms, loses distance by the short-
ening of her swing, and runs the risk of over-
reaching and thereby hitting the ball with
the heel of her club. The dangers of stand-
ing too far away are loss of control of the
swing and the tendency to hit with the toe
of the club. A mediimi position must be
taken, far enough away to insure free action
of the arms and a wide swing, but not so far
that the player will have the sensation of
reaching out or straining for the ball. It is

180 Golf for Women

not possible to drive a long ball when tiie
player stands in too closely, and, therefore, if
a player is convinced that she is not getting
the distance she should, considering the
amount of strength she is using, she should
first take her usual position on the tee, then
wriggle her feet back an inch or two and try
making her shot from that position. By
moving back only an inch at a time, the player
can gradually accustom herself to the change
without upsetting her regular stroke, and she
will find that her ball is gaining in length.
She must stop this backward movement, how-
ever, the moment she feels that she is losing
her sureness and her control of the club.

Because of the fact that, even when one uses
the most closely interlocked grip, the left hand
is nearer the body than the right and the left
arm is consequently a little slack, it is not wise
to stand so that the feet are exactly square
with the ball. The. expression '"standing
square with the ball" means that a line drawn
from toe to toe would be parallel to the line
in which the ball is expected to traveL In

MISS MARION HOLLINS
Good foot work in finish.

The Wooden Clubs 181'

order to take up this slack and to make the
arms draw evenly so that the right shall not
dominate the left more than is natural, the left
foot is drawn hack a few inches. This
slightly open stance has also the advantage
of affording the body a firmer base on which
to move. In a greatly modified degree it may
be likened to the position of the feet of a
person who is standing in a moving train.
Those of us who are so unfortunate as to
have had experience standing in trolley cars
or subway trains know that to stand squarely
facing the front of the car or the side win-
dows is to court disaster. The expert "strap
hanger" stands with her feet in a diagonal po-
sition so that she is braced against a jolt from
any direction. So it is, in a lesser degree,
that, by withdrawing the left foot slightly, a
firmer base is established from which to make
the concerted movements of the drive.

It is not to be supposed, however, that a
player can safely stand with her left foot
drawn back to any great extent. Ten or
twelve inches would be far too much for the

182 Golf for Women

average person and would immediately cause
her to slice, unless she had some personal pe-
culiarity of swing that counteracted the eflFect
of this decidedly open stance. It is to avoid
the tendency to pull in the club that may fol-
low even a slightly open stance that James
Sherlock, "The New Book of Golf," page
194, in speaking of his own game, says: "'An-
other important point that I have alluded to
is what I have called hitting away from you.
This is not easy to explain on paper but easy
enough on the golf course. • . . Now if you
keep well in your mind the idea of hitting
away, you will be pretty certain to avoid the
hitting towards; and it is this which is so im-
portant in driving.

"I am not afraid that many will succeed in
actually hitting past the ball, because of the
stance and the position of the ball, but the
eflFort to do so will invariably result in the
ball taking a straight flight.

**If this idea were more generally under-
stood and acted upon, chronic slicing would
be much less common than it is."

The Wooden Clubs 188

This is a practical hint that may help some
player who is slicing even when she is stand-
ing normally. It is not my purpose to be
led away to the subject of slicing in general,
however, as I am reserving that for another
place. These remarks of Sherlock's seemed
to have pertinence here because it is very
natural to suppose that, even when the stance
is only slightly open and the ball a very little
in advance of the player, there may be a slight
inclination to draw the club in across the ball's
intended line of jSight. If a player should
have this feeling, she may do well to keep in
mind Sherlock's suggestions about hitting
away. There can be no legitimate reason for
adopting the position in which the left foot
takes the lead and the right foot is placed in
the background when the player wishes to
make a straight drive. That is, of course,
the position for the intentional pull, but for
straight driving there is nothing at all to rec-
onmiend it.

Having now arranged her feet to her lik-
ing, the player must see to it that she stands

184 Golf for Women

on them properly. IBy that I mean that the
weight must be evenly distributed between the
two feet and that she must not tilt forward on
her toes. If it is impossible to reach the ball
comfortably without throwing the weight
upon the toes, the player must move nearer
the ball and settle back a little on her heels, or
at least be sure that the entire length of both
her feet is firmly and flatly on the ground.
This is another factor towards maintaining
a steady base from which to begin the opera-
tion of the drive.

THE GRIP

In the diapter on putting I spoke at some
length on the subject of the grip. Although
I stated there that I should strongly advise
the modified overlapping grip for women, it
is not imperative that women should adopt
this method of holding the club, nor, in fact,
that they should use any overlapping grip at
all. A great many women have already
formed the habit of holding the hands sep-
arately and, if they are doing well, there is

The Wooden Clubs 135

no reason why they should change and go
through the uncomfortable period of accus-
toming themselves to another fashion of hold-
ing the club. The essentials of a good grip
are that the hands be pressed closely together,
that the club be held at the base of the fingers
and not in the pakns of the hands, and that
the hands be held so that the V's formed by
the thumbs and first fingers are well toward
the top of the shaft. If a player's grip is
such that she combines in it these three essen-
tial qualities, she may rest content. Certainly
she should not let any one persuade her to at-
tempt the Vardon grip, as it is extremely
doubtful whether it is ever desirable for a
woman, and it is surely not worth while for
any one to give up a good and satisfactory
grip in order to cultivate it.

While we are speaking of the grip, another
aspect of the same subject must not be neg-
lected nor forgotten. This is the compara-
tive strength of the hold of the left hand and
of the right hand. There has been so much
confusion and misapprehension on this sub-

186 Golf for Women

ject that few players who have not given it
especial thought can tell exactly what their
ideas on the subject are. All throu^ tlie
books that have been written on golf there
are constant references to the left hand as the
one that must take charge of the stroke. We
find frequently such remarks as, "'now let the
left come into play/* "grip firmly with the
left and allow the right to relax/' '"in this
part of the stroke the left takes the lead, the
right acting simply as guide/' There are,
in f act» so many admonitions of this kind that
it would be hopeless as well as unnecessary
to hunt them all out and to quote them with
their context. In summing them all up, how-
ever, I may say that, in rather an indefinite
way, they give one to imderstand that, at cer-
tain times and in certain places, the right hand
gives up its natural mastery and is superseded
by the left. The curious fact about all of this
is that when the great players who have writ-
ten these books come down to saying what
they themselves do, they never admit that in
their own game they force the left hand into

The Wooden Clubs 187

the place of supremacy. They will preface
their advice by saying "The theory is . . . /'
or "you should do . . . ," but when it comes
to this question of giving up their own strong
right hands they never say, "I do it."

This notion of advancing the left hand into
unimtural leadership has, in a more or less
confused form, been clouding players' minds
for a long time. The only man to face the
question and to clear it away as a question
once for all has been Mr. P. A. Vaile. In
"The Soul of Golf' he argued the point ex-
^ haustively, and has completely routed those
persons who had advocated for others the
favoring of the left hand. It would be an
ideal condition for golf players if both hands
were of equal strength because in such a case
it would be much easier to maintain the
proper balance between them, and the strokes
could be made more evenly and smoothly.
However, even if the right hand and the left
were of equal strength, the fact would still
remain that, on account of the anatomical
arrangements of the arms, the left hand, at

188 Golf for Women

the time of hitting the ball when the most
force is needed if it is to be. a long shot, or
the greatest delicacy if it is to be a shot re-
quiring nice calculation of distance and direc-
tion, is working backward. The energetic
housekeeper who wishes to drive a nail into
the wall certainly would not hold the hammer
in her left hand, and,/keeping the back of
her wrist to the wall, attempt to strike the
nail. If she is a right-handed person, as I
am of course supposing she is, the result of
such an attempt would be disastrous to the
plaster if to nothing else. There can be no
doubt that with normally constituted persons,
the right hand is the master hand. Why,
then, anyone should try to supplant it with
the left which is not only weaker, but is also
working at a disadvantage, is incomprehensi-
ble. Let us once and for aU forget such false
doctrines and give to each hand no more and
no less than its due. It follows, then, that the
endeavor of the player should be always to
grasp the club firmly with both hands, and to

The Wooden Clubs 189

allow no thought of separating their functions
to enter her mind.

Nothing can be more dangerous, especially
for women^ than heeding any instruction that
involves relaxing the hold on the dub. In
putting or in making a short approach shot
when there is the possibility of the ball's going
too far, it is exceedingly easy to allow the
club to become loose in the hands. The
player instinctively feels that in curtailing
her shot she must let up on her grip. The
result is always a weak, uncertain stroke that
sends the ball anywhere except the place
where it is expected to go. The habit of
holding the club firmly with both hands can-
not be cultivated too soon or too persistently;
at the same time, the player must not faU
into the way of clutching at the club so rigidly
that the muscles of the wrist are stiffened and
prevented from free action. Men such as
Vardon and Braid may be able to allow them-
selves the freedom of relaxing their grip now
and then, but it must be remembered that

140 Golf for Women

what they would consider a light hold on the
club is, when one remembers the strength of
their hands and fingers, as firm as the aver-
age woman's tightest grip. Relaxation of
the muscles, except in unusual cases, means,
for a woman, looseness of hold and should be
avoided from the start to the finish of her
game.

There are so many preliminaries to this
wonderful operation of driving a golf ball
that it is no wonder that, by the time a player
has gone through all the stages of making
ready for the stroke, she finds it impossible
to concentrate her mind on hitting the balL
It is inability to fix her thoughts entirely on
the act of hitting that, at the last minute,
spoils many a carefully arranged shot. The
only way to overcome the distracting effect
of preparation is to make the preparation be-
come automatic. This can be done only after
long practice. It takes a very experienced
player to tee her ball, look toward the hole,
decide how long a shot and what kind of a
stroke she must make, take her stance and

MISS CECIL LEITH
Playing a niblick shot from Ihe rough.

The Wooden Clubs 141

make her address, without allowing one doubt
or one question to enter her mind that will
distract her attention from hitting the ball.
The self-confidence that allows a player to tee
up her ball and hit it, without showing a
trace of hesitancy or uncertainty, can be ac-
quired only by having thought over and prac-
ticed previously all the movements that make
the shot up to the time the club begins its
downward journey to the ball. It is only
by having settled all questions to her satis-
faction and by repeating certain motions so
many times that they become mechanical, that
the player can reach the point of proficiency
where she can free her thoughts of all com-
plications and give her whole mind to striking
the baU.

It is for this reason that it is profitable to
study the preliminaries to the drive one by
one, and in their correct order, so that they
may be settled when the player's mind is not
under the tension that the necessity of ac-
tion creates. We have already considered the
stance and the grip, and now we reach

142 Golf for Women

the next step, which is the method of ad-
dress.

THE ADDRESS

As the center of the face of the club is the
point at which it is destined to meet the ball,
the club should be placed in sudi a position
that its face meets the ball at this spot. The
sole of the club should be fairly on tiie
ground. If the club does not fall into lliis
position easily and naturally, there is some-
thing wrong either with the lie of the club
or with the way in which the player is stand-
ing or holding her hands. The fault should
be observed and immediately corrected. It
is of great importance that the ball should be
addressed truly, as it is hopeless to believe
that a fault in the address can consciously be
corrected as the club is descending to the ball.

Grcorge Duncan, Article II, **Grolf Illus-
trated,'* says: "The hands must be in a
straight line with the ball and the toe of the
club immediately behind the center of the
ball," and again in the following article he

The Wooden Clubs 148

states: ''After addressing the ball correctly
with the toe of the club behind the center of
the ball, and the hands in a line with the ball
(as explained in a previous article) , the player
is ready to make the up-swing." As a matter
of fact he did not explain in the previous art-
ticle why he advocates addressing the ball with
the toe of the club; all he said about it is what
I have quoted. His explanation, if he had
made one, would have been interesting because
we cannot help wondering why he would rec-
ommend for general adoption this rather ir-
regular style of address. It is true that a
great many players do address the ball with
the toe of the club, but to imitate them with-
out reason would be extremely foolish. As
a matter of fact, the players who lay the
toe of the club back of the ball are using one
fault to correct another. They have prob-
ably foimd that, when they address the ball
truly, they come back to it with the heel
of the club, and to avoid doing this they begin
the shot with the club pulled in a little. Hit-
ting with the heel is a conmion fault and is

144 Golf for Women

due to one of two things; either the player lets
out a little, and, on the downward swing, al-
lows the club's head to describe a larger arc
than it did on the up-swing, or she sways her
whole body forward as she brings the club
down. Lurching or leaning forward is a bad
fault and should be corrected at once. The
letting out of the arms on the downward
swing is the result of the player's determined
effort to hit the ball. As she carries the dub
up she is using some caution, as the club ccNnes
down the one thought is to hit the ball and hit
it hard; it is almost inevitable that the arms
should go out a little and that the head of the
club should come through a little farther away
from the player than it did on its slower up-
ward journey. If the player finds that she
is doing this, and that, otherwise, her swing
is all that it ought to be, she may permit her-
self to counteract this defect by addressing
the ball with the toe of the club. She should
not, however, be too ready to adopt this style
of address, and should resort to it only as the
last expedient when she feels quite sure that

The Wooden Clubs 145

it is the only way by which she can be sure of
meeting the ball squarely.

The complete swing of the golf drive is,
from the viewpoint of mechanics, one of the
most curious feats that a player has been set
to accomplish in any game involving a ball
and an implement for hitting. Theoretically,
we have here the object that is destined to
strike the blow describing a full circle, or,
more correctly speaking, a circle and a half,
and at only one instant is it in the
line of the ball's intended flight. It is
to this imusual situation that the great dif-
ficulty of driving straightly and truly is
attributable. In all the club's journey, as
it completes one circle and laps half-way over
on a second, there is only one point at which it
may meet the ball. Surely, the margin for
error is very great, so great that the player
helps herself a little by starting the club's
head back parallel to the ground for a few
inches in the hope that it will return in the
same way, and, after the ball has been struck,
allows the club and the body to follow after

146 Golf for Women

tte ball. By doing this a little of the curve of
the circular swing is removed, but not enough
to relieve the player from using the greatest
care throughout the whole stroke.

THE SWING

Let us now follow the club on its journey;
back from the ball it starts, not rising
abruptly, but keeping close to the ground
and in the line from hole to ball produced
for a little way, then ascending until it has
reached its highest point, and from there de-
scending above the player's shoulders until
it reaches such a place that its shaft is parallel
to the ground and its toe is pointing down-
ward. So much for the course of the upward
swing. The speed at which it should be
made must be carefully regulated. To go
back too slowly makes a sluggish shot, to go
back too quickly leads to over-swinging and
forces the player to exert too much energy in
starting the club back again. As usual, a
happy medium must be found.

In the downward stroke the club should

The Wooden Clubs 147

retrace its course, gathering speed as it de-
scends and until the ball is struck. Once the
ball is away, the club follows for a short space,
then rises until it is once again over the
player's shoulders, and thus its circle and a
half is finished. If describing circles with
the head of the club were all that is neces-
sary, the golf drive would, indeed, be a very
simple thing. But there is a great deal more
involved in it than that. The arms, legs,
body, and weight must be managed in such
a way that, at the moment the club hits the
ball, all of the player's available strength is
behind the blow. To accomplish this requires
the most careful adjustment of all the play-
er's various motions, so that they may be
made in absolute harmony with each other.
When so many parts of the body are moving
simultaneously, it is somewhat difficult to fol-
low the action of each one in connection with
every other one. For that reason it is an
easier task to show a player how to use her
arms and legs and how to turn her body than
it is to tell her about it in writing. However,

148 Golf for Women

we will not let such an annoyance as the lim-
itations of the English language, or our own
imperfect use of it, disturb us at this time, but
we shall bravely return to oiu* player while
she is addressing her ball, and try to f oUow
her subsequent actions as best we may.

The preparatory motions that the player
goes through in order to drive her ball have
frequently been called a system of "winding
up/' Whatever the name is, the action must
be started immediately after the dub leaves
the ball. By the time the dub head is a very
short distance on its upward journey, the left
knee must begin to bend and the heel come
away from the ground. The forearms turn
naturally, as the club goes up, and the body
twists at the waist. The elbows are kept
down and as close to the body as is compatible
with freedom of movement. As the dub
nears the top of its swing the wrists come
under the club and the weight of the dub
falls across them. When the dub has reached
its momentary pause at the top of the swing,
the left shoulder should be pointing toward

The Wooden Clubs 149

the ball, the left knee bent f orward, the heel
raised so that the weight falls across the ball
of the foot, the right leg should be stiff, the
right foot firmly planted on the ground, and
the head should be absolutely steady and in
the same position that it was when the player
was making the address.

Now the "unwinding" process begins as
the club starts on its return path. Whatever
anyone may say to the contrary, it is the tirni
of the body that starts the club on the down-
ward stroke. This is a matter of vital im-
portance which has not received the recogni-
tion that it justly merits in any book on the
game that I have read.

There can be no doubt, however, that it is
the body that takes the lead from the top of
the swing. So quickly does the action of one
set of muscles follow another that the eye is
hardly quick enough to perceive which it is
that starts the club on its downward course.
If we consider for an instant the action of
the body of a boxer, a bowler, a weight
thrower, a tennis player, we shall see that in

150 Golf fof Women

each of these cases, where strength is re-
quired, the body comes in first. It is the
weight and strength of the body that backs
the arms and enables them to develop the
necessary force.

Ahnost simultaneously with the startiqg
of the club on the downward stroke the anM
begin to imfiex at the elbows which, of couili^
is where the main speed of the stroke is d^
veloped. Much has been written about iim
wrist action in the downward swing. To at-
tempt to tell anyone about this in writing or
even to show it with club in hands would be
futile, for that which is so conmionly mis-
called wrist action is merely another name for
the unrolling or unwinding of the forearms
which is spread gradually and insensibly over
the whole of the downward stroke so that they
absolutely reverse the process through which
they went in the upward swing.

As the arms begin their action, the left knee
straightens, the right knee bends, the ri^t
heel leaves the ground, and, as the ball is
struck, the whole body follows the club so that

MISS MARIOX HOLLIXS
Top of swing in short aj)proucli shot.

The Wooden Clvbs 151

the left leg receives nearly all the weight and
the right foot comes up onto the toe.

The foregoing is a brief statement of the
movements necessary to making the drive.
They are not in themselves so complicated
that any person with ordinary suppleness of
body and limbs need have any trouble in ac-
complishing them. The difficulty lies, how-
ever, in the fact that, while keeping the head
steady and the eyes fixed on the ball, the
player must so co-ordinate all these actions
that they are brought into perfect rhythm,
and that their cumulative effect must be regu-
lated so that, at the instant the ball is struck,
the player is exerting her greatest strength.
To do this is to "time" the stroke correctly.

TIMING THE STROKE

This expression, "timing" the stroke, is very
vague and indefinite unless the player knows
exactly what it means. One frequently hears
it used quite wrongly, probably because the
word does not in itself suggest what it stands
for in this connection. In order that it may

152 Golf for Women

be quite clear what actions this word has been
selected to represent, I shall add Braid's defi-
nition to what I have already said. On page
59 of "Advanced Golf," he says: "In broad
principle, timing, of course, is the mainte-
nance of perfect and scientific harmony be-
tween the movements of the head of the club
»and the shaft on the one hand, and those of
the arms and the body on the other. . . .
The chief object of the timing, simply stated,
is to make the moment of impact and the at-
tainment of the supreme force of the swing
simultaneous, and the great danger is lest the
swing, wound up imder such high tension as
we have seen, should go off too soon, so to
speak."

Certainly, each player should make it her
earnest effort to time her stroke correctly.
To do so is the only course by which she can
hope to become proficient at driving, but she
must be very careful to make the timing of
the stroke the result of the development of
all her movements toward one end, the hit-

The Wooden Vlubs 158

ting of the balL To attempt to do anything
at the last instant just before the moment of
impact is very unwise^ if^ indeed, it is not
impossible. Players have been advised time
after time to "Speed up'* the swing during
its last foot or so before reaching the ball,
or to do something of a ''snappy" nature with
their wrists at the instant of hitting. Just
how these things are to be done no one has
made at all clear for the very simple reason
that they are not done at all. By this I mean
that they are not done in the last fraction of
a second before the ball is struck. If, as is
the case, the club, as it travels through the
lower part of its arc, is going at such speed
that when photographed with a camera whose
shutter is of the very fastest type, it becomes
a blur, then it would clearly be impossible
for a player to put on extra speed during the
last foot or to "snap" it by jerking her wrists.
In other words, the player cannot start any
action in the last fraction of a second and
keep the club head in its proper arc. What-

154 Golf for Women

ever is done immediately before the impact of
club and ball must be the natural sequence
of her previous actions.

THE ACTION OF THE WEIST8

The consideration of the action of the
wrists during the drive is very important, not
only on account of what they must do but,
also, on account of what they cannot be ex-
pected to accomplish. Strong and supple
wrists are a great asset to a golf player, but
they must not be called upon to act in any
way independently. While the club is going
back they turn at the same time that the fore-
arms roll over, until at the top of the swing
they are bent toward each other under the
shaft of the club and the weight of the dub
crosses them sideways, or, in the way they
bend least easily. As the dub comes down,
their action is reversed so that when the club
head reaches the ball they are in the same
position as they were at the start. If they
do not come back to their original position the
ball will not be hit truly, therefore any

The Wooden Clubs 156

thought of jerking or snapping that the
player may have been harboring in her mind
will, if put into execution, pull the hands out
of position and spoil the shot. On the other
hkndy rigid and inflexible wrists are bad be-
cause they stiffen the swing with the result
that the ball does not go the distance that the
player is justified in expecting of it. In or-
der to get a long ball the whole body from the
ankles to the wrists must be under perfect
command.

lEON CLUBS FOE DEI^ING

If the player believes that the length of her
regular drive will carry the ball too far, it is
better for her to use another club, possibly
her cleek or her mid-iron, than to try to curtail
the length of her swing. In this respect she
must regard her driver in a different light
from her iron clubs. I have said several times
in previous diapters that it is unwise to force
a shot with a club when it is possible to use a
half or three-quarter swing with some other
club that is capable of greater distance. To

156 Golf for Women

give a concrete example: if the distance to
be covered by an approach shot is the exact
limit of what the mashie will do, it is better
to take a mid-iron and use a shorter swing.
All shots made with a driver, however, should
be forced. This may seem an extreme state-
ment, but a moment's consideration will, I
believe, prove it correct. The drive is, as we
have seen, a complicated shot requiring the
nicest co-operation of arms, legs, and body.
In order to get all these members working to-
gether in harmony, it is necessary for eadi one
to do its full part If a player wishes to
make a shorter shot than usual, the swing
must be shortened; it follows, then, that each
movement must be correspondingly reduced.
Here lies the great difficulty. When a
player thinks she must lessen a certain group
of actions it is probable that she will leave
out some one action entirely. The idea of
making a three-quarter shot with the driver
will work out in her standing stock still and
doing all the work with her arms, or in her
pivoting with her body and holding her arms

The Wooden Clubs 157

as stijff as sticks. The fault of omission may
be any one of several, but it is certain that
she will leave out something and, in spoiling
the harmony of her swing, she will spoil the
efficacy of her shot. It must be remembered
that I am not speaking for men players; they
must manage as suits them best, but there can
be no doubt that, while making a drive, a
woman must be ''hard at it" all tibe time.

OVEESWTNGINO

In order not to waste any strength it is
necessary to guard against overswinging.
If the club head is allowed to drop behind
the shoulders so that the shaft is carried be-
yond its normal position parallel to the
ground, a certain amount of force is required
to bring it up again, and this force is sadly
misplaced. A woman needs all her energy
for the downward swing, and it is extravagant
to waste any of her somewhat limited supply
in struggling with the club somewhere behind
her back. Overswinging is usually caused
by the player's relaxing her grip at the top

158 Golf for Women

of the swing. As the hands loosen their hold,
the cluh head drops toward the ground, with
the result that the player must then tighten
her grip and pull it up into position. It is
very easy to fall into this bad habit^ so easy,
in fact, that many players regularly over-
swing without being aware that they are doing
so. The cure is, of course, to keep a firm
hold of the club and to cultivate the "feel"
of the proper position at the top of the swing
by practicing, preferably under the observa-
tion of some other person.

^ EELAXING THE QEIP

Whether or not it is advisable ever to relax
the grip of the right hand at the top of the
swing depends upon the personal peculiar-
ities of the individual. If a player is suffi-
ciently supple to make a full swing without
loosening her right hand, it is far better that
she should do so. However, if the player ex-
periences difficulty in getting the club around
properly, she may perhaps relax the hold of
her right hand a trifle, but must maintain her

The Wooden Clubs 169

grip with her thumb and forefinger. Imme-
diately the dub begins to rise she must resume
her hold with all her fingers or she will lose
control of the club on its downward journey.
From the moment the club begins its down-
ward swing the player must concentrate all
her strength in order to hit the ball effectually.
She must not clutch at her club, nor make
any violent or untoward movement, but, fol-
lowing the sequence of actions that she has
already planned for herself, she must carry
them out with all the energy of which she is
capable. She must not let up for a fraction
of a second until the ball is clear away and
her club is well beyond the place where the
ball lay.

THE FOLLOW THEOUGH

Even after the ball has been hit, however,
the player is not relieved of all responsibility.
The follow-through is a very important part
of the shot. Not that anything that the
player or her club can do can in any way
affect the ball once it has begun its flight

160 Golf for Women

through the air, but, by a posteriori reasoning,
if the follow-through is correct then the smng
of the club up to the time it hit the ball must
have been correct. The action of the dub
after tlie ball has been struck completes tlie
swing and makes the act of driving a rhythmic
and harmonious whole. As I have said be-
fore, in its practical demonstration the course
of the club's head is not a perfect circle. Im-
mediately after the moment of impact of club
and ball the player continues the transference
of her weight to the left leg, and allows her
club and her body to follow after the ball as
far as possible without disturbing her balance.
As the arms arrive at the limit of their reacb
the club rises naturally and ends its joimiey
by coming to rest over the player's left
shoulder. A fine, free f ollow-throu^ is the
necessary finish to a good drive and should be
carefully cultivated.

DISTRIBUTION OF WEIGHT

After the player has learned to go through
all the motions of the drive correctly, there is

MRS. ANTHONY J. DREXFX
Finish of a drive.

The Wooden Clubs 161

still another point to be considered and that
is the way in which her weight is distributed
during the making of the swing. If she
stands, and uses her feet and arms in a proper
manner, there will not be any question about
her weight; it will take care of itself. How-
ever, there have been innumerable discussions
on the subject and every conceivable suggest
tion has been offered as to where the weight
should be at certain points of the swing. So it
seems necessary that the final conclusion of
those who know best should be stated here.
This conclusion, to put it in its briefest form,
is that during the swing and up to the begin-
ning of the follow-through there is very little,
if any, transference of weight from one foot
to the other.

The player takes her stance with her weight
equally divided between her two feet. If she
does not draw away from the ball, or, in other
words, if she keeps her head still, as she is
strictly bidden to do, how can she move her
weight to her right foot? Yet we are told
many times that during the up-swing the

162 Golf for Women

weight is chiefly on the right foot. It is inter-
esting to try a little experiment to decide this
for oneself. By dropping a string across a
fairly large mirror and standing before it so
that the string bisects the reflected image
through the forehead, nose and chin, and then
going through the motion of swinging a club,
it is possible to find out just how much extra
weight can be put onto the right foot without
moving the head. In making this experiment
the tightening of the muscles of the ri^t leg
from torsional strain must not be mistaken for
a sign that they are carrying weight. A few
swings made by a player arranged before a
mirror in this way, will, I believe, convince
her of the fact that her weight cannot be
shifted to any noticeable extent, provided she
keeps her head still. It is possible that, as
the arms and the club are to the right of the
player's body midway in the upward and
downward swing, they change the center of
balance slightly, but the change would be so
little as to be practically negligible.

Now as the club reaches the top of its swing.

The Wooden Clubs 168

the left knee has bent forward and, on ac-
count of the pull of the twisted torso, has the
appearance of bending slightly inward. Al-
though the head has not moved, the left leg
has come in under the body and therefore it
is reasonable to suppose that at this time it
is bearing a little more than its half of the
player's weight.

As the club descends and the shoulders
swing around and the body is returning again
toward the ball, the left leg straightens and
the weight is once more divided between the
two feet. When once the ball is struck, how-
ever, the whole body moves after it and the
weight is practically all thrown onto the left
foot.

Although I have said that, during the
course of the upward swing and the downward
swing, the weight may be a very little more
upon the right foot than the left, it would be a
fatal error for the player to attempt in any
way to transfer her weight to the ri^t foot.
To do so would surely result in her drawing
away from the ball, moving her head, and all

^ I

164 Golf for Women

the subsequent disasters. It is far the best
plan for a player to take her stance with her
weight evenly divided between her two feet
and to resolve to keep her head still and her
eye on the ball; if she can stick to this course
until she hits the ball she may forget all about
her weight and rest assured it will look after
itself.

SLICING

Probably the most common fault of be-
ginners is slicing the ball. Although I say
that this is a fault of beginners, it is by no
means confined to them. Even experienced
players suffer from attacks of slicing and,
once a player falls into the habit, it is very
difficult to overcome the faults that are at the
root of this eviL There is something particu-
larly discouraging about a sliced ball. The
player, full of confidence in herself, makes her
shot and feels that all is going well, when, on
looking after her ball, she sees it suddenly
leave its straight line of flight, curve off to the
right, and, dropping rather abruptly, roll aim-

The Wooden Clubs 166

lessly a little way, and come to rest generally
in some very undesirable spot. When a player
tops her ball, she knows it the instant she
hears the somid of the impact, and she is not
at all surprised to see the ball skipping along
over the grass instead of soaring in the air.
At the same time she realizes that she has
raised her head, or has taken her eye off the
ball, or has hit the ground with her club and
caught the ball as the club came up ; whatever
the cause of her bad shot may be, she can
identify it and guard against repeating the
error another time. When a player is slicing,
however, she is apt to have a* helpless and
hopeless feeling because the reason that she is
doing it is not so evident as it is when she
tops her ball, and she is apt to keep on slicing
drive after drive without being able to cor-
rect her fault.

If a player finds she is slicing frequently,
she should take a box of balls to the practice
ground and engage a professional teacher to
show her where she is in error and how to cor-
rect her mistakes. If a teacher is not avail-

166 Golf for Women

able and she is obliged to work out her diffi-
culties for herself, she will probably find on
analjrzing her swing that she is either bring-
ing her hands through in advance of the head
of the dub, or that she is allowing the dub
head to go outside of the line between hole and
ball produced and, consequently, bringing the
club head in across the ball so that its face
meets tbe ball with a glancing blow.

The first of these faults is caused by start-
ing the hands ahead of the body at the top
of the swing. When the player starts the
club on its downward course, she has prob*
ably had some lurking and mistaken notions
about using her wrists. It follows, then, that
the head of the club has been lagging behind
all the way so that, when it meets the ball,
the line frrai toe to heel is not perpendicular
to the ball's intended line of flight. The fact
that the face of the club does not meet the ball
squarely results in the ball's starting on its
journey with side spin, which, when the force
of the forward blow slackens, causes it to turn
abruptly to the right. The other fault that

The Wooden Clubs 167

results in slicing is much more di£Scult to
correct. The arc of the club's swing may ex-
tend beyond the line before the ball is hit
either because the stance is wrong or be-
cause the player leans forward while mak-
ing the downward swing, or because she lets
out her arms, or because, after she addressed
the ball, she did not carry the club back in
a proper line. It is, first of all, necessary
to find out which of these faults is being
committed, and then the player can make such
changes in her method as will correct it.

There is a very simple device that a player,
who is struggling alone to correct her faults
of swing, may find helpful. I offer it merely
as a suggestion and anyone who cares to try
it can soon find whether or not it will be of
use to her. The plan is to take a few short
twigs and plant them about two inches apart
and in a straight line, beginning an inch or so
beyond the ball and continuing back parallel
to the line from hole to ball projected, until
a fence a foot long is constructed. The
player should then forget her little fence and

168 Golf for Women

make her usual swing, keeping her eye faith-
fully on the ball. If, in the course of the
club's downward swing, the twigs are knocked
over, it is proof that the player is reaching
beyond the ball. By patiently rebuilding the
fence time after time, the player can accustom
herself to keeping her club head in the proper
line and thus overccxne her tendency to slice.

PULLING

Pulling the ball is not nearly so common a
fault as slicing, if, indeed, it may be called a
fault at all. The pulled ball travels well and
will roll a considerable distance. Some ex-
pert players habitually aim to the right and
play every drive for a pull in the belief that
by doing so they get a more reliable ball than
they do with a straight drive. Pulling as
a fault can be remedied generally by a change
in stance. If a player stands with her left
foot well back, it is practically impossible to
pull the ball. It is evident that when a player
takes her position with her right foot drawn
back and her left in advance, her body is

The Wooden Clubs 169

turned in such a way that it is easy, if not
necessary, to carry the club out across the ball.
This is the puller's stance and may be cor-
rected when the player finds she is getting
more pull on her ball than she desires.

I shall not speak of the intentional pull and
slice at this time. I will reserve discussion of
those strokes until later when I shall take up
various special shots.

THE BRASSES

Although the headiog of this chapter con-
tains the words "Wooden Clubs" I have up
to this time mentioned only the driver. The
brassie, it would seem, has been completely
relegated to the background. Such a slight
to the brassie is by no means intentional, but
it has been necessary, for simplicity's sake,
to deal with only one club at a time. Prac-
tically everything that has been said about
strokes played with the driver is equally ap-
plicable to those made with a brassie.

The club itself should closely resemble the
driver, and the two should be well matched as

170 Golf forewomen

to weight and lie. The sole of the brassie is
shod with brass to enable it to pick the ball
more readily out of the grass or a somewhat
cuppy lie. Because its work is a little rougher
than that of the driver, which is used only
from the tee or when the lie is particularly
advantageous, the shaft should be a little
less springy and an inch or so shorter.
Many players prefer having the shafts of the
two clubs of equal length as they desire to
get the greatest distance possible vnth the
brassie. It is better, however, for women
players in general to use a brassie with a
slightly shortened shaft as they wiU then have
more control over the club. The average
woman player is inclined to be somewhat wild
in her brassie shots, and she can well afford
to run the chance of losing a little distance in
order to steady herself in the use of the club.
The stance and grip and general characteris-
tics of the swing are the same for brassie and
driver. If the shaft of the brassie is shorter
than that of the driver, the swing will be rather
more upright, but that is practically the only

CO CO

The Wooden Clubs 171

difference between the two. As it is not pos-
sible to get the distance from iron clubs that it
is from the wooden, a player should be assidu-
ous in her practice with her brassie. If she
cannot use it well, she will find herself sadly
left behind in playing long holes. There is no
doubt that it is a difficult club to master, but
perseverance and intelligent practice will ac-
complish a great deal and the reward is well
worth the effort.

VII
SPECIAL SHOTS

THB PUSH SHOT — ^THE SLICE — ^THE PULL —
PLATING STYMIES

WIEN once the regular shots have
been mastered, the player's mind
immediately turns to learning to
execute those more difficult strokes, the com-
mand of which stamps one definitely as an
expert at the game. For all ordinary playing
a woman will get on quite as w#U if she leaves
these alone, and contents herself with playing
a straight ball with whatever spin comes to it
naturally from the face of the club that she
is using. By following such a course, how-
ever, she can never hope to rank as a player
of the first class; but, before deciding to add
to her game these difficult shots, she must be
sure that her skill in playing in the ordinary

way has become so great that she is ready

17a

Special ShoU 178

to progress beyond the grade of a regular club
player and to enter the lists as a possible
champion of her club or of the group of clubs
surrounding her. To attempt to learn the
slice, or the pull^ or the drive played with
back-spin, or any shot requiring special skill,
before she has attained complete control of
herself and her dub is to court confusion and
disaster. The mental and physical adjust-
ment necessary for playing ordinary shots can
be acquired only after the most painstaking
effort and it is one of the most discouraging
facts about t^e game of golf that, just when
the player has reached the point where she is
beginning to feel really sure of herself, some
slight change in her manner of playing will
throw the whole combination completely out
of gear. To express the same idea in the ver-
nacular of golf, a change in her stance or
swing or in her mental conception of the
physical motions she is about to make will
put her "off her game/' It is for this reason
that I have, through the pages of this book,
so strongly urged the necessity of building up

174 Golf for Women

the correct method of playing each shot, so
that, once the hahit is established, it will not
have to be changed and the player subjected
to the unsettling effect of abandoning one
method in order to adopt a better one.

If, however, the player has reached such a
state of perfection that she feels she can safely
risk the addition of special strokes to her
game, she has before her a group of shots that,
when thoroughly at her command, will place
her high in the list of women golfers.
Which of these shots is the **master-stroke''
is a subject on which players disagree, and
it is hardly worth while our entering into the
discussion of this point. Each shot has its
own merits and its own uses and there is no
particular advantage to be gained by pro-
claiming any one of them "master/* It
would be convenient, however, if players
would agree upon a name for the push shot
when played with a wooden club. There ap-
pears to be no definite name for this shot and
it is rather curious that there should not be be-
cause it is certainly one of the most important

Special ShoU 175

shots of the game. The word "wind-cheater**
lias been used by some players to designate
this stroke and as this term seems as well
Inown and as reasonable as any^ I shall adopt
it for lack of a better.

THE PUSH SHOT

The push shot and the wind-cheater may be
classed together because, although one is
played with an iron club and the other with a
wooden club, the fundamental principle of
the two shots is the same. Both are played
by coming down on the ball. The moment of
impact occurs before the club head has reached
the lowest point in the arc of its swing, so that
the ball is sent away with a backward spin that
helps it to hold a straight course through the
air and prevents it from rolling too freely
when it reaches the ground. These two shots
are exceedingly valuable and are a source of
great satisfaction to a player who has them at
her command. They are not by any means
easy to manage because they require very
great acciu'acy. Anyone who undertakes to

176 Golf for Women

learn fhem will go through a discouraging
period of tapping or of banging the ground
before she learns that absolute ccxatrol of her
dub that is necessary to play these shots suc-
cessfully. The reward of persistent trying
will be great, however, and these strokes, once
mastered, are an invaluable addition to the
player's game«

The push shot is usually played with a cleek
or mid-iron, although a mashie or a jigger
may be used. The jigger is rather a danger-
ous dub on account of its narrow blade, but it
is well liked by some players and if one is
successful with it, it needs no other argument
in its favor. Duncan says that aU ^ots
played with iron dubs should be push shots.
That is a very extreme statement, but, as it
seems to be a common fault among women to
make the ball go too high when they are using
iron dubs, it would be well for those that are
consdous of this failing to consider the method
of keeping the ball low that is a part of the
push shot, and to profit by adopting some-
thing of this method of playing.

Special ShoU 177

The player, in taking her position for play-
ing the push shot, stands more in advance of
the ball than she is in the habit of doing for
an ordinary shot with an iron club. Her
hands, instead of being in a line with the ball,
are somewhat ahead of it. This position of
the hands causes the face of the club to lose
some of its loft so that the ball is not forced
up as it would be if the club were soled in
the regular way. Everything in the method
of playing this shot conspires to keep the
ball low. The stance is fairly open, the left
toe pointing toward the hole and the weight
equally divided between the two feet, if any-
thing, more on the left than the right. The
player aims for the back of the ball, not for
the top of the ball as is sometimes advised^
or she will surely get into trouble. The club
head should meet the ball as it is still on its
downward journey, and should graze closely
or bite the turf an inch or two beyond the
spot on which the ball rested. The swing for
this stroke is upright and should never be
fuller than three-quarter because the idea

178 Golf for Women

of coming down on the back of the ball must
be strictly maintained. The dub should fol-
low the ball and its action, after the ball has
been hit, should be somewhat restrained.
There should be no grand flourish at the end
of this stroke; the dub should be kept
down so that it does not rise materially past
the point where its shaft is parallel to the
ground.

Some persons advise turning the right
wrist over at the moment of impact with the
idea of helping to keep the ball low. This
advice falls into that class of impractical sug^
gestions that cannot be carried out. It is,
however, the correct finish of this stroke to
allow the right wrist and forearm to turn over
as the club follows out after the ball so that,
as the limit of the follow-through is reached,
the toe of the club is pointing toward the
ground.

The stroke for playing this shot with a
wooden club is the same in theory and the
same in application, with, of course, what-
ever modifications are necessary on account

Special Shots 179

of the difference in the structure of the two
types of clubs. When this shot is played
from a tee, it is well jto build the tee rather
high as such an arrangement gives more op-
portunity for the club's face to cross the ball
with a downward motion. The idea that a
high tee necessarily leads to a high line of
flight is an erroneous one. The upward curve
of the ball's flight is governed by the way
in which the club meets the ball and not by
the height of the tee on which the ball rests.
When there is a head wind there is no better
shot than the wind-cheater for holding a
straight course and for carrying a long dis-
tance. The ball played by this stroke flies
low for the greater part of its journey, then
rises in a graceful curve and falls to the
ground. During the early part of its flight
the force of its forward impulse prevents its
back spin from having visible effect, but, as
its speed begins to decrease, the fact that the
ball is revolving backward causes it to mount
gradually higher until its force is spent and
it drops to earth. By the time the ball has

180 Golf for Women

reached the ground the back spin has been
nearly, if not quite, exhausted so the ball i^
after all, a fairly good runner. In this it
differs from such a shot as the pitched maahie
shot. In the case of the mashie shot the ball
rises abruptly as soon as it leaves the face of
the club and falls to earth before tlie spin of
its backward rotation has had time to wear
off. For this reason the mashie shot has
sometimes a kick or, in any case, very little
run, while the wind-cheater, by the time it
reaches the ground, acts very much in the
manner of a ball that has been played with
no back-spin at all.

Valuable as this shot is, it is a pity that
there are few women players who can exe-
cute it at will. As a matter of fact, it re-
quires a good deal of strength. The shot
may be played perfectly as to the action of
the player's body and the movement of the
club, but, if there is not a good deal of force
behind the blow, the shot will not be success-
ful.

MISS ELAINE ROSENTHAL
Finish of brassie shot.

Special Shots 181

THE SLICE

It is not often that we can turn our mis-
takes into virtues, but such is the case in play-
ing the slice. Slicing is one of the most com-
mon faults among players, and it is very diffi-
cult to correct when one desires to play a
straight ball. The most contrary fact about
this fault is that it is just as hard to conunit
it consciously as it is to correct it. The in-
veterate slicer, when asked to play for a slice,
will g6 through all kinds of grotesque motions
and will end by declaring that she does not
know how it is done. The reason for this is,
of course, that she has fallen unconsciously
into the habits of stance and swing that con-
duce to a slice and is, therefore, unable to
reproduce her own actions when invited to
do so.

The spin that causes the sliced ball to
swerve sharply to the right as soon as its for-
ward momentum has slackened is produced
by the face of the club cutting across the balFs
intended line of flight at the moment of im-

182 Golf for Women

pact A slight slice may result from the
player's pulling in her arms at the moment
the ball is hit instead of allowing the head of
the club to follow straight after the balL
This is a fault in the follow-through that falls
into the class of imintentional slicing and
should not be tried for when the player is en-
deavoring to cut across the balL It is one of
the general assortment of last minute jerks
that may be done unconsciously, but which the
mind is not quick enough to control when at-
tempted as a regular method of play.

For the true slice the player must plan her
stroke so that the path of the club's head will
cross obliquely the line from ball to hole pro-
duced. To accomplish, this the stance should
be quite open, the ball nearly in a line
with the left toe and that toe pointing to-
ward the hole. From this position of the
body it follows that the reach of the left
arm is shortened and that the head of the
club, as it is carried back, will go outside the
line from hole to ball produced. As this
path of the club's head is the inevitable result

Special ShoU 188

of fhe player's position and not a conscious
pushing out of the club, the club's head will
return in the same plane in which it went back.
The swing for this stroke is of a more upright
nature than that for a straight drive, and
the follow-through correspondingly vertical.
The fact that, at the moment of impact, the
face of the club is cutting across the ball causes
the ball to start on its journey with a spin
from left to right. The axis on which the
ball rotates is very nearly vertical so that the
ball is spinning in a manner very similar to a
top. It is this decided side spin that causes
the ball to turn abruptly to the right as soon
as the pace slackens sufficiently for the spin
to affect the direction of its flight. It is this
side spin that also prevents the ball from run-
ning freely when once it has reached the
ground.

THE PULL

To the casual observer the pulled ball seems
to be the reverse of the sliced ball, but if such
were the case, the curve of its flight and its

184 Golf for Women

action on the ground would be the same ex-
cept for the fact that it would curve to the
left instead of to the right. It requires care-
ful observation of the conditions under which
a ball is pulled for the player to ascertain
why it is that the ball with a hook is a good
traveler and runs freely. Everyone knows
that to play a ball with a slight pull is no dis-
advantages, and that many players use this
shot in preference to a straight drive.
Whether or not they are justified in doing so
raises another question. It is extremely
doubtful whether the hooked ball offers any
advantage over the straight ball with back spin
unless, of course, its curve is utilized to get
around some obstruction.

If we consider carefully the stance and
swing for the pull we will, in due course, dis-
cover wherein the nature of its spin differs
from the slice, beyond the fact that it has in
a general way the reverse motion.

The object now is to cause the ball to ro-
tate, roughly speaking, from right to left.
I shall risk appearing somewhat pedantic by

'Special ShoU 185

explaining here that when an object is re-
yolving in the same direction in which the
hands of a dock, laid flat on its back, move,
its rotation is described as going from left to
right. When the object is moving anti-clock-
wise, its motion is called a spin from right to
left. When playing for a pull, in order that
the ball may have this right to left rotation, it
is necessary that the face of the club should cut
across the ball's intended line of flight in such
a way that the friction of the club's face
against the ball should produce the desired
spin. To accomplish this the player takes
her stance so that her right foot is withdra\^
behind the imaginary line that crosses her left
toe and runs parallel to the line from hole to
ball produced. Braid says, on page 77 of
^'Advanoed Golf," that ". . . . we place the
right foot back and make the stance an exag-
gerated square." It is somewhat puzzling
to understand how a thing can be more square
than square. This quotation emphasizes the
fact that I have already mentioned that the
game of golf is deficient in terminology. We

186 Golf for Women

have, in this case, the square stance and the
open stance but there is, so far as I know, no
word or phrase that is generally accepted to
denote the open stance that opens the other
way. However, we must get on as best we
can with the words at our disposal until some
clever person supplies some new terms.

The player should take her position so that
the ball is opposite the right foot. It is im-
possible to say whether the ball should be in
a line with the toe, instep or heel of the right
foot, and, when a slice is being played, it is
equally impossible to state exactly where the
bdU should be in relation to the left foot. The
slight peculiarities that differentiate one per-
son's style of play from that of another make
it impractical to attempt to be definite to the
point of hair-splitting. If a player has the
proper idea in mind, she can and must work
out the smaller details for herself.

The swing for the pull is decidedly flat.
The club head draws away from the ball to-
ward the player and continues in a curved line
around the player's body. If, as some writers

Special ShoU 187

suggest, fhe club is drawn back in the line
of the ball's intended flight, it is certain that^
on account of the position of the player's
whole body, it will not come down in the same
path in which it went up. It is better to allow
the head of the club to leave the straight
line as it is carried back and to bring it in to-
ward the body, then, as it returns on the
downward swing, it will cross the ball's in-
tended line of flight and reach out beyond
it. In this manner the desired side spin is
imparted to the ball. Soon after the ball is
hit and the club starts on its follow-through,
the right wrist is allowed to turn over, and,
as the club reaches out beyond the ball's line
of fli^t, the right arm is carried across the
front of the body in a position that is almost
straight.

To return to the downward swing of the
club, it is, as I have said, of a decidedly flat
variety. As the head of the club meets the
ball, the club is already beginning to rise and
therefore a certain amount of top spin as well
as side spin is given to the ball. It is this

188 Golf for Women

fact that accounts for the difference in the
action of the pulled ball and the sUced balL
Whereas the ball played with slice has almost
pure side rotation, the ball played with pull
has side rotation, modified by an over spin
which makes it fly long and low through the
air and run freely when it has reached the
ground.

Some players slice a ball into the wind if
the wind is coming from the right, and puU
the ball if the wind is coming from the left.
To do this successfully requires very exact
judgment of the direction from which the
wind is blowing or the player will suffer more
damage than benefit. If, for example, the
wind is a cross between a head wind and one
blowing at a direct right angle from the rij^t
of the fairway, its action on the sliced ball will
be to push it still farther around in the ciure
that it makes naturally. If the wind is com-
ing from somewhere behind that line which
makes a right angle to the fairway, there
is no reason why the player should try for a
slice. A straight baU under such conditions

Special ShoU 189

would go farther and be much safer. To have
in mind that it is advantageous to slice into a
wind that is coming from anywhere at the
right, is very dangerous. In certain com-
binations of circumstances, when the player
feels that she can be sure in her calculations of
the effect of the wind on the ball, and when it
is not her object to gain as much length as
possible, she may find it desirable to use the
sliced ball, but such a combination is far from
frequent.

On the other hand, when the fairway slopes
decidedly to the right or to the left, the ball
with a sidewise curve in its flight may be made
to stick to the side of the hill when a straight
ball would roll down. Occasionally one finds
courses that have one hole or several holes
that must be played along a side slope.
When such a situation is encountered it is very
convenient to be able to pull or slice against
the rising ground. It seems unfair that a
straight ball should be penalized by the per-
manent conformation of the ground, but golf
architects slip into a course, now and then, a

190 Golf for Women

hole that must be played over a side sloping
fairway, or one that has an angle or elbow
guarded by some obstacle such as a building
or a group of trees. Such holes as these test
the player's skill and, if they are discourag-
ing to the beginner, they add to the variety
and interest of a coiu*se to those who have
become skillful players.

PLAYING STYMIES

One might think that rolling the ball into
the hole presented enou^ difficulties for the
player without having the task of getting
around or over her opponent's ball added to
her troubles. However, the rules for match-
play demand that stymies must be played, so
the player has no dboice in the matter but to
do the best she can in the circumstances.

There are so many different positions in
which the two balls may lie in relation to
each other, to the hole, and to the possible
slope of the green that it is hardly possible
to mention each one of the situations that may
occur. Each separate case presents its own

MRS. LILIAN HYDE FEITNER
A free finish.

Special Shots 191

problem and must be dealt with as seems best
according to the player's judgment. Lack
of confidence in one's own ability is perhaps
the greatest difficulty that must be overcome.
Stymie shots must be played with a great
deal of firmness and decision, and the player
who doubts her ability to make the shot has
already defeated herself. When a clean,
sharp stroke is required, as it is in playing
stymies, any suggestion of uncertainty on the
part of the person who is wielding the club
immediately communicates itself to the
ball with the result that the shot goes
wrong.

If the two balls are lying sufficiently far
apart to permit a cut stroke being used, the
player has the choice of pulling the baU
around to the left or of slicing it to the right.
As the sliced shot is far easier to accomplish
one is generally predisposed in its favor, and
this attitude of mind is quite right if one does
not stick to it too rigidly. If the ground
should happen to slope away to the left of the
balls, it would of coiu*se be impossible to ex-

192 Golf for Women

pect the ball to go down the slope and up
again as it would have to if a slice were played.
In that case a pulled ball would be the only
one practicable, unless, of course, the ground
should rise to the right of the balls, in which
case a straight shot played against the rise
would circumvent the opponent's ball
When, on the other hand, the ground rises
to the left of the balls, if a curved ball is re-
quired at all, the conditions for a slice are
ideal, as the slope of the ground will help the
ball to curve back toward the hole.

The stroke for cutting one ball around an-
other is the same in general theory as the
stroke for a slice or a pull, only, of course
the whole operation is reduced to a much
smaUer scale. For the cut stroke correspond-
ing to the slice, the player stands with her
left foot drawn back and pointing toward the
hole. She will grip her club, probably a
mashie, firmly with both hands and will carry
the club back outside the line from hole to
baU produced. The forward swing will be
strong and decisive, the club head meeting

Special ShoU 198

the ball with a glancing blow and finishing to
the left.

How far the hands shall be held up or down
the shaft of the club and how far the club
shall be carried back depend upon the dis-
tance that the ball must cover. It is im-
portant that the ball should be addressed
squarely and that the burden of producing
side spin should be laid upon the oblique blow
given to the ball by the club's diagonal course.
Some persons advise laying back the face of
the club so that its toe slopes away from the
ball in the belief that side spin may more
easily be obtained when the club meets the
ball in this way. Such a procedure, however,
is far more likely to result in the ball shoot-
ing off to the right and not coming back, than
in producing the desired curve.

When conditions require that the ball be
pulled into the hole the player takes her posi-
tion as she would for a pulled drive with, of
course, the modifications that are necessary on
account of the restricted character of the
stroke. It is much more difficult to make this

194 Golf for Women

shot successfully than it is the one just de-
scribed, and the player may consider herself
very fortunate if she has a favoring slope
that will help the ball to curve around to the
hole. The calculation of the result of the
warring forces, forward propulsion and side
spin, requires much experience. The player
who has formed the habit of adjusting auto-
matically the length of her backward swing
to the distance to be traversed by her ball will
find that she has gained for herself a great
advantage in managing these cut stymie
shots. The habit of holding the body steady
and of keeping the eye on the ball will also be
of the greatest assistance to her. As a mat-
ter of fact, it is only after a player has be-
come a good putter, so far as straight putting
is concerned, that she can hope to be able to
play stymies with any chance of success.

When the two balls are so close together
that there is no room for cutting one ball
around the other, a new problem presents it-
self. If both the balls, so placed, are lying
close to the hole» then one must be jumped

Special ShoU 195

over the other and either dropped into the
hole or allowed to run into it. This shot is
best accomplished by using a club with a great
deal of loft, a grooved face, and a sharp lower
edge. A niblick or a mashie-niblick will
probably be selected, as an ordinary mas^e
has too broad a sole. The ball is addressed
squarely and the club carried straight back for
a few inches, just grazing the turf. The ob-
ject is to cut under the ball with the sharp
lower edge of the club's head, so that the loft
of the face of the club will force the ball
abruptly into the air. In order to accom-
plish this, the club is barely separated from
the grass at all but brushes over it as closely
as is possible without actually digging into
the ground. This shot requires great delicacy
of touch, but it is not really so very difficult
if the two balls happen to be so situated with
relation to the hole that the natural propor-
tion of the length of the ball's run to the
extent of its journey through the air will
carry the ball into the hole.
While describing this stroke J. H. Taylor,

196 Golf for Women

"Taylor on Golf," page 260, makes the fol-
lowing statement:

"Then, exactly as the club strikes the ball,
the wrists must be turned in an upward direc-
tion smartly. The result of this is that the
ball is lofted over the other, and if hit prop-
erly, it will run on and go out of. sight as in-
tended/'

This advice is very nearly as unsound as
though he advocated scooping a ball out of
a brniker. Even in such a restricted shot
as this the ball must be hit with a distinct
blow; it cannot be lifted up on the club's broad
face and allowed to drop on the other side
of the obstruction. The slope of the dub
will do the work if allowed to, so the player's
one purpose should be to keep the lower edge
of the club as close to the ground as i>ossible.
If she does that, and has gauged the force and
direction of her stroke correctly, she has done
all she can toward making the shot a suc-
cess.

VIII

IBBEGULAB STANCES

IF all golf courses were laid out upon flat
ground many of the difficulties of the
games would be eliminated. Fortunately
this is not the case. I say “fortunately,”
because level courses are extremely un-
interesting and any enthusiastic player is glad
to have the problems of playing multiplied by
legitimate difficulties. After the confusion
that may have been implanted in the player’s
mind by false or irrelevant theories has been
removed by her own clear thinking, she is
glad of the opportunity for exercising her
ingenuity in meeting the awkward situations
that arise in playing a course where she must
follow her ball up hill and down dale. Such
a course as the one at Lakewood or at Gar-
den City becomes monotonous after a time.
Aside from the aesthetic pleasure that is de-

197

198 • Golf for Women

rived from picturesquely rolling country,
there is an exhilaration of spirit produced by
the necessity of adapting oneself to the exi-
gencies of diversified ground formation. It
is distinctly more interesting not to play shot
after shot in the same manner, but to be forced
to use one’s mind and skill in playing the regu-
lar shots not only in the regular way, but also
in ways that present fresh problems of stance
and swing.

As I have said several times before,
women’s besetting sin is lack of clear and con-
centrated thinking. Once a woman can be
rescued from the state of mind that causes
her to do this or that because some one has
told her to, and has been awakened to the joy
of thinking for herself, she has made the first
long step toward becoming a good player. It
must not be supposed that I am recommend-
ing an omniscient attitude for anyone. When
a person believes she cannot learn anything
more about a subject, she immediately con-
fesses her own stupidity. The wise woman
is she who listens to each theory and sugges-

Irregular Stances 199

tion as it comes her way, but, sifting the true
from the false, retains for herself only
such as she can in her own mind prove sound.
It is by the efforts of body and mind combined
that one gets the most pleasure and benefit
from any game, and this is especially true in
the game of golf. In fact, it is only after a
pl&yer has ceased thoughtlessly to hit her
ball along from hole to hole, her moods al-
ternating between joy and depression as she
chances to make a good or a bad shot, and has
learned to make an earnest endeavor to under-
stand the scientific principles of all that she
does, that she comes to a realization of the
full pleasure of the game.

After a player has established her method
of holding her club and has mastered the dif-
ferent stances and swings that are required
in playing various kinds of shots on level
ground, she must be able to adapt what she
has learned to conditions when her feet are
above or below her ball, or when she must play
up or down a slope. Roughly speaking, there
are these four different ways in which she

200 Golf for Women

may be called upon to make her stroke when
playing over rolling ground, but, of course,
there are all kinds of gradations and modi-
fications of these situations. To make suc-
cessful shots from these uneven places requires
experience in judging the special problem
presented in each case and practice in modi*
fying or changing the swing of the club to
suit each condition. Any instructions on the
subject must necessarily be of the most gen-
eral character and can serve only as a start-
ing point from which each person must pro-
ceed guided by her own good sense. It is
hardly to be expected that a shot played under
somewhat trjong conditions will have the
length that could be produced by the same
club used in the ordinary way. A player
must not expect too much of her shot when
she is playing from very sloping ground. On
the other hand, she must not allow herself
to believe that she is excused for making a
bad shot because of the somewhat awkward
position in which she must take her stance.
She must not try to accomplish the impossi-

MISS MURIEL DODD
A full follow-through.

Irregular Stances 201

ble, but she must not be satisfied with less
than her very best.

In my comments concerning the diflFerent
strokes I have frequently emphasized the im-
portance of maintaining a firm base from
which to make the swing. When the feet are
above or below the ball, or placed so that
one is higher than the other, the difficulty
of holding the body steady is n^uch increased,
but at the same time the necessity of steadi-
ness becomes, if possible, even more impera-
tive. The inclination to draw back from the
ball when the ball is above the level of the
player’s feet, or to straighten the body when
the ball lies below, is hard to overcome, but
overcome it must be if the player expects to
make even a fair shot.

When the ball is above the player’s feet
the club suddenly appears to have become too
long for the player’s comfort. To counter-
act this she will without doubt grip the shaft
well down toward the lower edge of its leather
wrapping. To what extent she will shorten
her hold will, of course, depend upon the de-

202 Golf for Women

gree of the ground’s slope and the length of
the shaft of the club that she has selected to
use. When the ball has a pleasant, open lie
it is a temptation to use the brassie, but, on
account of its long shaft, it is a troublesome
club to handle when the distance between the
ball and the player’s hands has been greatly
shortened. Generally when the ball is above
the feet it is safer to use a spoon or a mid-iron,
but, as I have said before, it is impractical
to give detailed advice on this subject because
the player must be guided by the special as-
pects of each different situation.

Having selected her club according to her
own best judgment, the player must make it
her endeavor to adapt herself to her surround-
ings in such a way that she will alter her
usual method of procedure with that club as
little as possible. She must be particularly
careful not to hold her hands higher than
is her habit because to do so will surely spoil
her shot. She must be careful to address the
ball squarely and to make her upward swing
deliberately and firmly. On account of the

Irregular Stances 208

ball’s elevated position the swing will be pro-
portionately flattened, with the result that the
ball frequently is pulled. Allowance for this
possible pull must be made as the player takes
her aim. If the player’s position is such that
she necessarily feels somewhat cramped, it is
just as well to forego some of the usual twist
of the body. Every precaution for keeping
perfect balance and control of the dub must
be observed.

When the ball is lying below the level of
the player’s feet, it is, I believe, even more
difficult to make a good shot than it is when
the ball is in an elevated position. The
player either plunges forward at the ball
or straightens her body at the last instant.
Either action is disastrous and yet, in trying
to correct one of these faults, the player is
almost sure to fall into the other. It seems
almost inevitable that, in stooping over the
ball, one will either tip forward on the toes or
involuntarily raise the head in the effort to
maintain the balance of the body. In order
to forestall these natural inclinations the

204 Golf for Women

player should try not to stoop over from tbe
hips more than she usually does, but to get
down to the ball by bending her knees. Cor-
rect balance can be maintained much more
easily when the body is simply lowered in this
way than when the center of gravity is thrust
forward by the body’s arching over. With
knees decidedly bent it is not easy to make a
full, free swing, so it is well to use caution and
strive for accuracy rather than length. The
character of the swing will in all probability
be more upright than usual and, if a wooden
club is being used, this will cause the ball to be
sliced in a greater or less degree. As in the
case described before when the ball is above
the level of the player’s feet, if she has any
reason to believe that her shot will not be a
straight one, she must make allowance for
the curve of the ball’s flight while taking her
aim.

When the ball is lying so that the player
must stand with one foot higher than the
other her weight naturally will fall more on
the lower foot than on the higher one. This

Irregular Stances 205

unequal distribution of her weight will add
to the uncertainty of her being able to pick
up the ball cleanly from the slope on which
it is lying. It will be necessary for her to plan
and execute her stroke carefully so that she
may be able to get as full a swing as possible,
hit the ball squarely and follow through with-
out striking the ground either before or after
the ball is hit. To accomplish this the swing
should follow the slope of the hill-side.
When the ball’s flight must carry it up the
hill, it follows that the swing will be low and
flat and that the club will reach out after
the ball. The follow-through must not be
cut off abruptly, for fear of hitting the
ground, but must take its course up the slope
until it comes to its natural finish.

In the case of a hanging he, the phyer
must stand so that the ball is very nearly op-
posite her left heel. The hands should be held
rather forward of the ball and the swing
should be fairly upright. The position of the
player and the character of the swing must
of course be arranged according to the slope

206 ‘Golf for Women

of the ground. This is an exceedingly diffi-
cult shot to play, especially when the ground
rises abruptly behind the balL As there is
great danger in this case of topping, the
player must make a determined eflFort to pre-
vent herself from raising her head or she will
ruin her shot. The club must be brought
down to the ball sharply and, in the fol-
low-through, both club and player must fol-
low out after the ball. It is not at all prob-
able that this shot would be played with the
brassie. Unless the downward slope is very
gradual, the midiron would without doubt be
the club chosen, as a wooden club would be
entirely unsuited to the work.

WHAT PBODUCES BAD FORM

IT is the ambition of every one to play in
good form. Some thoughtless persons
make an idol of this, and bend all their
energies toward attaining the appearance of
playing in correct style without serious con-
sideration of the fact that the appearance of
anything is, after all, only the husk. Strange
as it may seem, it is quite possible for a player
to go through all the requisite motions of
the strokes of golf in a manner that is ap-
parently faultless, and yet to lack that final
something that would make her a good player.
In vulgar parlance, this final something
would be called “punch.” In the language
of golf, the term that most nearly ex-
presses it is “correct timing.” Throu^-
out the physical action of turning the body
and swinging the club there must be an un-

‘ 207

208 Golf for Women

faltering determination to hit the ball that
will make eyery movement focus on that one,
final act Without this concentrated mental
e£fort a form that appears perfect must fail
It is necessary, then, that a player should
avoid striving for the appearance of good
form, and should make every effort to culti-
vate that mental habit that directs all her ener-
gies to the culminating instant of the stroke —
the instant that the club hits the ball. It
makes no difference what she does before or
after the ball is hit, if she gets the results.
But — and this is a very large and important
*’but” — ^it is not at all likely that she will
consistently get good results unless she learns
to manage her dub before and after the mo-
ment of impact in the way that she knows,
both from study and from practical experi-
ence, is most certain to send her ball the dis-
tance and direction that she desires it to go.
It is to gain this certainty that the player
analyzes her every action and practices dili-
gently that method of play that she believes
to be rig^t When she has formed the habit

What Produces Bad Form 209

of managing herself and her club in the man-
ner that is most nearly sure of producing the
shot she desires, she will have attained the
only real “good form.” Good form is of
value when gained incidentally as the result
of well executed strokes, but, if striven for
as the end in itself, it profits the player noth-
ing.

“Bad form” is the result of strokes executed
wrongly as to grip, stance, swing, or action
of the body. It may not be apparent to the
eye that the player is doing something that
she should not, but, if her shots fail in their
desired result, it is certain that she is some-
how wrong and the cause of her mistake must
be found and rectified before she can regain
any confidence in her game. Notwithstand-
ing long and patient effort thoroughly to
ground herself in the rudiments of golf, it is
quite possible for a player suddenly to go
“oflF her game” for some apparently unac-
countable reason. She may be a beginner or
she may be an experienced and seasoned
player but, nevertheless, she is likely at any

210 Golf for Women

time to be the subject of one of these discour-
aging attacks. It may be in the use of her
wooden clubs that she suddenly develops
strange peculiarities^ or it may be that her
irons refuse to act regularly, or she may do
well enough through the fairway but miss put
after put when she reaches the green. What-
ever form her difficulties take, she will prob-
ably feel completely disheartened until she
has managed to set herself right again.

The process of finding where the trouble
lies is not an easy one. Frequently a player
is absolutely unable to perceive that she is
doing anything unusual and yet her shots per-
sistently go wrong. In such a case, it saves
time and temper to engage a professional
teacher to watch each shot and leave it to
him to discover and to correct the fault.
When it is impossible to call in assistance, Uie
player must examine her method of play care-
fully and in detail, and try to find for herself
the root of the eviL

It is surprising but true that very often she
will find that she is not keeping her eye on the

MRS. H. A. JACKSON
A full swing.

What Produces Bad Form 211

ball. This is the first rule of golf and is
dinned into the player’s ear at all times until
from frequent repetition the words lose eflFect,
and are unconsciously disregarded. A per-
son who is told that she is not keeping her
eye fixed on the ball is often resentful of the
criticism; she feels that, no matter what else
she knows or does not know about the game,
she should not be accused of neglecting this
perfectly obvious duty. If she is honest with
herself, however, she will, in many cases, have
to admit upon second thought that, although
she may not be allowing her gaze to wander
entirely away from the ball, she is, at least, not
looking at it with the concentration of mind
that she should. Sometimes the player sud-
denly realizes that she has been looking at the
top of the ball, or at the ball as a whole, in-
stead of that portion that she expects to hit.
A stranger to the game of golf will some-
times take a club and make a good, clean shot
with no trouble at all. She is said to have “be-
ginner’s luck” but as a matter of fact there
is no luck in it. The reason for her success

212 Golf for Women

is that ^e is given a dub and told to hit the
ball and that that is aU she has in her mind;
her whole effort is directed toward striking
the ball, which she promptly does. Liater,
when she has been instructed in all the details
of the art of driving, she may be able to make
the swing in the most graceful and approved
fashion, she may twist her body, rest on her
toes» and f ollow-throu^ with great ease and
style; she may be able to do it all — except that
she cannot make a dean shot. This is a most
discouraging state in which to find oneself,
but, when once in it, the only course to follow
is to forget everything and to go back to the
first principle, and keep one’s whole attention
absolutely fixed on the ball.

Sometimes the player finds herself in
a sort of mental maze on the subject of
driving; the more she tries to get out of
her difficulties the more entangled she be-
comes in all kinds of imexpected faults,
and things go from bad to worse; When she
finds herself in such a state of mind she may
as well give up at once and practice putting

What Produces Bad Form 218

and short approach shots for a while. After
she has given her mind a complete rest from
the subject of driving, she can return to the
tee and will probably find that her difficulties
have fallen away and that she is quite all right
again. If, however, she has developed some
fault that appears elusive, she must strictly
apply herself to discovering what it is and to
correcting it. It may be her grip that is
wrong and, if she suspects this may be the
case, she should look at her hands carefully
and make sure. Whether she is using the
overlapping grip or not, her hands should
be so placed on the club that the shaft of the
club is resting at the base of her fingers and
the knuckles of both hands should be facing
in opposite directions along the Une of flight.
If she has allowed the club to drop back into
the palms of her hands, or if her knuckles are
facing skyward or groimdward, she can easily
see the fault and correct it.

It may be that her stance is wrong and that
she has unconsciously fallen into the habit of
arranging her feet in some way, either in re-

214 Golf for Women

lation to each other or in relation to the ball,
that is different from the position that she had
previously adopted as the correct one for her.
Possibly she is throwing the greater part of
her weight upon one foot or the other and
thus putting herself out of proper balance.
Again, her grip and stance may be perfectly
correct, but she may be swaying to the right
as she draws the dub back from the ball.
This is one of the most common of faults
and it is very difficult to overcome once it has
become fastened on a player. The easiest
suggestion for correcting an error is for the
teacher to say, “Don’t do it,” but such a simple
and obvious suggestion is not especially help-
ful. The player may answer, “How can I
prevent doing it?” and, unless the coach has
some further advice to offer, the player will
not be particularly benefited by his services.
Although it is a bad plan to correct one fault
by substituting another, in this case it seems
necessary. When the player sways to the
right, her weight will at the same time be
transferred to her right leg. If, therefore.

What Produces Bad Form 215

she will take her stance with her weight a
little more on the left foot than on the right,
and see to it that she does not allow it to shift,
it will be impossible for her to sway her body
sideways. When she feels confident that she
is able to keep her body and her head steady,
she can forget about keeping her weight on
the left foot, and resmne her play with her
weight evenly distributed as it should be.

Beginners are inclined, when addressing the
ball, to hold the arms too stiffly and the hands
too high. On being corrected for this fault
they often go to the other extreme and drop
the hands too low. There is a happy medium
that must be adopted from the start and, once
the habit is formed, the player is not apt to
break away from it, imless she conceives the
idea that she can correct some other fault by
changing the position of her arms and hands.
It is not easy to describe accurately the at-
titude that should be assumed while address-
ing the ball. One can simply say “Avoid ex-
tremes.” The knees should be flexed, the
arms bent a little at the elbow, and the hands

216 Golf for Women

held so that they appear neither to be reach-
ing out nor to be so close to the body that
the arms will be cramped while they are
swinging the club. It is necessary, of course,
that the club be soled truly and if, in doing
this, the player finds that her hands must be
held awkwardly in some way the fault lies in
the club and she should get a new one.

As the club is carried back from the ball
there must be no suggestion of a straight arm
motion. When the club is at the top of the
swing it has turned upside down, its heel is
toward the sky, and its toe is pointing to the
ground, its face being towards the line of
flight. It is a common mistake to Be afraid
of beginning this turning movement too soon.
The player, having it firmly fixed in her mind
that the club must meet the ball squarely, imr
consciously tries to carry the club back as far
as possible with its face toward the ball.
This is unnecessary and leads to various com-
plications. The turning of the wrists and
forearms should begin almost immediately
after the club leaves the ball, and the bending

What Produces Bad Form 217

of the left knee should follow closely. In
other words, the whole action of winding up
the body should begin soon; it should not be
delayed until the lifting of the arms pulls the
body around.

If the player feels convinced that ^e has
started the upswing correctly, she may find
that she has made some mistake on the
way that will bring her out of position when
she reaches the top. It is advisable for her to
ascertain if this is true by pausmg when she
reaches the top of her swing and observing
carefully how the various portions of her body
are disposed. The faults that she is most
likely to find are that her left wrist is curved
out from the shaft of the dub instead of being
below it, that her right elbow is pointing out
too much instead of lying fairly close to her
side, or that she has allowed the club head to
drSp below the point where it must stop in
order to have the shaft of the club parallel
to the ground. It is very possible that her
hands and arms are in the correct position
but that her weight is decidedly on her right

218 Golf for Women

leg. Perhaps she has allowed her left foot to
turn around so that her heel is pointing out to-
ward the hole. This turning out of the
left heel is a very common error and I
believe it arises partly from the use of the
word “pivoting” to designate the movement
of the player’s feet. When a beginner hears
about pivoting on the left foot she naturally
forms a mental picture of the foot screwing
around. She will think this and consequently
will turn her heel outward, unless some one
explains to her that she must simply raise
her heel and allow her weight to fall across
the ball of the foot.

The faults that result in pulling or slicmg
the baU I have dealt with in another chapter
so I will not speak of them again here. There
is another fault in driving that is common to
beginners, but not often foimd among ex-
perienced players, and that is topping the ball.
This is caused usually by lifting the head or
the body, but it may also be caused by sway-
ing the body to the right as the club is carried
back and not swaying it forward again as the

What Produces Bad Form 219

dub comes down. It will be seen, then, that
the whole plane of the club’s swing is moved
to the right so that, when the club head reaches
the lowest point in its arc, it is not at the ball
but some distance behind it. As the club
head meets the ball it is on the rise and con-
sequently the ball gets away with a certain
amount of top spin that causes it to duck to
earth immediately.

Swaying of the body sideways, or forward
and backward, or lifting it, or swooping down
on the ball are responsible for all manner of
erratic shots. Sometimes the player com-
bines two or three of these motions in various
degrees with the result that the club hits the
groimd before it reaches the ball, hits the top
of the ball and then the groimd, meets the ball
with the toe or the heel, or makes any one of
several other disastrous forms of contact.
These are ignominious enough, but the most
distressing fault of all is when the club simply
fans the air and leaves the ball untouched.
The remedy for this class of faults lies in cul-
tivating the habit of keeping the eye on the

220 Golf for Women

back of the ball and holding the head steady.
It is not easy to do and, even after a player
has apparently mastered the art of making
all her body movement that of twisting, she is
apt to fall back into some of her former bad
habits. However, golf would not be the fas-
cinating game that it is if it were possible to
attain perfection, so the player must never be
discouraged, but be pleased when ^e is mak-
ing progress and patient when she is suffering
from a temporary relapse.

Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the
fact that, from the top of the swing, it is im-
perative for the body to take the lead* In
order to get real power into a stroke it is
necessary to draw immediately upon llie
strength of the body. A blow struck by the
arms alone is comparatively feeble. To have
real effect a blow struck by the arms must be
backed by the weight of the body, or by the
strength of the muscles of the torso. On ac-
count of the fact that, in order to retain ac-
curacy, it is impossible in the golf drive to
allow the body to plunge forward toward the

MRS. GEORGE J. GOULD
At the end of the swing.

What Produces Bad Form 221

ball, the required power must come from those
muscles of the torso that are brought into use
as the body turns.

Any one can see the evil results of the ex-
treme fault of allowing the hands to come
through first and no one could possibly ad-
vocate cultivating that error. Whether the
downward swing is started by the arms or by
the body, however, is impossible to ascertain
by the eye. One can judge only by the
amount of force the player has summoned,
as shown by the ball’s flight, whether or not
she has effectively gotten her body into the
blow. There has always been a great deal of
discussion and disagreement on this point
among players, and the rapidity with whic6
the whole action of arms and body takes place
has prevented positive proof of what the best
drivers really do. Recently, however, there
have been a number of cinematograph pic-
tures taken of champion players making a full
shot with either an iron or wooden club, and,
from a careful study of a series of these
photographs, it is possible to see exactly

222 Golf for Women

^Aere tiie player starts the downward swing.

The consideration of such a fine point as
this should not concern the beginner. It is
only ¥dien a player has become so proficient
Ihat her game requires only the finishing
toudies Ihat she can afford to indulge in try-
ing for the last factors of perfection. A be-
ginner, on being told to start the downward
swing from the body, would surely lunge for-
ward or swoop down on the balL The divid-
ing line between starting the stroke with the
arms or with the body is so fine that only an
experienced player can consciously command
either the one or the other method without
sacrificing entirely the harmony of her stroke*
It is well, however, even for a beginner to
understand the ultimate end that she is striv-
ing for, even if she is not as yet prepared to
put her knowledge into execution.

To attain that perfect concert of the va-
rious x>ortions of her body that alone will re-
sult in the player’s having a smooth and
rh3rthmic swing is indeed difficult. To be
able to apply force in the way in which it is re-

What Produces Bad Form 228

quired demands an even balance in the use of
the arms that is difficult to adjust. In spite
of what any one may say about favoring the
left arm or the right, no thoughtful person
can seriously believe that the best results can
be obtained in any way except that of using
both arms equally. This question of the
mastery of the right or the left arm has been
discussed in a previous chapter, but it is of
such importance that a little repetition on the
subject may well be allowed. To the query,
** Which arm or hand should control the club?’*
the answer must be, “Both.’* Admonitions
such as are frequently heard, to the eflfect that
the right arm and hand supply the power
while the left acts as guide, or vice versa, are
entirely impractical and, if followed, would
lead to an uncertain and ineffectual style of
play. This is especially true in the case of
women players because they particularly
need the united strength of both arms as well
as the smoothness of swing that can be ob-
tained only by the combined effort of the
right and the left.

224 Golf for Women

The driver and the brassie are so nearly
alike that the rules that govern the use of the
one are, with a few slight changes, applicable
to the other. It follows, therefore, that the
faults that a player may develop in using lier
driver are afanost sure to be repeated in mak-
ing her brassie shots. Frequently a player
¥^o finds herself **o£F on her wooden clubs”
will abandon her brassie for a while and use
her deek or mid-iron through the fairway.
The deek, as I have said before, is a most
valuable dub, but on account of its uncom-
promising nature it is not so generally popu-
lar, espedally among women golfers, as the
mid-iron. The mid-iron is a comfortable
companion, and seldom fails to accomplish
what is expected of it. Of course it happens
sometimes that a player will go completely
wrong on her iron shots but, on the whole, the
iron is the most reliable club in the bag.

The mashie, on the other hand, is the source
of a great deal of trouble. This is partly
owing to the fact that a mashie is used gen-
erally in situations where accuracy is re-

What Produces Bad Form 225

quired. A few yards here or there, so long
as the ball has good direction, does not gener-
ally make a great deal of di£Ference in a
driver or brassie shot, but when the mashie
is used, especially in approach shots, the dif-
ference of a few feet, or sometimes a few in-
ches, will mean success or failure.

After the freedom of the full swing of the
wooden clubs or the slightly restricted swing
^- of the cleek or iron, the player is inclined to
‘ feel cramped and stiff when she takes her
^ position for a mashie shot. A half, or at most
‘: a three-quarter swing, is all that should ever
be used for this club. If greater length is
“^ required than can be obtained by a decidedly
f ciu*tailed stroke it is practically certain that
f some other club should be employed. No
^ advantage can be obtained by forcing a
I’ mashie shot, nor, for that matter, should any
other club be pushed beyond its natural limi-
tations. It should be kept in mind that very
^ little body motion is needed, and that the shot
f is accomplished chiefly by the arms and wrists.
\* This recommendation is a dangerous one to

226 Golf for Women

make because, if followed too closely, it may
result in a sti£Fness that is very undesirable.
It is impossible to describe exactly how much
or how little the body is used; the player must
work out the problem for herself. There are
certain pitfalls, however, that must be guarded
against and a brief consideration of them will
be of some service.

The left shoulder must not be dropped but
must swing around parallel to the ground as
the arms are drawn back. The ri^t shoul-
der, as the club is on its downward journey,
must not be lowered or the club head will
doubtless dig into the turf. This inclination,
common to all beginners, to scoop up the ball
is the cause of a great many bungled shots.
It is only by the strongest eflfort of will that a
player can train herself to allow the club to
do the work without an assisting downward
swoop of the right side of the body. If the
right heel is kept flat on the ground, it will
help to curb the natural inclination to drop
the right shoulder and bend the right knee
unduly.

What Produces Bad Form 227

The stance for a mashie shot should vary
with the distance to be covered. The general
rule is that the shorter the distance the more
open the stance. The club should be drawn
back, for a straight shot, along the line of
flight and should follow out after the ball.
Frequently players commit the fault of bring-
ing the club around to the left after the ball
has been hit, which is a mistake carefully to be
avoided. Durmg the upward swing the right
elbow must be kept fairly close to the side
and, as the stroke is finished, the left elbow
should be pointing toward the hole. In mak-
ing a cut mashie shot the club head crosses
the intended line of flight as in the sliced
drive. Some instructors suggest that while
making this shot the toe of the club be laid
out so as to coimteract a possible tendency of
the ball to go to the left, but such advice
should be regarded warily. If the face of
the club meets the ball in any way except at
right angles to the line of flight, inaccuracy
of direction is almost sure to follow.

As the object to be attained in making

228 Golf for Women

pitch shots is that the ball should rise sud-
denly into the idr, it is necessary that the lower
edge of the club’s face should cut between the
ball and the ground. To insure “”getting
under’* the ball sufficiently the eye should be
.fixed, not on the ball, but on the ground im-
mediately behind the balL The most con-
centrated attention is necessary, as the slight-
est wavering of eye or of mind will upset the
nicest calculations.

I have, I believe, mentioned the points on
which the golfer is most apt to fail when using
a mashie, and a great deal of what I have said
applies equally well when a niblick is the club
in hand. The getting out of bunkers, sand
traps, or any extremely difficult lie tests the
skill and often the ingenuity of the player.
Most remarkable stances have to be adopted
occasionally and the player has to make up
her mind to do the best she can in a bad situa-
tion. If she has thoroughly mastered the
underljring principles of the use of each dub
and will maintain an unruffled spirit, she will

What Produces Bad Form 229

make a creditable shot, no matter how great
are the difficulties.

It is the combination of knowledge, prac-
tice, determination, and good temper that
makes the good golfer. As a coroUaiy to
these, there arrives a certain sense that might
be called the “sixth sense” of the game of
golf. This is more than a sense of direction
or of distance — ^it is a sense of place. As an
expert marksman can hit’ his target without
taking aim along the sights of his rifle or re-
volver, so an expert golfer can lay his or her
ball in the place selected by the exercise of a
certain faculty that is acquired only after long
experience. This faculty is the final and in-
definable attribute of the greatest experts and
comes, like “good form,” not from conscious
eflfort but as the result of the blending to-
gether of all things that go to make the
finished golfer.

SOME WOMEN GOLFEBS AND THEIR PIuAT

WOMAN is prone to keep an eye
on the fashionable modiste when
it comes to style in dress, which
causes man (with his sti£F collar, temperature
regardless) to smile or to ridicule. Woman
is as independent as man when it comes to the
style of her golfing stroke in which, like man,
she employs many di£Ferent methods to get
the desired result. Perhaps, in a collective
sense, she has not taken her golf quite so seri-
ously as man, for her social and home duties
do not allow her quite the same amount of
time to brood or enthuse over the day’s play.
She does not linger so long about the club-
house after the round, to dilate upon the
three puts that she took on No. 6 green or
the misfortune of taking two shots to get out
of the footprint in a bunker, and she is not so

230

MRS. LILTAX HYDE FEITNEU
Gettinpf nway a long hrassie.

Women Golfers and Their Vlay 281

apt to give the impression that she has lost
her last friend because of defeat in a cham-
pionship romid. The :v7oman golfer is a
cheerful loser.

In comparison with the time that she
has given to golf from the competitive angle,
her progress has been rapid and it would seem
as if each year she is drawing gradually nearer
to the standard of the sex which, from time
immemorial, has devoted itself to athletic
pastimes. Whether golf is to be the first
athletic pastime in which woman eventually
will take her place on a plane with man is
problematical, but the possibilities are better
than in perhaps any other sport. It might be
so in shooting, except that woman’s natural
tastes hardly will lead her into that field in
such numbers as into the field of golf.

Up to the present time, woman’s inferiority
in the Royal and Ancient game has been
largely a matter of physical strength. She
has not had the generations of muscle-build-
ing toil or athletic activities to develop along
these lines. Even where endowed abnormally

282 Golf for Women

in the matter of muscle and strength, she has
not had the actual training, or the athletic
heritage, to use her strength to hest advantage
in the pastimes of the field. What she can
do, however, without this heritage or long
training is being demonstrated more and more
in golf, where in certain individual instances
she is vicing with man in ability to hit the golf
ball for remarkable distances. One reason
for this, of course, is that distance in golf may
be in one instance a matter of brute strength
and in the other a matter of smoothness of
stroke, plus suppleness of muscles and the
knack of hitting the ball at just that second
when the clubhead is traveling at its maximum
pace, — ^in other words, perfect timing. Few
men in the country can drive a ball as far as
Mrs. Quentin Feitner (Miss Lillian B.
Hyde) of Brooklyn, but many who normally
would play the odd with her after the tee shots
, might leave her far behind in the matter of
distance out of a bad lie in heavy grass, where
strength of forearm and wrist are an absolute
requirement.

Women Golfers and Their Play 288

Woman is naturally more of a stylist in
golf than is man, or to put it another way, a
greater percentage of her sex hit the ball with
that easy graceful motion of a Vardon than
can be said of the rank and file of men. One
of the reasons doubtless is that a greater per-
centage of women than men begin their golf-
ing career by taking lessons of a professional
and practice more assiduously. If the pro-
fessional under whom they study has any real
fundamental knowledge of golf for begin-
ners, and can impart that knowledge lucidly,
the pupil at least has the advantage of start-
ing on sound principles.

That women golfers come naturally by
their fortunate habit of taking an easy swing,
gaining their distance on timing, is exampled
in the achievements of some of the foremost
golfers in the early days of women’s competi-
tion. Lady Margaret Scott, winner of the
first three championships held under the aus-
pices of the Ladies’ Golf Union, of the
British Isles, in 1898, ’94 and ’95, is referred
to by writers of her day as ‘^possessed of a

284 Golf for Women

fine, full, easy swing which won universal
admiration. Her play throughout the com-
petition (1898) was almost faultless.” Mrs.
Ryder Richardson, semi-finalist in the British
ladies championship of 1895 at Pertrush,
when she was 4 up at the turn, only to lose
the match by 2 up, also was noted for her
“easy, graceful style.” As a stylist, there
never has been seen on an American course
a girl who more closely typified the Vardon
grace and ease of stroke, with perfection of
timing, than Miss Florence Teacher, who
came to the United States in 1909 with Mrs.
Dorothy Campbell Hurd, Miss Grace Semple
and one or t?ro other British girls, that being
the year that .Mrs. Hurd (then Dorothy
Campbell) won the American title for the first
time. While it was Mrs. Hurd who won the
title, it was Miss Teacher whose play was
watched with profound admiration. This
fairly tall, wonderfully lithe and graceful
wielder of the golf dub, champion of Scot-
land in 1907, had a full swing which was as
smooth-working as a well-oiled piece of

Women Golfers and Their Play 285

machinery. She used a driver with the dread-
naught head, so large that it was, first, a
cause of constant wonderment that she could
swing it at all; second, that she could get the
head through after hittiiig the ball, so as to
keep the ball on the line instead of slicing it
badly, or getting off the line to the left by
meeting the ball too late. The secret was
that Miss Teacher was in perfect commimion
with the club, so to speak. She had her
stroke perfected to the point where each time
it appeared to follow a long familiar groove
both in going back and in coming down, leav-
ing Miss Teacher the sole task of keeping her
eye on the ball and her body from swaying.
It naturally would seem quite essential that
a woman, imless abnormally large and strong,
should get a full swing for her distance, but
it does not always work out that way. As
reference has just been made to Mrs. Dor-
othy Campbell Hurd, we will take her as
an example. Winner of so many champion-
ship titles, on both sides of the Atlantic, that
she might find it difficult to enumerate them

286 Golf for Women

all offhand, she rarely has been consistently
and pronouncedly outdriven, though she is of
comparatively small stature and played in her
days of championship supremacy with a back
swing possibly a trifle more than half. Where
she held her own with the majority of her
competitors in the long game was in the tre-
mendous snap of her downward stroke, in
which not one ounce of her strength was
wasted. Had Mrs. Hurd lengthened her
swing, there is the bare possibility that she
could have added distance, but with that short
back swing and not exaggerated follow
through, she kept the ball as near the middle
of the course, and as far from trouble, as Mr.
Walter J. Travis in the ranks of the men.
The consequence was that in the long run she
probably gained as much distance from the
tees as the women of longer swing but less
control. Her short swing, moreover, was
admirably adapted to the firmly hit and accur-
ately placed iron shots of which she and a
number of other British women golfers are
such masters. She and Mrs. Bruce D. Smith

2£

MISS MARION HOLLINS
Bunkered and well out.

Women Golfers and Their Play 287

(winner of the United States women’s cham-
pionship in 1905, as Miss Pauline Mackay)
are two of much the same type, — ^the short
back swing, snappy downstroke, modified
follow through, with accuracy and match play
coiu*age as much factors in their success as
their actual stroke ability.

The reverse of Mrs. Hurd and Mrs. Smith,
in a sense, is Mrs. H. A. (Harley) JacVson,
winner of the women’s national in 1908 and
1914. She is a large woman, with an upright
swing of quite fair length and one who might
be expected to hit a tremendously long ball.
Mrs. Jackson won two championships be-
cause, like Mrs. Hurd and Miss Mackay, she
preferred to sacrifice distance for the sake of
accuracy. Her stroke from beginning to end
is smooth and under supreme control at every
point. Could she get more wrist action and
snap into her swing as it comes to the horizon-
tal, nearing the ball, she would drive yards
ahead of Mrs. Hurd, but her stroke, while so
beautifully smooth, is what might be termed
‘”tame.” It has none of that fire that comes

%*-

288 Golf for Women

of calling upon muscles to give, at just the
final moment, not only their normal function
of sweeping that ball away from the little pile
of sand, but also their concentrated force at
the moment of attack. There was, from the
other point of view, Mrs. C. T. Stout {nee
Genevieve Hecker), one of the most brilliant
of all the American women golfers, a girl who
might well have won the British women’s
championship had she gone abroad in the hey-
day of her game. There was a girl who, in
spite of her shortness of stature, used almost
a regulation St. Andrews swing of the old
days of the gutty ball, with all the fire, dash
and abandon of a violin virtuoso playing a
favorite rhapsody. She swung as if the
action typified the joy of living, little caring,
as the spectator viewed it, where the ball
went and for that matter, playing out of
trouble with extraordinary power for one of
her size, a distinct reminder, in all the essen-
tials of her game, of Mr. Jerome D. Travers.
Miss Rhona Adair, the first of the British
women champions who really made a pro-

Women Golfers and Their Plqy 289

nounced impression upon American golfing
enthusiasts, upon the occasion of her visit a
dozen years ago, was another like Mrs. Stout
who hit at the ball as if her very heart and
soul were in the stroke. She drove with an
open stance, with knees a trifle bent at all
stages of the stroke ; the club was started back
with the left hand, for about a three-quarters
swing, but, when the head came down on the
ball, it was with the force imparted about
equally with both hands, for Miss Adair was
among the women who believed in letting her
right hand know what her left was doing.

While the rank and file of the women
golfers are taught (quite wrongly, I believe)
to start the club back with the left hand and
allow that to be the leading factor in all of
their wooden shots, if not pretty much the
only factor, there are, in following this prac-
tice, a few notable exceptions, of which the
greatest in this country probably are Miss
Margaret and Miss Harriet S. Curtis, sisteri
and Boston golfers who have held the national
title four times between them, Margaret

240 CkiLf for Women

three times and Harriet onee. For years
Miss Margaret Curtis held the distinction of
being rated as the longest hitter in the wo*
men’s ranks this side of the water, and it was
not until the advent of Mrs. Quentin Feitner
with her tremendous distances that Miss
Curtis had to grant superiority. Miss Mar-
garet Curtis and her sister are largely self-
taught in golf 9 acquiring knowledge through
assiduous practice and perhaps occasional
helpful suggestions from their brother James
Curtis, himself a fine golfer a few years back.
Very likely it was lack of professional teach-
ing that led the Curtis sisters to get the weight
of their stroke in with the right hand. They
are unusually robust girls, to start with, and
their ability at long hitting has been more or
less of the downright slugging order, like
that of a strong man, than the sweeping, well-
timed stroke of the girls of slighter frame
who hit a good tee shot. Both Curtis girls
take a fairly full swing at the ball and their
blow is distinctly a hit, as contrasted with a
sweep. The chief trouble with their style of

Women Golfers and Their Play 241

stroke, especially so in the case of Miss Mar- ^
gmret Curtis when she is a little off her game,
is the tendency to dip the right shoulder in
the act of trying to get just a little more
force into the blow. This of course is fatal,
for the moment she dips that shoulder, the
club is almost certain to hit the ground too
soon and result in a badly schlaff ed shot, with-
out distance. That was exactly what hap-
pened when Miss Curtis met Miss Vera
Ramsay in the final of the Boston District
women’s championship of 1915. The three
times national champion simply could not
hold herself up on the swing, or else, in noting
what was wrong in her game, she involuntarily
overdid the part of keeping the right shoulder
up on the downward swing and consequently
topped the ball.

In playing the irons. Miss Margaret Curtis
at her best is about as fine an example of a
woman golfer that this country has bred, for
it is on the iron play that the American girls
have been so deficient as compared to their
English cousins in the upper rank. The

242 Golf for Women

Curtises are not afraid of allowing the heads
of their irons to hit the turf, for they have the
wrist and forearm power to take the turf and
yet get the clubhead through. It is a curious
fact, and beautifully illustrative of what con-
centration, determination and practice will
do, to note the evolution in Miss Margaret
Curtis’s short game. As far back as 1902,
the year that the national championship was
first held at The Country Club, Brookline,
Mass., Miss Curtis, then a plump girl in hsr
teens, familiarly known as “Peggy,** was
touted as a title possibility. Her long game
was wonderful, but her short game atrocious,
especially mashie shots from distances around
fifty yards, also her long approach puts.
She did not seem to have the remotest con-
ception of the innate “feeling” of the club on
a short shot and on a 80-foot approach put
she was just as apt to be thirty feet over as
anywhere else. The same trouble pursued
her in 1908 and 1904, in each of which years
she again was looked upon as a prospective
champion, only to discourage her chief ad-

MRS. RONALD H. BARLOW
At the end of full swing.

Women Golfers and Their Play 248

mirers by her failure to master that delicacy
of stroke so essential to the short game and
the putting green. She became the title
runner-up in 1905, to Mrs, Bruce D. Smith,
and her failure to win the title on that occa*
sion led the critics to break forth into doleful
verbiage to the eflFect that now it was a cer-
tainty that Miss Curtis need never again be
taken seriously in a national tourney.

The reverse of the picture was presented in
full measiu*e at the women’s national of 1911,
at the Baltusrol Grolf Club, where Miss Curtis
and Mrs. Hurd met in the semi-finals. Mrs.
Hurd up to that time had swept all before
her in this country and was considered imbeat-
able. What happened was that Miss Mar-
garet Curtis won the match by 4 and 8 and
the elements of her success, probably to her
own supreme satisfaction, were in the suprem-
acy of her short game. In other words, it
was through mastery over Mrs. Hurd in her
own stronghold, accurate approaching and
good putting, that the Boston girl gave the
Briton her first championship defeat this side

244 Golf for Women

of the Atlantic From that time criticisms
of Miss Curtis’s short game virtually ceased,
except in an occasional instance such as every
good golfer experiences, when nothing goes
right. Application, piu*e and simple, is what
did it.

For fear that the impression might he given
that it is downright physical strength that
enables the Curtis girls to get so much dis-
tance through the ‘”punch” from the right
arm, there can be presented as another ex-
ample of the girl who derives a goodly part
of her distance from the right hand. Miss
Fanny C. Osgood, another Boston girl of
comparatively slight build. Miss Osgood
hits one of the longest irons of any woman
golfer and while apparently she gets both
arms about equally into the stroke, it im-
doubtedly is by pushing out with her right at
the moment of impact, as well as applying
extra power with it, that she gets quite a
decided hook to the ball and an imusual run
when the groimd is the least bit hard. She
probably learned early in her golfing experi-

Women Golfers and Their Play 245

ence that it was necessary for her to get in
the punch with the right arm to hold her own
in distance with gurls of the Curtis type, but
she also learned the equally important lesson
that if it is the hook which gives additional
distance, it is the same hook which leads to
all sorts of difficulties unless under the best
of controL That Miss Osgood can control
it extraordinarily well has been proved time
and again, her record in the Boston District
in winning several championships, against
fields inclusive of the Curtis girls, the late
Mrs. E. C. Wheeler, Jr., Mrs. H. A. Jack-
son and others of the coimtry’s leaders, being
proof enough.

This country of course has an especially
high opinion of the play of British girls be-
cause so many of the best from the other side
of the Atlantic have visited the United States,
such as Miss Rhona Adair, Miss Lottie Dod,
Miss Muriel Dodd, Mrs. Hurd, Miss Flor-
ence Teacher, Miss Gladys Ravenscroft, Miss
Vera Ramsay and Mrs. W. A. Gavin. An
admirable array they are, wonderful golfers

246 Golf for Women

aU, differing in some of their methods^ but
alike in their ability to play up to the standard
of women’s par almost day in and day out.
If Miss Teacher might be considered the
essence of grace and rhythm in her wooden
club stroke. Miss Gladys Ravenscroft might
be likened to the “Ted” Ray of the irons.
She is a woman of the Amazon mold, a per-
fect picture of robust health. When she took
an iron in her hand, the spectator indubitably
felt that something had to go. The top of
her swing on a fairly long iron rarely carried
the club back further than horizontal with the
shoulders, with the left wrist curved sharply
inward, ready to come back with a snap at
the proper moment. She held her body
rigid, her eye on the ball religiously and went
into the turf in just the same manner as do
the male professionals.

Two notable exponents of the supremacy
of British women’s golf, of more recent date,
are Miss Vera Ramsay, twice holder of the
Boston District title, and Mrs. W. A. Gavin,
1916 winner of the women’s Eastern cham-

Women Golfers and Their Play 247

pionship, a medal play competition. Miss
Ramsay, a girl endowed physically along the
lines of Miss Ravenscroft, has a touch of the
professional male in the way she “hits” the
ball, whereas Mrs. Gavin, compact but rather
short, is of the type which gets distance
through smoothness of stroke, plus perfect
timing. Miss Ramsay stands up square to
the ball in the most business-like fashion,
makes up her mind almost instantly as to
what club is best suited for the lie and the
distance to be covered, goes back about three-
quarters with the upright swing and when she
hits thie ball she puts into it every ounce of
force to be derived from a powerful right
shoulder. She has an unusually pronounced
follow through, which is the natural result of
the way she gets that right shoulder into the
stroke. The same characteristic applies to
her irons. How the weight of a club can
affect the play was illustrated in Miss Ram-
say’s game in the 1916 Women’s Eastern
championship. She was trying out a new
driver, weighted more heavily in the head

248 Golf for Women

than her old one. It was noticeable that wiHi
abnormal frequency, for her, the ball was
being pushed out to the right, not exactly a
slice, but simply off the line. It was due,
undoubtedly, to the fact that she did not quite
have the feel of the heavier clubhead, wfaidi
was a fraction of a second late in going
through after its contact with the ball, as
coippared with her old and slightly lighter
club. On her short mashie shots. Miss Ram-
say stands with her feet just far enough apart
to give a firm stance, takes her club back a
short distance, compared with the average
girl, and puts in the necessary pimch ahnost
exclusively with the wrists. She plays to hit
the ball first and then have the clubhead take
the turf, with resultant backspin.

Mrs. Gavin is of a different type, except
that like Miss Ramsay she stands square to
the ball, with feet fairly well apart and firmly
placed. In fact, Mrs. Gavin is one of the
most careful persons in the matter of her
stance that the world of women’s golf knows.
She never attempts to start her swing to hit

MRS. C. H. VANDERBECK
Playing out of the sand.

Women Golfers and Their Play . 249

the ball until she feels absolutely satisfied that
her feet are firmly emplaeed and that, on the
tee, the ball is on a spot least likely to affect
the shot adversely. Her backward swing for
the drive is the essence of deliberation in a
golf stroke. As the club goes back, to quite
a full degree, the free elasticity of the body
is shown and, when the clubhead comes back
on the ball, it is with a smoothness which
exemplifies how well Mrs. Gavin has learned
the lesson of allowing the dub to do the work,
supplemented by the power unparted by
supple wrists. Watching Mrs. Gavin take
her driver back on the swing, so slowly and
deliberately to the top of the stroke, is almost
to gain the impression that she has a certain
set of muscles which click a message of
”Everjrthing O. K. at this station” before the
club continues its journey. That delibera*
tiveness continues as the clubhead starts down-
ward and there is nothing deliberate about it,
although nothing jerky, when the blow goes
home. Then Mrs. Gavin comes forward on
her left foot with no imcertainty as to where

250 Golf for Women

her weight has been transf erred» to lose none
of the power.

That there are no hard and fast rules gov-
erning women’s play as judged from results,
is exampled in the styles of those already
referred to, but another illustration may be
taken from the play of Mrs. R. H. Barlow,
the Philadelphia woman. Mrs. Barlow has
one peculiarity almost exclusively. Instead
of bending the left knee at the beginning of
the back swing, she holds it rigid until practi-
cally at the top of the swing. Then comes
the bend of the knee, with surprising sudden-
ness. A natural impression of this eccen-
tricity, at first glance, would be that it would
have a tendency to make the stroke jerky or
to sway the body, but the proof of the pudding
is in the eating, and no one could criticise this
imorthodox movement of the knee after wit-
nessing the regularity with which Mrs. Bar^
low gets away her tee shots for distances quite
the equal of a majority of the leading women
golfers, if not beyond most of them.

As regards putting, many close followers

Women Golfers and Their Play 261

of both men’s and women’s golf are firmly
convinced that the leading women golf ers, as
a class, are quite the equal of their brothers
and that, taken right through all classes, the
women may even excel. Possibly there is a
strictly feminine explanation of this point.
Woman is gifted naturally with more delicate
fingers than man, and delicacy of touch pre-
sumably is an attribute to putting. There is
no reason for doubting that woman has as
keen an eye as man. The third element in
her favor is that she is more apt, than man,
to stand fairly upright in her putting, if for
iQo other reason than to stoop far over and
assume some of the putting postures found
in the male ranks is contrary to her innate
sense against appearing awkward. Many
experts have written that the golfer who
stands fairly straight in putting gets a better
line on the hole and that may be the explana-
tion of women’s proficiency.

Of coiu-se styles differ in women’s putting,
but not nearly to the same extent as in the
men’s ranks. There are women who try to

252 Golf for Women

put with merely a wrist motion; women who
put with the arms dose to the body and others
with arms extended; some who use the pen-
dulum putting stroke and many who put with
no definite idea of any particular method.
Two of the finest putters ever known in the
women’s ranks this side of the water putted
with the croquet stroke, so called, witli both
feet pointed toward the hole and the club out
to the right of the body. These two were
Mrs. Bruce D. Smith and the late Mrs. £•
C. Wheeler, Jr. It is a style which looks as
if it might be effective on comparatively short
puts, but most uncertain on long ones, yet
Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Wheeler won a large
share of their links honors through their pro-
ficiency on the putting greens. As an ex-
ponent of the more natural style, Mrs. H. A.
Jackson, twice the national champion, is one
of the leading examples. She stands quite
upright, except for the bend at the head and
shoulders which puts her eyes directly over
the ball and on a line with the hole. Her
putting stroke is mostly with the wrists and

Women Golfers and Their Play 258

the most pleasing thing about it is the firm*
ness with which she hit the ball. The conse-
quence is that the ball generally is up to the
hole, even if it does not go down, but on puts
up to Qight or ten feet she is notably accurate.
Just as ‘^cleanliness is next to godliness/’ so
is firmness essential to successful putting.

Whether courage is as important a factor
in women’s golf as it is in men’s is one of the
debatable questions. Both men and women
golfers miss ridiculously easy puts at impor-
tant stages of their matches, yet the writer
doubts if this is quite as true of the women
as of the men. Taking the two sexes by and
large, they go at competitive golf in a rather
different spirit. The man, in an important
match, is apt to be wrapped up in the result
of that match to the exclusion of everything
else on earth, so that when he faces the short
put at a critical stage the sole thought in his
mind is that everjrthing depends upon the
success or failiu*e of that put. The thing
looms so large that he perhaps begins to fear
that even so short a put is missable. Then

254 GoLf for Women

it is entirely a question of whether he can so
control himself that his muscles will not
tighten and involimtarily apply too mudi
pressure from one hand or the other or, in
his eagerness to see the ball enter the cup,
look at the hole instead of the ball and stub
the put. The woman, on the other hand, is
not quite so likely to look upon either the put
or the outcome of the match as so momentous,
hence the more natural play of the muscles
and the greater percentage of chance that the
ball will go to the spot intended.

We must not forget the example as set by
one of the most brilliant of all America’s lady
golfers. Miss Alexa Stirling, of Atlanta,
Greorgia. Still in her teens, possessed of no
such strength as has aided many of the women
golfers of past prominence, this youthful
golfer acts as a model to all others of tender
golfing years. The Southern champion and
national semi-finalist combines the graceful
rhjrthm which we would attribute to a fem-
inine Harry Vardon, if there were such a
personage, and the snap and dash and lusty

MISS MARION HOLLINS
Halfway down in approach shot.

Women Golfers and Their Play 255

vigor in shot making which come only to those
who are golfers bom and not made.

It was in the fall of 1914 at the Woman’s
championship held at the Nassau Country
Club, Glen Cove, L. I., that lovers of golfing
style — ^there are many such — ^noticed a mere
slip of a girl swinging a golf club with all
that freedom and joy and zest which comes to
those whose plastic muscles are attuned by
nature to obey satisfactorily the mind’s behest.
The critics followed round with the yoimg
player, delighted with her swing and im-
cramped style and prophesying conquered
golfing worlds in the years to come. Miss
Stirling’s lithe body, her auburn locks falling
in profusion down her back and her healthy
attitude towards the game made her seem the
embodiment of the real golfing spirit of the
links. Such players are rare.

How, one may ask, does Miss Stirling get
her results? Is it all innate ability or does
her style command respect from the par of
the links? Perhaps if we say that there is
an even distribution we shall not be far

256 Golf for Women

wrong. Miss Stirling, as do most women,
holds to the orthodox or V-shaped grip, she
has wooden clubs which weigh 12^ omices, a
splendid weight for most lady players, and
she stands much after the fashion of the best
male golfers with the right foot advanced
slightly. It would seem natural to one filled
with the exuberance of youth to take the club-
head back quickly. Miss Stirling owes much
of her success in driving, iron play and put-
ting to her “”slowback” method of stroke
making, a feature of every champion’s play,
and an absolute essential for the prevention
of that fatal mistake ‘”overswinging.” In
the shots from the tee Miss Stirling averages
175 yards; in her drives, like Ray and Braid,
she drives for carry plus a run. Her back
swing is a full three-quarters at the least, but
her power is gained by the absolute timing
control and by the shoulder and back force
communicated to the clubhead, plus a full
carry through whidb has always seemed the
property of a blithesome college golfer.
It is, however, in the making of the iron

Women Golfers and Their Play 257

shots that Miss Stirling outclasses her Amer-
ican rivals. As we have noted women golfers
have not extra-strong fingers and too many
of them believe that they cannot force the
dubhead to strike the ball and turf and still
get distance. The majority try to take the
ball as cleanly snipped from the grass carpet
as is possible; and when the lie is favorable
the results may be just as good. But when
the golf ball is in a cuppy lie, or the push
shot against the wind must be played it is
the player with the knowledge how and the
ability to take turf crisply who ynns. .This
Miss Stirling can do and do well. Her back
swing is slow, her left knee is bent slightly,
the. left arm is only slightly flexed at the
elbow, the right elbow is extended and the
hands are held fairly high. When the ball
is hit the back muscles get into action and the
follow through is clean cut with a sane pres-
ervation of the circularity of the stroke. The
whole swing comes under the upright cate-
gory. Although there is an abundance of
healthy action the stroke is at all times imder

258 Golf for Women

control. There is no better stylist for fem-
inine youth to copy than Miss Stirling;
who some day will be the champicm of the
land.

Long driving, when straight down tbe
course, as a rule lays the foundation for won-
derful golfing possibilities. To force one*s
rival to play the odd, from a distance bac^ of
forty or fifty yards, hole after hole, usually
brings discouragement and ultimate defeat.
It seems strange, therefore, when we speak of
Mrs. Quentin Feitner (Miss Lillian Hyde)
as averaging over two hundred yards on her
drives, not to announce her as the former or
present champion of the land. But, although
many sectional titles have come her way, her
habit of taking an extra put at inopportune
times has kept her in the list of keen con-
tenders. Mrs. Feitner hits the longest tee
shot of any woman in America and perhaps is
surpassed by no lady golfer in the world. She
has played eighteen holes in 75 and has aver-
aged on all but the short holes two hundred
and twenty-five yards, while some of her

MISS GLADYS RAVENSCROFT
A firm, straight brassie shot.

Women Golfers and Their Play 259

drives have measured well over two hundred
and fifty. Now this inordinate length is
yards more than ninety per cent, of the coun-
try’s golfers, men and women, average. It
is interesting to note how such splendid re-
sults are obtained.

One of the necessities to gain extra yardage
is extra strength, and this Mrs. Feitner has
in abundance. Her shoulders are broad, her
arm muscles pliant, supple and strong, while
her wrists are eminently powerful. Yet
these attributes would be as nought if it were
not for the perfect cohesion of parts, the
rhythmic timing and that delicious snappy
“hit” which assures a drive of lengthy pro-
portions. With that essential adherence to
golfing success Mrs, Feitner takes the club-
head back with deliberation, but as the club-
head nears the horizontal there is detected a
gathering of the forces which make for a true
“hit’* at the ball and with that blow there goes
a body follow through which must add to the
distance many yards. Lady golfers, as a
rule, are content to let the arm and a quarter

260 Golf for Women

body swing account for driving success; to
the player who will pivot more, as does Mrs.
Feitner, will come added yardage. This is
seen in the roll of the rubber core after it
lights. In her iron shots Mrs. Feitner does
not hesitate to take turf and she often gets
200 yards from an unfavorable lie. Here is
where her wrist and forearm strength mean so
much. And, as happens so many times, there
are deficiencies in her game to make up for
the excellences. The pretty touch when chip
shots are needed is absent, and so, also, is a
sure putting stroke. Mrs. Feitner has the
imhappy fault of turning over the right wrist
just at the moment of impact when putting
the ball and this fault has cost her dearly in
many a contest. It has always been remarked
that when she has won-^her big events she has
been putting well and has not been over-
long on her drives, which is still one more of
the many proofs which we have that a player
rarely receives from the goddess of golfing
fortune at one time or in any one roimd all
the attributes of muscle freedom and delicate

Women Golfers and Their Play 261

touch which are essential for the playing of
a near perfect round. Still, the 1916 Metro-
politan champion has a great advantage over
thousands of her sex golfers in that one may
by assiduous practice become a good player
at the approach and the put while all the prac-
tice in the world may not suffice to add ten
yards to the drive. That is why there is so
much praise and credit given to those ladies
who are the longest hitters in the world.

If we were to take a hasty composite pic-
ture of the best lady golfers in the land it is
quite likely that we would select the drive of
Mrs. Feitner, the brassie shot which Mrs.
Clarence Vanderbeck can get, the iron shots
up to the chip shot, of Miss Stirling, the chip
shots of Mrs. Dorothy Campbell Hurd and
Mrs. H. A. Jackson and the putting stroke
of Miss Rosenthal. And if we wished to see
a player who gained the results which the best
strokes of these mentioned golfers attained
our journey would bring us to Great Britain
and to the home course of Miss Cecilia Leitch,
the winner of the last ladies’ championship of

262 Golf for Women

the British Isles. Miss Leitch drives about
as far as Mrs. Feitner, her iron shots are a
bit better than those of Miss Stirling, her
chip shots are wonderful and her putting is
well above the average. Possessed of a per-
fect constitution and great strength, the
“^Amazon” golfer, as she has been termed,
bangs away with all the freedom imaginable.
Her stance is open and a bit exaggerated,
her full swing brings the clubhead to the hori-
zontal, while her finish brings the clubhead
down almost to the level of her waist. Miss
Leitch uses a modified flat swing wherein the
club is swung more aroimd the shoulder which
gives her a long run to the ball; she is a bit
different in her manner of swinging, it might
be noted, for nine-tenths of women golfers
use the upright style of driving. In her iron
play Miss Leitch finishes as does James H.
Taylor, five times champion of the British
Isles, and when that is said we know why she
excels through the green. Perhaps no other
lady golfer in the world other than Miss
Leitch can play a push shot brassie into the

Women Golfers and Their Play 268

wind and this ability alone is worth more than
one hole a round on British courses where the
wind is so often strong. When the war is
over the champion will visit the States and
show to the golfers in this land how she accom-
plishes her rounds of seventy-four and
seventy-five over good Hnks. But, meanwhile
there are more and more golfers of the female
persuasion taking to the game. All the golf
widows are not women.

Golf Seminar: Travers’ Golf Book- Jerome D. Travers- 1913

coolhq — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:23:23 +0000

TRAVERS’ GOLF BOOK

JEROME D. TRAVERS

1913

PREFACE

SINCE the day I first won the cham-
pionship of the United States, in
o 1907, I have been asked by scores of
^ golfers to write a book relating my ex-
“* periences and explaining my method of
playing the different shots. This I have
endeavored to do to the best of my ability
in the following pages. I have made
it a point to impart the information at
4 my command in the simplest possible
“^manner so that both the novice ajid the
more experienced player may readily un-

/aerstand. I hav^ used carefully posed
photographs explaining gi’ip, Stance, top
,of swing and follow through instead of
abstruse charts and diagrams that are
^^ore apt to puzzle than enlighten the

GOLF BOOK

golfer. I have laid particular stress
upon the points that I consider to be of
greatest importance, and have striven to
make each golf picture with its accom-
panying text a golf lesson in itself. If
the experienced player find matter that
seems trite and familiar to him, he must
remember that this book is written for
the novice as well as for the man who is
more or less expert. My hope, too, is
that even the expert, when he is “off his
game,” may be helped to correct his
faults and get back into form again
through the instrumentality of these
pages^, II thif.fa^ojc.’be-pj^ genuine assist-
ance tff “diftiSe ¦ en3eavot^rig to learn the
game, and-if:it::5c*eveh a small factor in
arousing V[icriaE^(£;;JBterest in the most
beneficial and enjoyable of sports, I shall
be content. In conclusion, I attribute my
own success as an amateur golfer to the

PREFACE

fact that I took up the game at an early
age and devoted a great deal of time to it,
and to the additional fact that I was in-
structed by Alex. Smith, the well-known
professional.

Also, I wish to thank Mr. Earle
Hooker Eaton for the assistance he has
given me in the preparation of this book.

-Jerome D. Travers.
April 4, 1913.

CONTENTS

I.
n.
m.

IV.
V.
VI.

vn.
vni.

IX.

xn.
xm.

XIV.
XV.

XVI.

xvn.

My First Home Coukse …

Alex. Smith Becomes My Tutor

Douous AND Travis ….

The Ball in the Imdiah’s Pocket .

WiMNiNC THE Metropolitan … 39

My FmST National Chaupionshif . . 39

How TO Leahn to Play Golf

Practical Points Abodt the Drive .

TEtE Drive (Continued)

How to Play the Brassie .

How to Play the Cleek

The Golfer’s Favorite Clitb, the Mid-
Iron

The Usefulness of the Jigger .

Mastering the Difficult Mashie .

When and How to Play the Mashie
Niblick 165

PcTTiNG, A Test OF Nerve . .174

Bunker Shots and How to Play Them . 186

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAOI

XVni. Psychology of Golf 194

XIX. Why the Business Man Should Puvy

Golf 207

XX. Holes in One and Othes Rehaskable

Shots 318

XXI. The Etiquette of Golf …. 228
XXn. Fisst Am TO the Golfer “Oft His Gaice” 334

UST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

JERQUE D. TRAVERS FrM^pUct.

PIATB PAOB

I. The Havcmeyer Cop 44 ~

n. Flnbh of the Evun-TnYos Hatdi for the Chun-

l^nahjp 56 •

m. My Grip for the Drive 71 ~

IV. Uy Grip for the Drive, Secood View 74 –

V. Stance for the Drive 74

VI. Stance for the Drive, Front View 77

VII. Top of Swing for the Drive 79

Vm. Follow Through of the Drive 8a

DC. Finish of the Drive, Front ^ew 86

X. Address for a Brosaie Shot 106

XI. Stance for the Brassie, Side View ito

Xn. Follow Through with the Brasde 114

Xm. Incorrect Top of Swing with the Bronle . . . . iiS

XIV. Stance for 1 Hauguig Lie with the Braane . . . . 113

XV. Addren with Cleek 117

XVI. Addren with Geek, Side View ii»

XVn. Top of Swing with the Cleek 131

XVm. Address for a Mid-Iton Shot 134

XDC. Top of Swing of Mid-Iion Shot 136

XX. Finish and Follow Through of Mid-Iron Shot . . 141

XXI. How the Qub should Turn Away from the Ball . . 143

XXn. Addreas for Jigger Shot of about 140 Yards . . 147

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE PAOB

XXin. T<^

XXIV. Incorrect Top of Swing with Jlggfi* “48

XXV. Finish of a. Shot with the Jigger ijo

XXVI. Address for Chip Shot with Mid-Iron or Jigger .. 151

XXVn. Top of SwJDg for Chip Shot 154

XXVm. Finish of Chip Shot with Jigger 154

XXIX. Grip for the Mashie 157 —

XXX. Maahie Grip, Bsck View 159 •—

XXXI. Stance tor the Maahie 161

XXXIL Address for a Mashle Shot, Side View i6z

XXXin. Top of Swing with the Mashie i6a

XXXrV. Finish of Swing with the Mashie 164

XXXV. Finish of Mashie Shot, Front View 167

XXXVI. Top of Swing with the Niblick 168

XXXVn. Back View oi Top of Swing with the NibUck . , 168

XXXVm. Finiah of Mashie Niblick Shot out of Bunker 170

XXXDL Finish of Another Mashie NibUck Shot . . . . 173

XL. Putting Grip, Front View 175 —

XLI. Putting Grip, Showing Intedocked Fmgers .. 177 — ‘

XLn. Stance for Putting 17S

XLIII. Fmish of Putt. Ball Entraing Hole 178

XLIV. Address for Lofting a Stymie with the Uashie . . 180

XLV. Lofting a Stynue 181

XLVI. Lofting a Stymie, Ball Entering Hole i8a

DIAGRA&f . Three PoeitionB for Driving 77

TRAVERS’ GOLF BOOK

GOLF BOOK

CHAPTER I

MY FIRST HOME COURSE

I STARTED playing golf on my fa-
ther’s country estate at Oyster
Bay, Long Island, when I was nine years
old. My brother had a set of golf clubs
and made me a present of a mid-iron and On the
some balls. I had watched my brother
and my cousins play and the game made
a strong appeal to my boyish fancy the
very first time I saw them swing their
clubs. I was too young to even think of
practicing on a real golf links, and I
naturally commenced knocking the balls
about on the back lawn of my father’s
place.
A windmill stood about one hundred

GOLF BOOK

yards from the house, and when I began
playing on my first “home course,” I
was unable to drive a ball from the wind-
mill to the house. Day after day I swung
my mid-iron with all my might in efforts
to cover the full distance, but I was only
nine and the old gutta percha ball was by
no means as lively as the present day
rubber-cored ball, and failure crowned
every attempt.
I spent the following winter at school
My Drive in New York, and I must have gained a
mproves gj-g^j jg^j j„ Strength because when
spring came I teed up my first ball at
the windmill and, much to my own sur-
prise as well as that of the family, cov-
ered the hundred yards so successfully
that I put the ball through one of the
dining-room windows. I was naturally
much elated over this evidence of pro-
gress, but when my father returned home

MY FIRST HOME COURSE

that night he did not seem as enthusiastic
about the feat as I was. I was punished
and told to play on the front lawn where
there was more space and where there
would be less likelihood of smashed win-
dow-panes.

On the front lawn I laid out a golf
course of my own. John D. Rockefeller
has since done the same thing, and I hope
he has had as much fun on his private The Oak
course as I had on mine. The first hole ‘
of my three-hole course was about 150
yards. I would tee up near a flagpole in
front of the house and play to an oak
tree which it was necessary for me to hit
in order to “hole out.” The tree was
guarded by a bank about two feet high
and a road, both of which made a very
fine hazard. Getting out of trouble with
a mid-iron was a sore trial, and many a
time I longed to possess a niblick.
3

GOLF BOOK
Golf With- The second hole was from the oak tree
**’ * ‘to another tree which stood in the right-
hand corner of the lawn, about i8o yards
away. The trunk of this second tree was
very narrow and hitting it with the ball
was by no means an easy matter. In
fact, it was the longest and most difficult
hole on the course. I fear that I played
a rather loose game in those days, be-
cause when I was guilty of a bad drive
I would make a new start and not count
the first shot.

The third hole was from the narrow
tree back to the flagpole, which, as in the
case of the two trees, it was necessary to
hit with the ball in order to, theoretic-
ally, “hole out.” I say theoretically be-
cause there was no actual hole into which
the ball could drop on the entire course.
Even with this grave shortcoming the
game fascinated me from the start I
4

MY FIRST HOME COURSE

would get up early and play before
breakfast and many a time some mem-
ber of the family found it necessary to
drive me into the house for luncheon and Drhtn In
dinner. Hour after hour I would make ” ‘”^
the circuit of my Httle course, and day
after day I would work hard to lower
my record for the three holes.

If I got a three or a four on the first
hole I would walk back and start over
again. I remember well the first time I
hit the first tree in one shot. Any golfer
who has ever made a hole in one stroke of
the club can readily imagine exactly how
I felt. I became so excited because of
the feat that I went all to pieces on the
second hole, taking about seven shots.
On three diflferent occasions since that
day I have had the good fortune to actu-
ally hole out in one shot from the tee,
but on none of them did my elation equal
5

Mahon
Boyt

GOLF BOOK

that which I felt when I hit the tree for
the first time at 150 yards.
The When I was about thirteen years of

age I started playing on the Oyster Bay
golf course, nine holes in length, and a
good test of the game. Here I came in
daily contact with three brothers named
Mahon. The eldest one of the three gave
lessons, the other boys were caddies. The
club had no regular professional. All
three of the boys were fine golfers. The
eldest, Willie Mahon, was a natural-born
player, and I have never seen a better
exponent of the game. It was a great
pity Willie had to give up the sport, be-
cause I feel confident he would have
made a name for himself as a profes-
sional. I was very fortunate to find good
players to go round with when I was a
youngster, because I got started right,
which is a great advantage. These boys

MY FIRST HOME COURSE

taught me a great deal about the game,
and I also learned much by watching
them make the different shots. In those
days we played with the old solid ball,
and under the tutelage of the brothers
my game improved, not rapidly but
steadily.

CHAPTER II
ALEX. SMITH BECOMES MY TUTOR

AFTER the Oyster Bay golf club
went out of existence, my father
joined the Nassau Country Club at Glen
Cove, L. I., and I became a junior mem-
ber. I was then fifteen years of age and
A Junior was playing very good golf for a boy, al-
at astau (|jQ„g|j j i^^j ^ f^^ serious faults in
style. At that time William Hicks was
considered to be the best player in the
Nassau club, and we arranged a match,
Mr. Hicks giving me a handicap. I
played better than I knew how, and,
greatly to the surprise of Mr. Hicks and
myself, I was two- or three up after the
first nine holes, without the handicap.
This unexpected defeat made “Bill” so

ALEX. SMITH MY TUTOR

angry that he broke two clubs over his
knee while we were playing the remain-
ing nine holes.

During my first two years oi play on Ckanginf
an actual golf course my swing, espe- ‘ “”"‘
cially with the wooden clubs, was wrong
and the fault bothered me not a little. I
would make a long, slow, backward
swing with my arms stiff and my right
hand well over the shaft. Naturally,
this method lost me a great deal of
power, the lack of which gave me poor
distance, and I could not get much snap
into the shot I felt that something was
wrong, but did not know wherein lay
the fault.

Alex. Smith was the professional at
Nassau, and my showing against Mr.
Hicks and other good players interested
him in my game. One day when I was
practicing driving, Alex, asked me to try

GOLF BOOK

his method of putting the right hand
under rather than over the shaft

“Shorten your back swing,” he said,
“and take the club back with the wrists.
Swing easily, and keep your eye on the
ball.”
Right Hand I followed his instructions and drove
Skatt * !*’”£> ^°’^} Straight ball. Adopting his

method, I speedily discovered that I
could drive a longer ball with less exer-
tion than with my former swing. Plac-
ing the right hand under instead of over
the shaft added more power to the stroke,
and taking the club back with the wrists,
or starting the club head back with them,
increased the speed of the club, thus giv-
ing me greater distance.

It would be impossible for a man of
my physique to copy Alex. Smith’s swing
with a wooden club, because his forearm
is about twice the size of mine, but we

ALEX. SMITH MY TUTOR

play the short iron shots with practically
the same awing. Three or four times a
week I played with Alex. Smith, and I
am glad to state that my SHCcess in golf
is largely due to the instruction I received
from him. If it had not been my good
fortune to become his pupil at the for-
mative period of my golf career, I doubt The Mak-
if I ever would have won a national title, ‘”f “‘ f

(jkampton

From the very first I had no trouble
over the change in my swing, and Alex,
gave me the highly encouraging assur-
ance that I had the making of a cham-
pion in me. On July 13, 1907, the day
the prophecy of Alex, came true on the
links of the Euclid Club, Cleveland, I
took pleasure in stating to a reporter, “I
feel that my progress in the sport has
been entirely due to early instruction
from and matches with Alex. Smith.”

However, there was a five years’ in-

Mf First
Competi’

My First

Champion’
ship

GOLF BOOK

terval between the prophecy and its ful-
fillment, five years of painstaking prac-
tice and hard-fought battles on the links.

I was fifteen years of age when I first
made my debut at match play in a regu-
larly scheduled competition. The event
was the invitation tournament of the
Westbrook Golf Club. I won in the first
two rounds of match play and then found
myself opposed by Frank O. Rinehart,
of Baltusrol, a very clever and experi-
enced player who outdrove me and fin-
ally put me out of the tournament by the
narrow margin of 2 up and 1 to play.

Young but ambitious, I lost no time
in going after national honors. In Sep-
tember, 1903, the amateur championship
of the United States was held upon the
links of my home club, and my name
was included among the 140 entries. The
event was an all match play affair in

ALEX. SMITH MY TUTOR

which 128 players participated, and they
were divided into two halves, each half
containing 64 players. I was in the first
half and won the first round 2 up and
I to play against Dr. S. Carr of Hunting-
don Valley, but was beaten 4 to 2 in the
second round by P. H. Jennings of St.
Andrews. Walter J. Travis, with whom Travu ike
I was later to have so many gruelling “”"^
matches, was the finalist in my 64 and
E. M. Byers of the Allegheny Country
Club captured the same honor in the sec-
ond 64. In the final for the champion-
ship Travis defeated Byers by a score of
5 up and 4 to play, thus demonstrating
for the third time that he was the premier
amateur golfer of the United States.

My failure to make a more creditable
showing was not particularly dishearten-
ing, because I realized that a sixteen-
year-old player could hardly expect to
13

GOLF BOOK

make any great headway in a field of 128
of the country’s best golfers, and the fol-
lowing year I went after my second
championship. This time the company
A School- was not so fast, the event in question be-
oj ham- j^g jj^g interscholastic golf champion-
ship. The tournament was held at Nas-
sau, every foot of which I knew well by
this time, and I had also had the benefit
of about a year of Alex. Smith’s instruc-
tion. I worked my way into the final and
defeated H. G. Hartwell by 4 up and 3
to play.

«4

CHAPTER III

DOUGLAS AND TRAVIS

THE 1904 amateur championship
was held at the Baltusrol Golf
Club and I was an aspirant for the sec-
ond time but made a poor showing. D.
P. Fredericks of Oil City defeated me i
up in the first round of match play. Des-
pite these defeats, however, I was slowly A Real
but steadily improving, and a few weeks ^j^V.*” ‘”
later I had the good fortune to participate
in a somewhat sensational tournament, the
result of which increased my confidence
in myself and caused me to be regarded
for the first time as a real factor in na-
tional golf circles. The Nassau Country
Club held an open tournament in which
many prominent players took part and I
H

GOLF BOOK

succeeded in winning enough victories to
place me in the semi-final. In this match,
which was i8 holes, I found myself
pitted against Findlay S. Douglas, a sea-
soned veteran who had to his credit
many golf laurels including the 1898
Defeat of amateur championship of the United
“”‘” States. The match was a closely con-
tested one and, much to my surprise as
well as that of the other players, resulted
in the defeat of Douglas by 2 up and i
to play. The semi-final was played in the
morning and my opponent for the final
in the afternoon was Walter J. Travis,
who had won the amateur championship
of the United States three times, and who
was then British amateur champion. The
prospect was not encouraging to an am-
bitious young golfer of seventeen.

After luncheon, and shortly before the

eventful match was to start, I sought my

DOUGLAS AND TRAVIS

guide, philosopher and friend, Alex.
Smith, and found him in his shop.

“Don’t pay any attention to the ‘Old
Man,’ ” he said. “You know how you
can play this course — day after day you
turn in cards between 75 and 80 — so just
go ahead and play your game.”

With these words ringing in my ears
I joined Travis at the first tee near which Firtt
had gathered quite a gallery, including —”‘.”‘
my father and my tutor, Alex. Driving
off, we halved the first hole in 4 and
Travis won the second by holing for a 4
from the edge of the green. Attempting
to halve I overran the hole and got the
only 6 made during the match. This
rattled me a bit and I topped my drive
from the third tee, Travis winning 4 to
5. Turning the tables on the fourth
where Travis was in the cop bunker on
his second shot, I won in 4 and we halved
17

GOLF BOOK

the fifth in 5. I won the sixth by holing
in 4 from the extreme right of the green.
Travis took a 5 and the match was all
square.

By this time the gallery in general, not
to mention father and Alex., was breath-
less in its display of interest. Travis had
always been invincible at Nassau and the
supposition had been that he would excel
me in the long game. In this the gallery
was mistaken, for I held my own in the
driving and on at least two holes secured
the greater distance. After reciting these
facts, a newspaper account written at the
time says: “Putting really was the deci-
sive factor in the match. It was a most
sensational match on the greens.”
d a /or The seventh hole added to the interest.

My drive landed in the grass to the left
of the green and a well played mashie
shot gave me a 2 for the hole. Travis
18

DOUGLAS AND TRAVIS

got a 3 and for the first time I was i up.
We halved the eighth in 4 and both
reached the ninth green in the second
shot. In trying for a 3, I overran the
hole and Travis won with a 4 to my 5.
Two 5′s marked the tenth and the veteran
won the eleventh 3 to 4. We halved the
twelfth, but Travis holed out from the
edge of the green for a 3 on the thir-
teenth, as against my 4, and he was now
2 up. Things looked a bit dark, but I
gritted my teeth, reached the fourteenth
green in my second shot while, my oppo-
nent was not quite up, and won the hole
4 to 5. The fifteenth and sixteenth holes
were halved amid growing excitement in All Square
the ranks of the gallery, 5*3 and 4′s being ‘
the figures registered, and again I squared
the match with a 3 to Travis’s 4 on the
seventeenth. We tied the eighteenth hole
in 4 and then started to play extra holes,
19

at 18 Holes

GOLF BOOK

the winning of one of which meant vic-
tory for either Travis or myself.

At the conclusion of the thirteenth
when Travis was 2 up, I had been
strongly of the opinion that I was prac-
tically beaten. Evidently Travis was of
Defeat the samc view, for on the fourteenth his
j^^’ third shot to the green was carelessly
played as if he thought the match were
so well in hand that he did not need to
extend himself. This nettled me, caused
me to set my jaw with renewed determin-
ation, and no doubt had quite an impor-
tant bearing on the final result of the
contest

Now that we were all square at the
finish of 18 holes I went to the first tee
with restored confidence, not only because
I had held my own very well, but be-
cause even if fortune went against me
on the extra holes the tie at 18 would be

DOUGLAS AND TRAVIS

glory eDough. On the nineteenth we
rimmed the cup for 3′s and halved in
4*5. On the twentieth each rimmed the
cup for a 4 and halved with a 5, the
two holes being played in par. We both
reached the twenty-first green in two
shots, Travis twenty feet from the hole
and my ball ten feet distant. Travis went
dead to the hole on his third and I ran
down my ten-foot putt for a 3, one under
par, and won the match.

There was a great demonstration on
the part of the gallery. All the caddies
threw up their hats, cheers and yells rent
the air, Alex. Smith’s face bore an ex- Father
pression like that of the cat that had swal- Z^”. ,

*^ Excited

lowed the canary, and father was so
happy and rattled that when I asked him
for two dollars to pay my caddie he
handed me a twenty dollar bill, instead of
a two, and never noticed his mistake, the

GOLF BOOK

figures being quite similar. Also, he took
the first train home to show my prize to
the family, and I kept the change.
Only Sane Quite naturally the home player was
the favorite and his victory was a popu-
lar one. The only sane people around
the green were Travis and myself.
“There is no aftermath of bitterness in
such a defeat,” said Travis. “It is a
match I shall always recall with pleas-

CHAPTER IV

THE BALL IN THE INDL\N’S POCKET

WHEN the 1905 golf season opened
I got to work early, full of hope
that the ensuing year would see further
demonstrations indicating progress on my
part. My game showed improvement My Third
and, generally speaking, the season was a ‘”‘”‘”‘
satisfactory one. The amateur cham-
pionship was held at the Chicago Golf
Club, Wheaton, 111., in August and there
were 146 entries and 129 starters. I was
one of the 32 who qualified for match
play in the 36 holes’ medal play round.
My score was 170, the best score, 155
being made by Dr. D. P. Fredericks of
Oil City, the player who had eliminated
me the previous year. In the first round
23

GOLF BOOK
of match play I was paired with E. M.
Byers of the Allegheny Country Club
and he put me out with ease, the score
being 6 up and J to play in his favor.
D. E. Sawyer of Wheaton and H. C.
Egan of Exmoor were the finalists, Egan
winning the championship by 5 up and J
to play.
TrmU ani Earlier in the year I competed in
Trmm ^^ Metropolitan championship at Fox
Hills, defeating Travis 7 up and 6 to
play but failing to win the event By
this time there was a strong friendly
rivalry between Travis and myself, and
it has continued to the present time.

Not long after the Fox Hills tourna-
ment Travis and I met again at the
Westbrook Golf Club and he very clev-
erly turned the tables by beating me 8
up and 7 to play. An odd incident oc-
curred in the locker room after the game.
24

IN THE INDIAN’S POCKET

In discussing the match with a bystander,
Travis said: “I do not expect that the
boy will ever beat me again.’*

As he spoke I appeared in the bath-
room doorway and overheard the re-
mark, but realizing that it was not in-
tended for my ears, I paid no attention
to it

In July, Travis and I met in the final ^*’ ^w’
of the invitation tournament of the Shin-
necock Hilts Golf Club, and the match
went to the twenty-first green where he
holed a ten-foot putt for a three after I
had missed a similar putt, and won the
game i up. We were all even playing
the home hole when a remarkable inci-
dent occurred. I drove a long ball from
the eighteenth tee and as it hooked to-
wards the rough at the left we distinctly
saw it strike an Indian caddie, one of the
Shinnecock lads, in the back. Travis

GOLF BOOK

drove a straight ball and then all hands
set out to search the stubble for my ball.
The gallery came to our aid and two or
three hundred people hunted in vain for
the ball. Under the rules a ball lost for
five minutes means the loss of the hole,
and in this particular instance it meant
the loss of the match.

“Time’s up,” announced W. A. Put-
nam of the greens committee, as he looked
at his watch. Travis cast a sharp glance
in his direction which meant that he did
not wish to claim the hole on a techni-
cality. When questioned, the Indian
Ward caddie stoutly declared that the ball had
Bulg “°* touched him, although we all knew

that this was not true. Finally John M.
Ward, one time captain of the New York
“Giants” and since then a very talented
golfer, saw a bulge in the Indian’s hip
pocket and when the cause of the bulge
26

IN THE INDIAN’S POCKET

was removed it proved to be my golf
ball. There was ho doubt about this be-
cause I had been playing with a red dot
ball, from both ends of which I had cut
the dots, and that identical ball was taken
from the Indian’s pocket As Travis
very generously had refrained from
claiming the hole under the five minute
rule, the incident merely passed as a “rub
o’ the green” and I dropped the ball
without penalty and halved the hole in
4, missing a putt of about three and one-
half feet for the hole and the match. As
I have already stated, however, Travis
won the match on the twenty-first green.

But how did the ball get into the In- The
dian’s pocket? That is a mystery un- ^y”"‘f

Solvedf

solved to this day, but I have a theory

of my own concerning it. The Indian

wore no coat and there lyere several rents

in the back of his shirt. The ball doubt-
27

GOLF BOOK

less struck one of these and dropped in-
side his shirt. Feeling the ball there, and
believing that he would get into trouble
because he had interfered with a notable
match, he drew the ball from his shirt
and slipped it into his hip pocket.

In September came the annual open
tournament at Nassau, and as in the pre-
Agmn tkt vious year Travis and I were again the
FinalUti finalists. The match ended on the six-
teenth green 4 up and 2 to play in my
favor. Travis ranked as the greatest
amateur golfer in America and I have
devoted considerable space to my
matches with him because they throw
light upon the progress I had made in the
game at the age of eighteen.

CHAPTER V
WINNING THE METROPOLITAN

WHEN the golf season of 1906
opened I was nineteen years of
age and a schoolboy, but golf was such an
attractive sport that I found time to com-
pete in the principal events of the year.
One of these was the championship of the
Metropolitan Golf Association at St.
Andrews. In this tournament E. M. Defeat of
Byers and I were the finalists and I won „’ ‘
the championship for the first time by
3 up and I to play. A newspaper in com-
menting on the match had the following :
“The feamre of the winner’s game
was the length of his full shots and their
perfect direction. W. J. Travis in his
palmiest days was not truer on the line.
29

GOLF BOOK

Then, again, the youngster has a versa-
tility in playing various iron and ap-
proach shots which few veterans could
surpass, and what slight weakness there
may have been in his game was an occa-
sional lack of strength in his approach
putts.

“Mr. Byers played with his usual ease
and grace, and his apparently effortless
swing, in which there isn’t the faintest
suspicion of force, was in strong contrast
to that of his opponent. The latter,
though short in stature, is wiry, lithe and
strong as a young Kerry bull, and, taking
more than a full swing, he puts every
ounce of power and muscle he possesses
into his shots.”
“J Kid The newspaper quoted characterized

Champion” ^^ ^^ Ug^ j^jj champion,” and the “kid”
was very fortunate to win as he did, be-
cause in July Byers was playing in such
30

WINNING METROPOLITAN

form that he won the national champion-
ship.

This ermt was held on the links of the
Englewood Golf Cluh and there were
141 entries and 131 starters. Thirty-six
holes of medal play qualified 32 players
for match play. Walter J. Travis, with
152, made the best medal score and I
came second with 155. George S. Lyon Heartr
of Toronto had 161. E. M. Byers 162 ‘*’ ^”^
and H. Chandler Egan of Exmoor 159.
I defeated Percy R. Pyne, 2d, of Prince-
ton 7 and 5 in the first round of match
play and Archibald Graham of North
Jersey 4 and 3 in. the second round.
There were now but eight of us left
in this, my fourth attempt to win the
championship, and I was nearer the goal
than ever before.

In the third round which was to decide
whether I was to be one of four sur-
31

GOLF BOOK

vivon or out of it altogether, I found my-
self again facing Walter J. Travis. In
practice rounds I had lowered the ama-
teur record of the course twice with a
74 and a 71, and the match with Travis
was progressing very satisfactorily when
a photographer snapped his camera at
me quite unexpectedly, so far as I was
concerned, and I made a bad shot. Un-
der ordinary circumstances I am by no
means camera-shy, but when a golfer is
under high pressure the slightest unusual
distraction will cause him to take his eye
oS the ball. There is no reason why one
bad shot should lose a match, but in this
Ltat Tern- case I foolishly lost my temper with the
{‘J- ^J”‘ result that Travis took hole after hole
and finally won by 3 to 2. The lesson
was a severe one and I have not forgotten
it to this day. I do not mean to be un-
derstood as claiming that but for the
3»

WINNING METROPOLITAN

camera man I would have beaten Travis,
and I am not relating this incident as an
excuse for my defeat. Always, to the ^o Excust
victor belongs the full credit, and a poor ‘*”^ ””"
loser in golf is a pitiable object. Travis
played the better golf and won the match,
but I handicapped myself by losing my
temper. MORAL: Never lose your
temper/

In mentioning this incident the New
York Evening Telegram of July i6,
1906, said: “In his temperament, if not
carefully self-guarded, he (Travcrs)
fails. It was then he lost to Travis. He
lost temper over the clicking of a camera
and the failure of one or two succeeding
shots to come off.”

I have had similar provocation since
then, but one lesson of this kind vras
enough. I make it a point to hold my
temper as firmly as I grip my clubs.
33

GOLF BOOK
Byen the In the fourth round Travis encoun-
*”" “*” tered E, M. Byers and joined mc in the
discard. Byers defeated him 4 up and
3 to play and then met George S. Lyon in
the final, winning the championship by 2
up.

In April, 1907, Travis and I played a
very close match at the Garden City
Golf Club in the final for the chief cup.
There had been a snow storm the pre-
vious day and a violent wintry gale was
blowing to add to the difficulties. We
each turned in 164 for 36 holes and the
match was all square on the thirty-sixth
green. Two extra holes were played, the
thirty-seventh being halved in 4′s and
Travis won on the thirty-eighth green
with a 3 to my 4.

As the following comments from a
newspaper indicate, the match was a
gruelling one:

WINNING METROPOLITAN

“Walter J. Travis was forced to go
38 holes yesterday to win the chief prize A Long
in the Garden City Golf Club’s touma- ^’””’
ment from Jerome D. Travers. It was
probably the longest fight ever put up
by the man who has won more honors in
the royal and ancient sport than any other
American. Only once in the two rounds
was there as much as three holes differ-
ence between the two players and then at
the end of the fifth hole in the afternoon
when Travers was 3 up.

“Whether Travis became scared at
that point and let himself out will never
be known, but his reserve power was cer-
tainly drawn upon at that point, and he
made a spurt that within four holes had
squared the match. Travis, as always,
excelled in judgment and straighmess.
Travers seemed to disdain trouble for the
sake of getting out of it, where most
35

GOLF BOOK

golfers would be helpless. The wind,
always bothersome over the course, was
die worst on record yesterday and played
as great havoc with putting as with driv-
ing.

“The match should have gone to Tr’av-
ers, but he almost deliberately threw
away his opportunity by slipping up on
a putt on the thirteenth and again on the
seventeenth where he followed a poor ap-
proach with a wretched putt. Even
Travis had a fit of overconfidcnce that
prolonged the struggle several boles.
Nervousness in putting by Travers on the
second extra hole brought the match to
an end.”
^othing The statement that I “almost deliber-

Tkroxon , , ,,

^wa, ately threw away” my opportunity is

amusingly absurd. A contestant In a

mab:h of such a strenuous character is

doing his level best to win, and I was

WINNING METROPOLITAN

not deliberately throwing anything away
to an opponent of the calibre of Travis.
Under the nervous tension produced by a
38 hole match of this importance, a
player at times will miss absurdly easy
shots — shots that ordinarily would not
bother him in the least. Let the New
York Sun describe the two concluding
holes :

“Next a half on the first extra hole in
4, where Travers putted past a stymie.
Playing for the thirty-eighth hole Travis
was trapped back of the green and Trav-
ers within ten feet of the hole. It was
even betting Travers would get a 3 and Pitched
Travis a 4. The reverse happened and J° J”,
determined the issue. Travis pitched up
dead to the hole from the hazard, while
Travers tried to ‘gobble* a two and then
missed a two-foot putt for a 3. . . . In
the sustained brilliancy of the golf in
37

GOLF BOOK

stress of wind, in its many fluctuations
and in its duration, the match will not
be equaled in a long time.”

Yes, it was a grand golf game — even
if Travis did take home the cup.

CHAPTER VI

MY FIRST NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

MY father moved to Montclair, N.
J., and the golf season of 1907
found me representing the Montclair
Golf Club. The first important tourna-
ment of the year was the Metropolitan
championship which was held on the
links of my old club, Nassau, and thither
I went to defend my title of Metropoli- Trmert

tan champion. For the second time I ^IT*”,

^ Dougla

fought my way through to the final in
which I met the veteran, Findlay S.
Douglas. At the conclusion of the morn-
ing round I was 4 up and in the afternoon
I increased the lead and won the 1907
championship by 8 up and 7 to play.

Being a Jerseyman, I was now able to
compete in the championship of the New
39

GOLF BOOK

Jersey State Golf Association for the
first time. The tournament was held on
the links of the Baltusrol Golf Club and
Max Behr of Baltusrol and I faced each
other in the 36 holes final. I had a 79
as against an 80 for Behr in the morning
round and finished 3 up. The home
coming nine holes in the morning and the
outgoing nine holes in the afternoon were
each done in 36 strokes, giving me a 72
for 18 consecutive holes. The record for
the course at that time, 71, was held by
George Low, the club’s professional.
Champion The match ended on the twelfth green in
V “” the afternoon, and I had added the New

Jtrtey

Jersey State championship to the Metro-
politan by a score of 7 up and 6 to play.
When the national championship tour-
nament opened on the links of the Eu-
clid Club, Cleveland, Ohio, July 9, I

entered the contest for the fifth successive
40

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

time feeling hopeful but by no means
sanguine.

After the battle a newspaper quoted
me as having said: “I came to Cleveland
intending and expecting to win. It
seemed to me that it was my turn to cap-
ture the title.”

I made no such statement. Like the ^v J’*”"^*

^. . . . WithByert

other players, \ went to Cleveland m-
tending to win if I could, but not ex-
pecting to do so. I had been outplayed
in four national championships already
and I knew how hard the game was and
how fast the company. One of my
friends, a famous golfer and a contestant
in the tournament, had more confidence
in me than I had myself. He bet con-
siderable money at odds of one to ten
that I would carry off the championship
medal. When he told me what he had
done I called him a fool.
41

GOLF BOOK

“You’ll lose your money, man,” I said.
Then I thought the matter over a few
minutes, hunted up the Pittsburgh mil-
lionaire who was offering ten to one
against me, and made a small wager on
myself at the same odds. There were
ii8 entries and 102 starters with the
usual 36 holes of medal play to qualify
32 contestants for match play. Travis
Lov) Score won the medal for the lowest score, 146,
for rava ^^ score was 153, Champion Byers had
162, and the highest medal score to
qualify was 165. My first opponent at
match play was W. A. Stickney, St.
Louis Country Club, whom I defeated
by 3 and i. My second round was with
Frederick Herreshoff and ended in my
favor 3 and 2, and in the third round I
defeated Warren K. Wood of Homewood
in a close match, being i up at the finish.
In the fourth round I found myself
41

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

matched against E. M. Byers of Alle-
gheny, the holder of the national cham-
pionship title. He was not in his best
form, for he went out in 43 as against
my 36 and at the end of the first nine
holes I was 4 up. I won the ninth with
a 35-foot putt for a 3 which was two
under bogey, and on the thirteenth I laid
a 185 yards’ cleek shot dead to the hole
— two feet from it, to be exact — ran
down the putt in 3 to his 4 and won the
match 6 up and 5 to play.

I was now in the final for the cham- Graham
pionship itself and my opponent was 1^^^,
Archibald Graham, North Jersey Coun-
try Club. Travis had been beaten in the
third round by W. C. Fowncs, Jr., of
Oakmont by i up in a twenty-hole match,
and Fownes had succumbed to Graham.
About 1,200 people composed the gallery
in the morning round and double that
43

GOLF BOOK

number followed the match in the after-
noon. One of the best accounts of the
championship final was written by the
New York Tribune correspondent and
I hope Z shall be pardoned for quoting it
in full:

“Jerome D. Travcrs of Montelair, N.
J., won the national amateur golf cham-
pionship title on the links of the Euclid
Club here to-day, defeating Archibald
Graham of the North Jersey Country
Club by 6 up and 5 to play in the thir^-
six hole final round.

“Save for a brief period early in the

day Travers was never down. He

Ttao Holes reached the turn 2 up, and, although

‘^ ‘ f Graham drew level later on, Travers

Good *

again shook oG his opponent, and ended
the morning round two holes to the good.
At the turn in the afternoon the Mont-
clair crack had increased his advantage

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

to 4 up, and after that the ultimate re-
sult was never in doubt in the minds of
the gallery.

“In brief, it may be said that Travers “Unieai-
won because he played the same unbeat- ” ‘ ** ‘
able golf that has marked his work ever
since the match play began on Thursday
morning. The achievement of this
young man, who is only twenty years old,
is regarded as the more remarkable from
the fact that this makes him a triple
champion. To hold the national, Metro-
politan and New Jersey titles all at
the same time is something hitherto un-
heard of.

“Travers’s medal score for the eighteen
holes play in the morning was 75; for
the first nine holes of the afternoon, 36,
and he was one under bogey on the last
four holes played. Graham took 78 in
the morning, 38 for the first nine holes
45

GOLF BOOK

in the afternoon and was one over bogey
on the last four holes.

“Graham played a plucky game, but
was simply outclassed by a golfer who,
to quote the language of President
Chauncey of the United States Golf As-
sociation, gave the finest exhibition of
golf that has ever been seen since the
amateur championship tournament was
first played.

” Travers is the logical winner of this
tournament and deserves the champion-
ship,’ said the veteran Walter J. Travis,
after watching the New Jersey golfer
Logical hole out the putt that brought him na-
tional honors. *He had the hard side of
the draw and waded through a lot of
high-class players to the finish of the
tournament’

“Travers played brilliant golf to-day,

almost as perfect, in fact, as that shown

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

in yesterday’s sensational match with
Warren K. Wood. He was in trouble
occasionally, but his iron shots several
times won him holes which apparently
he had lost. Only once did he display
poor judgment. That was at the seventh
hole in the afternoon round. The dis-
tance to this hole is 462 yards, with a big
bunker guarding the green thirty yards
from the cup. Graham took a chance
after his long drive to carry the bunker,
and got oft a low ball that carried more
than 200 yards.

“Travers tried the same shot, but could ^”‘o ‘*’
not get the distance, although he made
a perfect stroke, and his ball plumped
into the bunker, this shot losing him the
hole. Travers, however, generally out-
drove Graham, his iron shots were al<
most invariably better placed, and his
work on the greens, the most delicate
47

GOLF BOOK

stroke of golf, was far superior to that of
the North Jersey man.

“There was a southwest wind blow-
ing when the pair left the first tee, but
it did not have sufficient strength to inter-
fere with the contestants. A tremendous
gallery followed the pair.

“That both men were likely to engage
in a long driving competition was ap-
parent at the outset, when their tee shots
Two Long almost reached the bunker. The drives
Drivers ^gre good for 260 yards. Both ap-
proached to the edge of the green and
halved tn 4. The same even division was
recorded at the next hole, although
Graham had the luck to have his half-
topped drive jump the ditch.
. “Travers reached the third green, a
distance of 205 yards, with his cleek, but
his approach putt was too strong by seven
feet, and as he failed to get down the

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

next Graham won in 3 to 4. This made
the Paterson man i up, but his advantage
was brief, as Travers won the 414-yard
fourth in a capital 4. Graham penalized
himself by a sliced drive. They were
then all square.

“From the fifth tee Travers got the
longer ball by twenty yards, while
Graham’s second shot was sliced and his
third fell green shy. Travers was past
the pin on his second and won in 4 to 6,
making him i up. A slice to the woods A Slice to
cost the Montclair man the next hole,
Graham winning in 4 to 5, thereby
squaring the match again.

“Although the seventh hole is 462
yards, both men got home in 2. A weak
approach putt on Graham’s part enabled
the other to win in 4 to 5. This made
Travers again i up. His tee shot to the
short eighth hole came within an ace of
49

At the Turn

GOLF BOOK

being bunkered, but a deadly approach
enabled him to halve in 3. Although
Graham topped his second shot going to
the ninth, he recovered so well that all
he needed was to bring off a two-foot
putt for a halve in 5. He failed, how-
Two Up ever, and Travers turned for home 2 up.
His card at that point showed 37 strokes.
Graham needed an even 40.

“A beautiful drive of 225 yards by
Graham reached the tenth green, and, as
Travers was a trifle short, the Paterson
man won in 3 to 4. After a half-topped
drive from the eleventh tee, Travers re-
covered well and got a halve in 4. Luck
favored the Montclair player at the short
twelfth, where his indifferent iron shot
landed on top of the bunker. But
Graham, who made no mistake, won in
3 to 4, and they were again all square.

“They halved the thirteenth in 5, after
50

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Graham had pulled his drive. He also
pulled to the rough going to the four-
teenth, but recovered well and got a halve
in 4. Graham was short of the next
green on his third shot, but a deadly ap-
proach enabled him to halve in 5. From
the sixteenth tee Graham drove fully 240
yards, but as neither man made any mis-
takes they halved in 4. Travers won the
seventeenth because Graham sliced his
second to the woods. The same mistake
was repeated by Graham going to the
home hole, and Travers won again in an-
other par 4, thus enabling the Montclair Two Vp at
player to retire for luncheon with an ad- ‘
vantage of 2 up. He had made the round
in 75 to 78 for Graham.

“Starting out in the afternoon, Travers
went so fast that his card showed one un-
der fours for the first six holes. Against
such a pace as that the Paterson man did
51

GOLF BOOK

well to win one hole, the second, where
he brought oS a tricky putt for a 3.

“To offset this Travers won the third,
fourth, fifth and sixth holes in rapid suc-
cession, making him 5 up. He won the
third because Graham topped his drive,
while at the next the Paterson player
never had a chance for Travers after
driving 250 yards laid his second within
five yards of the pin and won in 4 to 5.
The hole is 414 yards. At the next Gra-
Mitsed a ham missed a two-foot putt for a halve
P^tf and followed this by pulling his drive to

the rough from the next tee.

“Now 5 up, Travers seemed to become
a trifle careless and at the next hole made
the error in judgment previously men-
tioned, and at all events it was Graham’s
hole in 4 to 6, and he followed this up by
laying his iron shot within five feet of
the pin at the short eighth and brought
52

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

off the putt for a 2. This left Graham
3 down.

“The accurate long game of Travers
then began to tell again, as his second
shot reached the far edge of the ninth
green and the hole was his in 4 to j.
That made him 4 up. Although the
tenth hole is 235 yards, Travers drove
clear across to the far edge, and, laying
his approach putt stone dead, won in 3
to 4, making him 5 up. Graham won the
next because his opponent fell short on
the approach. To the short twelfth Trav-
ers laid his tee shot within fifteen feet Sifmie for
of the cup, and then further disconcerted ™ ”
his man by laying him a stymie. Under
the circumstances it was a simple matter
to win in 3 to 4.

“Now 5 up once more and with only
six holes to go, Travers proceeded to
setde matters at the thirteenth. Graham
53

GOLF BOOK

handicapped himself by hooking his
brassie, so that Travers, who made no
mistakes, won in 4 to 5. The bye holes
were not played. The cards follow;

Tmvot, out 4 4 4 4 4 S 4 3 S” 37

Gnhvn, out 4 4 3 S 6 4 5 3 ^ — 40

Tnvera, b 4 4 4 S 4 S 4 4 4— 38— 75

GnliMm, in 3 4 3 S 4 5 4 S S— 38— 78

TMven, out 4 4 4 4 4 3 <> 3 4—36

Gnham, out 4 3 5 S 5 5 4 a S— 38

Tnven, h 3 5 3 4

Gnhut, tn. 4 445″

Champion I was now not only champion of the
United States, but Metropolitan cham-
pion and New Jersey State champion as
well. Fortune was certainly very kind to
me in 1907.

In 1908 I won the national champion-
ship a second time. The tournament was
held at the Garden City Golf Club and
I defeated Max Behr in the final by 8 up
and 7 to play. Earlier in the year I
reached the final in the Metropolitan
54

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

championship but was beaten in by C.
H. Seeley of Wee Burn on the thirty-
eighth hole.

In the spring of 1909 I competed in Beaten in
the British amateur championship at *”‘*™*
Muirfield, Scotland, but was beaten in the
first round. That year I did not compete
in any of the principal championship
events in the United States.

In 1910 I was beaten by Frederick
Herreshoff of Ekwanok 4 up and 3 to
play in the Metropolitan and did not
compete in the national championship.

I joined the Upper Montclair Coun-
try Club of Montclair in 1910, and the
following spring devoted considerable
time to getting “on my game.” I won the
Metropolitan and New Jersey State
championships, and was defeated by
Harold H. Hilton, Royal Liverpool, in
the third round of the national cham-
55

GOLF BOOK

pionship. The match was held at Apa-
wamis and was followed by a gallery of
two thousand people. Hilton and Fred-
erick Herreshoff, of Ekwanok, met in
the final, and Hilton carried the cham-
pionship trophy back to England.
Thrice In 1912 I won the Metropolitan and

Champion “^f^io^^I championships, but was beaten
in the final of the New Jersey State cham-
pionship by Oswald Kirkby, of Engle-
wood. The national championship was
held at the Chicago Golf Club, and
my opponent in the final was Charles
Evans, Jr.

It is with a feeling of genuine relief
that I “hole out,” metaphorically speak-
ing, on the eighteenth green of this au-
tobiographical course, and I desire to
tender the reader my heartfelt apologies
for having said so much about myself.

CHAPTER VII
HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY GOLF

GET started right. That is doubtless
the most important bit of advice
an expert can give the man who is ambi-
tious to learn to play golf and play it
well. Too many beginners are taught by
golfers who know practically nothing
about the game themselves. This is a
plain case of the blind leading the blind.
How shall the beginner, groping about Bunkered
in the darkness of ignorance, ever find T . .
the putting green ahead and hole out in
a reasonable and respectable number of
strokes? In golf parlance he is bunkered
the moment he leaves the tee, and stymied
as soon as his ball reaches the green.
57

GOLF BOOK
Good Get started right. Employ a compe-

N^JeJ **”* professional the 6rst day you take up
the game and obey his instructions im-
plicitly. Make them your golf religion.
Don’t listen a minute to Tom, Dick or
Harry. Too many instructors are like
too many cooks. They will spoil the
Scotch golf broth. Get started young, if
you can, the younger the better. I know
a boy three years old who swings his
tiny driver with unerring aim and has a
beautiful follow through. I know an-
other boy, twelve years of age, who plays
better golf than two hundred and fifty of
the three hundred members of his club.
In golf, as in other sports, youth is a
great helper, but if you cannot start at
three, or twelve, or even thirty-five, start
at forty-five or fifty. Remember that ’tis
better to have golfed and foozled than
never golfed at all.

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

Six clubs are all a beginner needs,

driver, brassie, cleek, mid-iron, mashie,

and putter. After he learns how to use Six Clubs

these he can add a mashie niblick for the (“‘” ‘

Nonce

task of getting out of bunkers and sand

traps, and a jigger for running up short
approaches. I carry but nine clubs my-
self, a driver, two brassies, driving iron,
mid-iron, jigger, mashie, mashie niblick
and putter. The extra brassie is held in
reserve to protect me against the loss
through breakage of the services of a
valuable club. There are putters of many
kinds, but I prefer the center shafted
type, or Schenectady putter. In 1904
when I was seventeen years of age I was
matched for the first time against Walter
J. Travis. On the eve of the game a
friend loaned me a putter of this sort. I
practiced a short time with it, used It
throughout the entire match without
59

GOLF BOOK

missing a single putt and my friend gave
it to me after the game. For nine years,
in victory and in defeat, that identical
center shafted putter and I have been in-
separable companions.
Learn If I were a golf instructor it would be

Separateh ‘°”*^ ‘***^* ””"^ before my pupil were al-
lowed to go round the links. Starting
with the wooden clubs, driver and bras-
sie, I would have him learn each club
separately. I would place him on the
tee with a peck of golf balls beside him
and a caddie on the fair green ahead to
chase them. For an hour at a time I
would instruct him in the art of driving
alone, striving to correct his mistakes be-
fore they became habit, showing him how
to grip his club, how to address the ball,
how to follow through properly. At the
end of an hour, if he were an apt pupil,

he would know something about driving
60

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

whereas, if he had devoted the time to
play over the links with six different
clubs, he would have learned nothing of
value about any one of them.

Then I would take him out on the fair
green, place a brassie in his hand and
have him put in another hour learning
how to use this club. I would explain to
him the difference between a good bras-
sie lie and a poor one, laying particular
stress upon the fact that a poor lie usually
means a poor shot and that one of the
first things to learn about this club is
when not to use it.

If, after an hour of driving and an- An Hour
other hour of brassie play, the novice felt
the need of something less strenuous, I
would then have him devote another hour
to putting. I would show him the proper
stance and how to grip the club and at
the end of his first long lesson he would
6i

GOLF BOOK

know more about putting than the aver-
age beginner knows after he has played
the entire course a dozen times with all
the clubs.

In the same manner I would instruct
him in the use of the cleek, mid-iron and ,
mashie, assigning from half an hour to
an hour to each club, and when he had
gained a fair working knowledge con-
cerning the manipulation of these clubs
and the driver, brassie and putter, I
would turn him loose upon the links for
an entire round of the eighteen holes.
When, in response to different needs, he
Each Club was compelled to play one club after an-
p . ^ other, each club would not be a compara-
tive stranger but an old friend with which
he was already familiar through hours
of practice. I do not carry a cleek my-
self because I get better results with a
driving iron, but I would not advise a
62

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

novice to follow this example. Also, un-
like many players, I do not use a spoon
because I found that it shortened my
game and that I was playing it when I
should have relied upon the mid-iron.

I have laid particular stress upon the
necessity for long practice with each club
because it is difficult for a beginner to Necmitf
learn the game if he only plays eighteen ^ . ‘
holes once or twice a week and contents
himself with that. Walter J. Travis,
who learned to play goli after he was
35, is probably the most remarkable ex-
ample of what can be accomplished by
constant, patient, untiring practice. No
man in America ever worked so hard to
become a great golfer as he did, and as
his reward he has won the amateur cham-
pionship of the United States three times
and the British amateur championship
once. Furthermore, he is the only Ameri-

GOLF BOOK

can amateur who ever succeeded in win-
ning the British championship.
One Club When Travis is “off his game” and is

forHowt … . , . ,

not driving, approachmg or putting as he
should, he goes out on the links alone
and plays with one club or another for
hours, practicing the same shot over and
over until he has recovered his very best
form.

I have done the same thing myself on
many occasions. I have played the same
shot fifty times. I have putted for two
hours at a stretch, placing my ball at
varying distances from the hole, trying
for short putts, long putts, up hill and
down hill putts and putts across a side
hill green where the ball must follow a
crescent-like course if it is to be holed out
or go “dead to the hole.” During the
afternoon round of my match against
Harold H. Hilton, the British champion,
64

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

at the national amateur championship on
the Apawamis links in 191 1, 1 had before
me what my own club’s champion de-
clared was an “impossible” putt. Of the
two thousand people following the match,
most of those near the green no doubt
shared his opinion. I was not very hope-
ful myself. My ball was at least twenty
feet from the hole, the green was of the
undulating, billowy type and it was a
down hill putt.

Remembering the old adage, “Never ‘Wwct- Up.
up, never in,” I struck the ball a bit too
hard, but it raced down the green as if
drawn by a magnet, struck the opposite
side of the cup, leaped into the air an
inch or two and dropped safely into the
hole.

“If you hadn’t hit the hole exactly
square, Travers, you would have been
out of bounds,” was Oswald Kirkby’s hu-
6S

GOLF BOOK

morous description of the shot after the
game.

A putt of this sort is usually called a
“lucky” putt, and no doubt there is a cer-
tain element of luck about it. Yet hours
and hours of practice produced the skill
and judgment that sank that “impossible”
putt

When I was playing for the champion-
ship at Wheaton in 1912, I got into a
very high and formidable bunker on an
approach shot. The ball was at the very
base of the bunker, close up, and the
situation was such a difficult one that Z
had little hope of getting over with one
shot. However, I took my mashie nib-
The Ball lick, got well under the ball with it and
raw t >’,^yg|| (0 my gratification the ball crawled
up the steep side of the bunker, moved
slowly across its top, struck the putting
green and rolled up dead to the hole. A

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

putt gave me a four and captured the
hole.

Many a time I have thrown a dozen
balls into a bunker and practiced for an
hour endeavoring to discover the most
successful method of getting out of this
difficult hazard. As in the case of the
“impossible” putt, the Chicago bunker
shot was successful because hours of faith-
ful study had been devoted to learning
the way to do it.

Many beginners do a great deal of un- Whippy
necessary fussing about their clubs, dis- ^”1*’,
carding this one or that one as of no
value when lack of skill and proper prac-
tice are more responsible for bad play
than lack of merit in the clubs. A novice
should buy good clubs and should be
largely guided in their selection by a cap-
able professional or amateur. Clubs with
whippy shafts are to be avoided and the
67

GOLF BOOK

purchase of every new freak club that is
placed on the market is a foolish expen-
diture of money.

In taking up the game the beginner
should familiarize himself thoroughly
with the etiquette and the rules. Flay-
ing the wrong ball, failing to let the pair
behind go through when his ball is lost,
playing into the pair ahead, or upon the
putting green before they have holed out,
talking or moving about when an oppo-
nent is making a shot, cutting across the
course and endeavoring to get in ahead of
other players who are going round the
entire links — these and other simple in-
fractions of rules and etiquette make the
careless beginner unpopular and are the
cause of many unpleasant experiences.
A Golf Not long ago I heard of a very promi-

Convert ,^gm jjj^^ ^jj^ made all sorts of fun of

golf and for years refused to try to play.
68

HOW TO LEARN TO PLAY

It was a simple, foolish, easy game, he

said, and he knew it would not interest

him. Finally a friend dragged him to

the links, teed a ball for him and told

him to drive. When he had struck four

times at the ball without even touching

it, he became so exasperated that he

bought a set of clubs that very day and To Conquer

started with determination to conquer t^,. « .,

the little white ball.

A month later the friend who had
dragged him to the links met him hurry-
ing toward the golf club although his
left arm was in a sling.

“What are you going to do?” asked
the friend.

“Oh, I broke my arm,” was the enthu-
siastic reply, “but I’m going down to play
with one hand t”

CHAPTER VIII
PRACTICAL POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

IN the articles that follow, dealing
with the various clubs, I shall en-
deavor to impart information that shall
be of value both to the novice and to the
player who has already acquired some
knowledge of the game but who, possibly,
has developed some annoying fault he is
anxious to correct Even the best of
players are “off their game” at time$ and
“Any Fool jf I can help them solve their problems

Can Drive” , . . . . … »

and give the beginner the right start, I
shall consider that the time and effort ex-
pended upon this book was not expended
in vain.
I have heard it stated that “any fool

can drive,” but steady, consistent, meri-
70

GOOglC

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

torious driving is not an art that is easily
acquired nor, once acquired, easily re-
tained. How often one hears this or that
player say: “Yesterday I was driving
like a fiend, but to-day I cannot hit one
right to save my lifel”

The main trouble with golfers of this Getting
type is that they actually know very little ^ / ^^^^
about the science of driving. While they
are lining them out well from the tee the
feeling of confidence thus inspired keeps
them going from one good drive to an-
other, but let them miss one or two and
they promptly commence pressing or
blindly experimenting and they go all to
pieces. Confidence once lost, it is a dif-
ficult task to get one*s drive back. On the
other hand, the golfer who knows just
what he is doing and how he is doing it,
is speedily able to discover where the
fault lies and correct it.
71

GOLF BOOK

Beyond doubt the drive is the most
spectacular and interesting incident of
the royal and ancient game, yet compara-
tively few ever learn to drive in proper
style or to feel the pleasant and fascinat-
ing sensation of sweeping the little white
ball away for upwards of two hundred
yards straight down the course. Careful
observation of the work done by the ma-
jority of players who, by their interest in
the game and the support they give it,
make possible the many fine golf courses,
shows that they hit the ball rather than
swing at it and sweep it away.
Avoid While I recognize the fact that there

retsmg gj.g [jj^uy golfers who, on account of their
build or other physical peculiarities, can
never acquire the true golfing stroke, I
believe that they can materially improve
their play by endeavoring to fashion their
swing more in accordance with the ac-

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

cepted principles of the stroke as set
down by experts. First of all, I .desire
to say as emphatically as I can, *

“Avoid pressing 1″

For the benefit of the novice, pressing. ‘
is the effort to hit every full shot vfith
every pound of strength he can transmit Fretting
to the ball through the insflimentality of ‘^
the club. Many golf^iywho play a very
fair game wondei’ at their occasional
lapses from best form when all that is
wrong is an involuntary desire to get just
a little more distance than they are able
to secure with safety.

Shortly before the amateur cham-
pionship of 1907, I had a spell of press-
ing and found myself topping or half
topping many tee shots and brassies
through the green. I had previously
been playing very good golf and prob-
ably became overconfident of getting the
73

GOLF BOOK

ball away sweetly every time. I could
not find out where the fault was for some
weeks, then suddenly I discovered that I
was carrying the club too far back on the
up swing and losing control of it as a
natural consequence. I gradually tamed
down my swing and stroke and got back
to my best game in time for the cham-
pionship at Cleveland which I won,
TheSteady There are a few good players who press
Driver every tee shot and drive some very long
balls, but what they gain in distance is
generally secured at a sacrifice in accur-
acy regarding direction that makes the
transaction a bad bargain. Mere dis-
tance in driving only plays a small part
in the game of golf, so it is absurd to
try to be a long player until one has ac-
quired sufficient efficiency at medium
distances to justify the effort I prefer
the short and steady driver to the long

PLATE V— STANCE FOR THE DRIVE
T the ball played off the rigbt foot which is about three inches ii
the left.

IvaJ

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

and unsteady one. The steady driver is
‘ not so interesting to the gallery, but he
wilt always have the advantage over the
inaccurate slugger and win the majority
of matches.

The first phase of the drive to be taken
up is the tee — the bit of sand upon which
the ball is placed before it is driven.

I am a firm believer in a low tee. Any ^ Low Tet
tee over a quarter of an inch high is a ^. .
mistake, for it cannot help but cause
trouble at other stages of the game. A
small amount of damp sand rolled into a
little ball and pressed down upon the
teeing ground should be all the true
golfer needs to steady his ball and get it
away far and true.

In order to get increased confidence

with the driver and to acquire ability to

use it from good lies through the fair

green, I advise practice with the club

GOLF BOOK

without any tee at all. This may be a
little difficult at the start, but can be mas*
tered, and when you have learned to get
a nice long ball from a good lie on the
turf, the luxury of a bit of sand to steady
the ball will be more appreciated and
give added confidence on your drives.
Low Tet, Another distinct advantage of the low
**”‘ ” tee is greater distance. Most players who
can use the driver through the green have
discovered that they get a longer ball
than from a tee. This is because the ball,
being hit cleanly and fairly just below
the center, ilies lower and rolls farther.
I always try to limit my tec to just enough
sand to give me as perfect a lie as I can
make, in other words, to duplicate an
ideal lie on the turf.

In taking the position to drive the ball

from the tee, the very first step in die

game of golf, it is necessary to under-

Bwerihy

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

stand that the simple act of placing the
feet properly on the ground in relation
to the location of the ball on the tee in
front of the player has a very inaportant ^*’”«
bearing on the result obtained in strik- Po,itiont
ing the ball. There are three primary
positions assumed by golfers in addressing

I Offltftfoot ; C SUoding open S. Off right foot

the ball, with slight modifications to suit
the peculiarities of the swing of different
individuals.

In each of these positions it is assumed
that the feet are placed on the ground at
about right angles to the line of play—
the imaginary line from the ball to the
point it is to be driven. Some players
77

GOLF BOOK
put the right foot further forward than
the left, and others keep it well back.
01 the Although it is possible to obtain greater

Rifhi Fm jij^„„ j„„ , ball played off the left
foot on account of the longer sweep of
the club to the ball, I prefer to play off
the right. Many of the longest drivers
prefer the former and even advocate play-
ing the ball from a point a few inches
to the left of the left foot

I find that by playing off the right foot,
I possess much better control over the
ball, which is a great- advantage in giving
confidence in the stroke that is to follow.
I can see the line of play better and with
less effort. In addition thereto, and even
more important than all else, I find it
easier to keep my eye on the ball. In ad-
dressing the ball the right foot is about
three inches in advance of the left
If you will place a ball opposite the
7«

D,gn,-prihy

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

right foot, keep your eye on the ball and
take the club back to the top of the swing
and then do the same with the ball op-
posite the left, you will appreciate the
point I wish to make clear. In one case The Ball
you can keep the ball plainly in view ,„^^^
without stretching the neck, while in the
other there is quite an effort When one’s
mind is apt to be more concerned about
the state of the score and the ever-present
desire to reach the maximum distance
down the course, or a certain definite
spot to be reached on the shot, every sim-
plifying process that you can devise to
keep the eye on the ball without effort
is valuable.

The only possible objection that may
be urged against playing off the right
foot is the natural tendency of some play-
ers thereby to slice the ball. If this can-
not be overcome by the grip, which X
79

‘D,gn,-.^K.

GOLF BOOK

shall explain later, I should advise that
the ball be played a few inches more to
the left.
Distance Another important consideration in re-
From Bail ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Stance is the matter of dis-
tance between the player and his ball.
In practice the experienced golfer learns
to feel this distance intuitively, though
the very best players occasionally make
some slight error and get a ball off the
toe or heel of their club. For beginners
I may state that when my club head is
back of the ball, ready for the drive, the
end of the shaft when lowered strikes
against my right leg just above the knee.
This is an old rule, but a safe one in most
cases.

As many players seem to be of the opin-
ion that it is the club, not the man who
swings it, that gets the results, I may be
pardoned for briefly describing my
80

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

driver. It is forty-four inches long, and
I prefer a tough, steely shaft with just
enough give in it so that I can feel the
head of the club. The leather grip on
the club is, if anything, a shade smaller
than the average, as I like to get my fin-
gers well around it. My club weighs
thirteen ounces. The face has very little
loft, with a hitting surface two inches
long by one and a quarter inches deep.
The lead in the back of the club head is v
a shade toward the toe. I grip the shaft Grip for
firmly in the palm of my left hand and “‘*

in the fingers of the right with both first
fingers loose and the others very tight.
The first fingers arc almost entirely free
from the shaft, with the tips resting on
the leather, curled inside the thumbs.
Both thumbs are pressed firmly against
the sides of first joints of the second fin-
gers, forming a locking device which

GOLF BOOK

prevents any possible turning of the sh^ft
My Grip My theory regarding this grip is that
“” it permits greater freedom of the wrists
and enables me to get greater power into
the stroke without deflecting the club
head from its proper sweep in the swing
to the ball. As a matter of fact, I could
not play my game if I grasped the club
with all the fingers around the shaft as
most players do. My whole left fore-
arm and wrist would be so stiffened and
rigid that I could not get any kind of a
satisfactory snap into the stroke or a
proper carry through.

If you will take a club in your two
hands and hold it finnly with all the fin-
gers around the shaft and take a practice
swing, and then try it with the first fin-
gers relaxed as I have endeavored to
describe, you will see how much more

flexibility there is in the latter grip.

PLATE Vni— FOLLOW THROUGH OF THE DRIVE J

how the weiitht has been shifted from the right foot to the left. J

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

Various forma of grips have been em-
ployed by prominent players, but so far
as distance is concerned, I do not believe Gri^

, , , venui

one grip has much advantage over an- /)^,g,„
other, provided bo^ hands work in uni-
son and permit a proper snap of the
wrists. Some experts grip the club en-
tirely with their fingers, while others
overlap the little finger of the right hand
and the first finger of the left, and other-
wise produce a close relationship between
the two hands. In my own case I am
satisfied that by holding the shaft in the
palm of my left hand and the fingers of
the right I get a longer ball. I grip
the club tightly with both hands. The
right hand loosens slightly at the top of
the swing and tightens in the downward
swing when the club head is about two
feet from the ball.
The overlapping of the fingers makes

GOLF BOOK
Overlap- both hands work automatically as one and
Fhtert Undoubtedly yields better direction, but
at the sacrifice of power and distance.
Many players who cannot apparently
learn to make both hands work in unison
and have no confidence in keeping their
ball on the course, could probably im-
prove their game by resorting to the over-
lapping grip.

The relative position of tfie hands
around the club is always an important
factor as controlling direction. If you
allow the right hand to turn under more
than the left, a pull will result, and if
the left is under more than the right, a
sliced ball will surely follow. The rea-
son is that in both instances the club head
fails to meet the ball at right angles and
a rotary or side motion is imparted to
the ball, which meeting the resistance of
the air, goes to one side or the other.
84

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

The lesson taught by the control of To Correct
the grip is that if you are inclined to p”,’,^”
slice, turn the right hand a shade further
under until you are able to get away a
straight ball. If you are given to pulling
your shots badly, a slight turning of the
right hand further over the shaft may
correct your trouble. In my own play,
I always seek a straight ball, and never
play for a slice or a pull, except, possi-
bly, when in difficulties. For a slice I
bring the right foot about three inches
forward of the left and swing the club
back, the swing being away from the
body instead of around it. For a pull I
do exactly the reverse: I bring the right
foot back of the left about three inches
and swing the club back nearer the body.

In the golfing stroke, the swing plays
a most important part. The movement
must be positive, but not stiff nor too flex-
85

GOLF BOOK

ible. I grip the club firmly in both hands
and draw it back close to the ground
with my wrists and not with the arms as
most players do. I do not strive to keep
the face of the club at right angles to
the ball, but turn the face away from the
Turning ball with my wrists. This turning of the

IhefVrisU . . -^ J 7 , .

wrists imparts greater speed to the club
head and is the great secret of long driv-
ing. To master this turn of the wrists is
to add many yards to the long game.

In regard to what may be termed the
angle of the swing, I take the club head
back along the ground and then around
rather than up until the shaft is parallel
to the ground. In coming down, the
,club describes the same curve as going
up, the club at no time being even ap-
proximately perpendicular. There is a
gradual turning away of the club face

which practically ceases at about the
86

Bwerihy

PLATE DC— FINISH OF THE DRIVE. FRONT VIEW

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

height of the right knee, when the club
is facing clean in front of me.

Many marvel at the great distance ob- Little Force
tained by some players who appear to ^J’^^^J^/
use very little force on the drive. The
reason is simple. The player getting such
results has learned the art of knowing
how and when to use his wrists. Most
playen have the idea that if they do not
take the club head back with its face at
right angles to the line of play, they will
make a poor shot, and so, instead of strik-
ing the ball clean and sharp, they actually
push it, and the stroke is thus robbed of
most of its speed and power.

In addition to giving power to the
stroke, the wrist action I am endeavor-
ing to explain imparts grace and beauty
to the swing. The turn of the wrists will
bring the club back about one half the
distance it must cover in the upward
87

GOLF BOOK

swing, and then the arms, combined with
the wrists, carry it the rest of the way
until it reaches the top of the swing,
when the knuckles of both hands are lying
flat and uppermost, the toe of the club
pointing down. The top of my swing is
reached when the shaft of the club is hori-
zontal to the ground. This limitation is
reached by practice until it has become
^ almost automatic with me.
The Ttp of At the top of the swing my weight is

the Swms ^^j.g ^^ j^y ^jgj^j j^g ^^^ ^^ ^^^ jgjj

The knuckles of both hands are upper-
most and viewed from along the shaft
are in a straight line and parallel with
the ground, my right hand being slightly
relaxed.

The stance should be firm, the weight
resting evenly on both feet. I do not bend
the right leg, but keep it rigid in order
to prevent the common fault of bending

POINTS ABOUT THE DRIVE

to the right As the club is drawn back,
I bend the left knee inward and rise
slightly on the left toe, the body turning
on the hips. When the top of the swing
is reached, without pausing, I start the
downward swing, bringing the body and
arms sharply around, and strike the ball.
My weight is distributed evenly and the
club head is at the height of the shoulder
and toward the rear when the left heel
commences to leave the ground.

In the downward swing, much more The Follow
power than is realized can be applied „ ™^ ,
without sacrificing accuracy. I throw my
shoulders around and put them into the
stroke. After my arms have been allowed
to follow through a reasonable distance,
I turn my wrists and finish the stroke over
my left shoulder. In the downward
swing the stroke is quickened when the
club head is about opposite the shoulders

GOLF BOOK

and the left hand commences to turn. At
the instant of impact with the ball the
hands are gripping the club as firmly and
evenly as possible.

CHAPTER IX

THE DRIVE— Continued

A SUPREME COURT justice
known to fame once stepped
upon a tee for the first time, teed up and
drove his first ball and holed out on his
first shot. When told what he had done
and how comparatively rare such a feat
was, he promptly dropped his driver into Teeinf Up
the bag and went back to the clubhouse, g^j

“No more golf for me,” he said. “If
I should try for years I could never equal
that shot No more, I say; I shall rest
on my laurels.”

In writing about the drive I found that
I could not hole out in one chapter, and
as the subject is very important and well
worth the space, I shall tee up another

GOLF BOOK

ball, metaphorically speaking, and drive
a second time.
Came of A very important thing to remember is

Bad Skolt ^ . – , . . „

to keep your eye nxed on the ball
throughout the swing and not to move
the head. It is a well-known fact that
more bad shots are produced by taking
the eye off the ball than in any other way.
Ktep the If the head is kept perfectly still it is
almost impossible to take the eye off the
ball. It is quite natural for the player to
look up for a final peep at the spot to
which he hopes to send the ball, and by
so doing miss the shot. When I am play-
ing in any important match, I always
keep saying to myself, “Keep your eye on
the balll” and if players generally would
only do the same thing, many a match
diat has been lost might have resulted
differently. I always keep my eye on the

back center of the ball.
92

THE DRIVE CONTINUED
A proper timing of the swing is essen- Timing •/

… Ti- 1 ‘*’ Swing

tial to consistent long driving. If the
hands are in advance of the club head at
the instant of contact with the ball, a slice
is sure to come off and the reverse, if the
club head meets the ball ahead of the
hands, a pull will result. Do not be over-
anxious and hurry the swing. Hitting
too quickly is a great fault, especially in
die long game. The beginner should not
strive for distance until he has cultivated
a good swing. Greater distance may eas-
ily be acquired after one has learned
to time his swing accurately to get the
ball away cleanly. Many strokes are
missed by pressing, or, in other words,
trying to hit too hard.

Long driving depends upon the speed

of the club head when it is about two feet

from the ball. It is a mistake to attempt

to put power into the stroke from the top

GOLF BOOK

of the swing. The time to put on power
is about half-way down, so that the great-
est speed is acquired just before and at
the instant of contact with the ball.
Power applied at this point is less apt to
spoil the perfect sweep of the stroke.

Most players get a slice on their drives.
This is a difficult fault to correct and in
most cases it comes from the way in
which they swing their clubs back, and
their failure to turn the face of the club
away from the ball as previously indi-
cated.
To Correci An excellent method for overcoming

“Slice ^ ^ … . . . r

the tendency to slice is to grip the club
very tightly with the right hand, allow-
ing the knuckles of the right hand to turn
more under and keeping the left elbow
close to the body. This will assist in
getting the club head around before the
hands.

THE DRIVE CONTINUED

To drive far and true through strong Viing the
winds from different directions and to
take advantage of the wind when it can
be used to secure greater distance than
would be possible under ordinary condi-
tions is an art in itself and well worthy
of the careful study of those ambitious of
improving their game.

Some players utilize a slice as well as
a pull in their play in high winds, but I
never use a slice except in the case of a
ball which I wish to drop dead on a long
shot to a green between which and my-
self, possibly, lies a hazard. I consider
a slice a dangerous stroke to cultivate, for
often it is a fault very difficult to correct,
and if you seek to use it, the practice of
doing so may at a critical moment lead
you to misfortune.

A sliced ball is very much intensified

by the wind, and when it gets through its

GOLF BOOK

forward motion often goes surprisingly
Playing far off to the right. On the other hand,
a pulled ball is always under better con-
trol and may be counted on to gain
greater distance under nearly all condi-
tions. I play nearly all my full shots
with a suggestion of pull on them to hold
the ball low and get the roll.

My treatment of the shot through a
cross-wind from the right is to play for a
pull, with an allowance for the wind. In
other words, I am at a point more or less
to the right of the line according to the
strength of the wind. The wind and the
pull will bring the ball back to the center
of the course, and when it reaches the
ground it will roll forward for a long dis-
tance, assisted by the rotation toward the
hole imparted by the pull and aided by
the wind.

Under similar conditions many players
96

Gotigle

THE DRIVE CONTINUED
seek a slice to neutralize the effect of the PalUdand

. , .. , , , Sliced Balls

wind on the ball in its flight, but by so
doing lose much distance, as the ball re-
sists the wind all the way and when it
drops will stop dead. The principle in-
volved should be easy for anyone to un-
derstand. A pulled ball rotates from
right to left in flight and consequently
slides gracefully through a wind from
the right and is assisted by it, while a
sliced ball rotates from left to right and
is constantly resisting the wind all the
way, losing carrying power and force
thereby.

To meet conditions where a strong
wind is coming from the left, I play for
a perfectly straight shot aimed a shade to
the left of the line, so that the wind will
bring it back to the center of the course.
A straight ball will carry farthest
dirough such a wind and when it reaches
97

GOLF BOOK

the ground will roll some distance, as-
sisted by the wind. Many players try for
a pulled ball under similar conditions to
hold the ball true to the line. This is
open to objections, for the reason that
such a ball rotating from right to left is
resisting the wind all the way and loses
power and distance. Sometimes when
playing in a very strong gale, when dis-
tance is not so much of a facbir as safety
in the play of a hole, I play for a pull.
Any inclination to slice with the wind
from the left will be so accentuated that
the ball will probably go beyond the
right-hand edge of the fair green. As I
have stated before, a straight ball is best
for safety and distance, and one with a
shade of hook is easiest to hold the fair
green.

1hfm„d ^^*y^”g against the wind, it is neces-
sary to get a low ball to gain any satis-
98

THE DRIVE CONTINUED

factory distance. I play it well off my
right foot, seeking a low, slightly hooked
ball, commonly known as a “wind-
cheater.” A hooked ball always flies low
and may be safely counted on to avoid
the real force of the wind found over
twenty feet above the ground. In this
stroke the distribution of the weight is a
very important factor. The weight
should be more on the left foot than the
right, and the club should be swung back
low ft} the ground, with the arms taking
it around the body. This flat swing back
of the club also tends to keep the ball “^^ ^”P

^ , . the Ball

low. The thmg to be avoided m dnvmg £„„,
into the wind is the dropping of the right
shoulder, which will always result in a
badly skied ball which will ride high on
the breeze and when its forward power is
finished will drop back of the point it
reached on the carry. The wind must be
99

iVind

GOLF BOOK

pierced by the ball at the point of least
resistance to secure distance, and this is
as low down to the ground as you can
possibly manage to get it and be sure of
hitting it well.
Down the Strange as it may seem, many players
find it extremely difficult to take advan-
tage of a strong following wind. This is
chiefly owing to-the fact that they seek to
hit the ball too hard and consequently
press. Then, again, there is some resist-
ance of the wind on the club head in the
back swing that deflects the head from
the true line when it meets the ball. In
playing down the wind, I tee the ball a
shade higher than usual, and, taking
things easy, try to get the ball away
cleanly. For this stroke the swing back
should be more vertical than for the or-
dinary drive, in order to be sure of get-
ting the ball up. If it be hit cleanly and

THE DRIVE CONTINUED

accurately the wind will assist it both in
its flight and roll. A slight hook on the
shot is advantageous tn increasing the
roll. Above all things, do not press be-
fore the wind unless you are absolutely
sure of getting the ball up. Great feats
in the way of distance have been accom-
plished playing before the wind, and
there is wonderful fascination in trying
to reach spots further out than ever be-
fore attained under such conditions, but
except for the sport of the thing it is not
safe or winning golf.

Topping the drive is caused in most Topped
cases by failure to keep the eye on the
ball. Then, again, some players top their
drives by pulling their arms up just be-
fore the instant of contact by the club
head with the ball. This upward move-
ment causes the club head to strike the
top quarter of the ball and not its back

GOLF BOOK

center. Players who press their tee shots
frequently get a topped ball through hit-
ting so hard that the eye is momentarily
taken oft the ball.

The best cure for a spell of topping is
to moderate the force of the swing, and
to look underneath or immediately back
of the ball. Seek to get the ball accur-
ately on the center of the face of the club,
regardless of distance, until you have re-
gained confidence in the stroke. An aid
to this is to chalk the face of your club,
which will plainly indicate where the
ball is met by the club. When it is re-
membered that in the drive the player
has everything to his liking, a teed ball
and a comfortable stance of his own se-
lection, it must be conceded that it should
be the easiest shot of the game.
Sclaged As in topped drives, most sclaffed shots

Dma jfg caused by taking the eye off the ball.

THE DRIVE CONTINUED:

A dropping of the right shoulder during
the swing also brings the club to the turf
before the ball is reached. Still another
cause for sclaffing is standing too near
the ball, when the club head is dug into
the ground back of the ball, owing to the
lack of room between the player and the
ball. The best cure for sclaffing is to
moderate the stroke and to keep the eye
on the front center of the ball, or even
an inch or two in advance of it, if neces-
sary. By holding the left elbow fairly
close in toward the body in the address,
and by keeping the right shoulder in its
proper place during the swing, this fault
can be readily corrected.

In further explanation of what is “The Snap
known as the turn of the wrists, I may %^’%.
add that the first movement is to swing
the club head just above the ground as

far as the left forearm will go without
103

GOLF BOOK

rising. In this movement there is no
turning of the wrists as the term is gen-
erally understood, but the movement is
one in which the forearms, wrists and
hands all act together, in a gradual turn-
ing over of both hands so that the
knuckles of the left hand are more above
than in the address. At the same time
the right hand turns over so that the palm
is uppermost, with a slight backward
bending of the wrist. This brings the
club head up about to the level of the
hip, with its face pointing almost straight
in front of me. Then I continue the up-
ward movement with the arms, which
ends with the shaft of the club being
parallel with the ground and its toe point-
ing downward. At the top of the swing
the right hand is slightly relaxed. In the
downward swing, the hands, arms, and

wrists automatically, without any con-

104

THE DRIVE CONTINUED

scious effort, practically duplicate in re-
‘ verse the movement described in going
back and up.

Some players have a wrong conception
of what is known as the “snap of the
wrists” and bend their wrists instead of
turning them over as described, in a vain
effort to impart a snap to the stroke,
which is a dangerous performance at best
and does not impart any increased power
or speed to the stroke.

105

CHAPTER X
HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

O’

k N all first-class golf courses it is
customary to lay out some holes
requiring the use of a wooden club for
the second shot in order to reach a distant
green, or get in position for a short ap-
proach on a very long hole. After the
drive it very frequently happens that the
ball is found in a lie that precludes the
use of the driver, and calls for a club bet-
ter adapted to get a quick rise of the ball
and cut its way through the turf.
Utinff the When the ball is in a perfect lie you
should use your driver, taking the iden-
tical stance and swing as in the tee shot.
A driver, however, is only recommended
when the lie is perfect, or when an effort

Driver

1 06

Digweriby

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

for extra distance must be risked by the
state of the score. If it be possible to
reach the green or make the required dis-
tance by playing either your brassie or
driver, by all means use the brassie be-
cause it is a safer shot, and you have far
better control of the ball.

As lies through the fair green depend To Get a
largely on chance, it frequently happens ”
that the ball will be found lying very
close to the ground, or in some slight cup
or depression. In order to get it up
sweetly you will be forced to adopt a dif-
ferent swing. To assist in imparting a
quick rise to the ball, the swing back
should be more vertical, the eye being
kept, not on the ball itself, but on the
ground directly behind it. Stand closer
than in driving, with the ball nearer the
left foot If the lie be reasonably good,
though near the ground in a slightly
107

GOLF BOOK

cuppy spot, it is not necessary to take
turf; but if it be poor, you are compelled
to dig out a bit of turf behind the ball.
It is very important that the shaft of the
brassie be strong and stiff to prevent it
being deflected when it comes in contact
with the ground, which would cause a
slice or a pull on the stroke.
Playing a In Order to provide for emergencies
Cuppy Lie against the danger of breaking your bras-
sie in playing such lies, it is well to carry
an extra one in your bag. The lighter
and more whippy your brassie is, the
greater the likelihood there is to break it
and to find yourself greatly handicapped
by being deprived of its use if you have
not another at hand.

In playing a cuppy lie, select some spot
on the ground directly behind the ball
and keep your eye on this spot throughout
the swing, and not on the ball. Your

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

club head should enter the turf at this
spot, and when you feel that it is well
under the ball turn your wrists up
quickly. It is imperative that both hands Firm Grip
should be gripping firmly when the club u’ ^ ”
comes in contact with the ground to avoid
any tendency it may have to turn and send
the ball flying oft to the right or the left.
Many beginners find it extremely diffi-
cult to learn to use the brassie effectively
for the reason that they seem to think it
is a radically different club from the
driver. The nlain trouble lies in their
failure to keep the eye on the back center
of the ball or on the ground just back of
the ball throughout the swing. If they
would but make up their minds to seek
not more than seventy-five yards on the
stroke at the start and devote their entire
attention to an effort to get the ball ac-
curately off the center of the club head
109

GOLF BOOK

with a perfectly natural and easy stroke,

they would rapidly master the brassie

shot

Advice for One of the first things for the novice

fht Novice jjj jggj.jj jjjjgm j[jg brjgjig is T^hen not to

use it When the lie is bad, or when the
ball lies in fairly long grass, or when the
bunker ahead is so near that the ball may
not rise quickly enough to clear it, the
beginner will be wise if he uses the safer
mid-iron instead of the brassie. Another
thing to be avoided by the novice, or aver-
age player, is the inclination to press, and
thus take the eye off the ball or the spot
immediately back of it It is far better
to get a straight ball down the center of
the course than to press and either top,
sclaff, slice or pull. By virtue of plenty
of practice he should gradually become
certain of getting reasonable distance with
accuracy, and he can then afford to apply

GOOglC

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

more speed to the strobe, and attempt
longer shots with chances of bringing
them off with consistency sufficient to
compensate for the occasional wild one
out-of-bounds or into trouble.

In the hands of an expert the brassie is 72′ Grtat
a remarkably useful club for accomplish- q^^^
ing brilliant recoveries in the way of long
shots out of fairly high grass, out of shal-
low sand traps and for long shots sliced
or pulled around clumps of trees. It is a
club upon which the player may almost
uniformly depend for getting the ball
quickly up from the ground, as easily as
with a mid-iron; but for longer distances
and with less physical exertion. All golf-
ers ambitious of improving their game
should devote hours and days to practice
with the brassie until they get absolute
confidence in handling it. When the
player has once mastered it he may feel

GOLF BOOK

sure of cutting many strokes off his aver-
age card for the round.
Hanging Great difficulty is experienced by every
golfer in learning how to play hanging
and side hill lies with the brassie, but the
player who through diligent and pains-
taking practice has successfully solved
these problems, should have every reason
to feel proud of his proficiency, for he
has mastered one of the most difficult
shots of the game. The brassie is a most
valuable club, saving more strokes for
the player than any other club. It fre-
quently happens that at some hole calling
for a full second shot with a bunker
guarding the way to the green, one man
finds it necessary to play short, while his
more proficient opponent plays a full
brassie, carries the hazard and reaches
the green.
In playing a hanging lie where the

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

ground slopes toward the point you seek
to reach, the chief difficulty is to get the
ball up cleanly without digging into the
turf back of it I stand with the ball on The Prober
a straight line with my left heel, the right ^^s’l^^Ye
foot being about three inches in advance
of the left. I then allow my right knee
to bend slightly and have the weight of
my body resting more on the left leg be-
cause the slight bending of the right knee
tends to equalize the position of the shoul-
ders in relation to the pitch of the land,
and because the left leg’s rigidity pre-
vents the tendency to fall forward and top
the ball when power is put on the down
swing. The swing back should be more
vertical than in the tee shot and more out
from the body than around it Just as
the club head comes in contact with the
ball, draw in your arms and finish out to-
ward the left, which will cause the ball
“3

GOLF BOOK

to slice a bit, but it will rise quickly,
which is the chief point desired. It is
obvious that an allowance for the slice
must foe made by aiming toward the left
of the line. Holding your wrists well
down and getting the ball slightly off the
heel of the club will aid it in rising.

Keep the eye on a point on the ground
behind the ball throughout the swing.
If your opponent’s play has placed you
in a position where in order to save the
hole it is necessary to gain extra distance,
you are justified in making the effort, but
under ordinary conditions it is danger-
ous to strive for a long ball from a hang-
ing lie.
SUf HUl The greatest difficulty in properly
^”* playing side hill lies where the ball is

above or below the player, comes from
the tendency to lose one’s equilibrium

during the swing. This falling backward
114

PLATE XII— FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THE BRASSIE
At the finish o( tb« awing the body is shown turned directly toward the line of play.

i;yt.^>

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

or forward, as the case may be, will in-
variably cause a slice or a pull. The
harder you seek to hit the ball from a
side-hill lie, the harder it is to keep your
balance and the greater the unlikelihood
of getting a cleanly hit straight ball.
Until you have learned to properly exe- Faithful
cute these difficult side-hill strokes with ^”^ ‘”
reasonable accuracy you are at the mercy
of the more proficient player who can do
so. When you have a little spare time,
instead of playing around the links, take
your brassie and a few dozen balls and
go forth and diligently practice these dif-
ferent lies. Don*t be discouraged if im-
provement appear well-nigh impossible
at first, but stick to your practice until
you have mastered the difficulties. You
can never learn how to play properly un-
til you have learned every stroke in the
game by assiduous practice.
“5

GOLF BOOK

ffith Ball When the stroke must be made along
Below You ^ gjjjg jjjji ^jjgj.g jjjg jj^jj jj, slightly ijeio„

where you stand to address it, stand with
the ball about opposite the middle of the
body, with the right foot on the line and
the left foot about two inches back. In
other words, the left foot is about two
inches back of the right. When I wrote
the above I had in mind the position of
my feet on a whitewashed line on the
ground parallel to the line of play as
shown in the illustrations. By the use
of this line one may accurately ascertain
the relative positions of the feet.

The main thing to avoid is the tendency
of the body to fall forward or down hill,
or toward the ball, thereby causing it to
slice when the heel of the club comes in
contact with it. Therefore, get a firm
stance and endeavor to keep the body,
shoulders, arms and hands in the proper

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE
plane throughout the swing. By plane I The Proper
mean the sweep of the club to the ball, Explained
and this sweep should be an exact dupli-
cation of the backward swing. When
putting power into the stroke on the for-
ward swing one is apt to slightly lose his
balance and thereby distort the perfect
movement of the club through the plane
of its swing. The golfer must seek to
keep his hands in exactly the same plane
coming down as going up, but even more
so than when playing on level ground.

In playing a ball that is lying below
you there is a tendency on the back swing
to throw the arms out from the body, and
in the down swing the club will come
across the ball, causing a slice.

Any effort toward pressing on this

stroke will intensify the likelihood to lose

the balance and get a sliced shot. In

order to equalize the tendency to slice, it
117

Above You ,

GOLF BOOK

is well to make a slight allowance for it
and aim a shade to the left of the line of
play.

ff^itk Ball Just the reverse of the foregoing, where
the ball is above you, you are inclined to
fall back from it in the stroke, and by so
doing hit the ball with the toe of the club
resulting in a pull. It is difficult to
swing back away from the body and very
natural to swing back close to the body
with the result that the ball is pulled.
Stand with the ball about opposite the
right heel (maybe an inch or two to the
left of it) with the left foot four inches
back of the right. Stand firm and en-
deavor to keep the body, shoulders, arms
and hands in the proper plane throughout
the stroke, to avoid falling away. Seek to
get the ball off the center of the club head
and get its heel well down without cut-
ting the toe of the club into the ground.

PLATE Xin— INCORRECT TOP OF SWING WITH THE BRASS’”
,- ,!„(. i* inn vpTiirat. It nhnuld be almost Damllel with the ground. S.

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

As there is the ever-present inclination
to pull, it is well to make a slight allow-
ance by aiming at a point just a shade to
the right of the line of play when at-
tempting this stroke.

Where the play is uphill and the ball Tke Uphill
must be cleanly picked up at the start, ^
stand with the ball an inch or two to the
right of opposite the center of the body,
with the right foot about four inches back
of the left The weight is then put more
on the right foot than the left and efiort
made to prevent any falling back that
would result in a badly topped ball.
Draw the club back close to the ground
at the start and take some turf after hit-
ting the ball. If the going is very
sharply up hill, keep the eye on a point
back of the ball and take some turf with
the ball. In this stroke the eflfort should
be to get the ball up quickly, but not any
119

GOLF BOOK

higher than is necessary to clear the hill
and get the carry you desire.
To Get a A very useful stroke with the brassie is

Dead Ball . . . . ,

to use It for a longish carry to a green in
a wind from the right, by deliberately
playing for a slice. The ball goes for its
usual distance through the air, but when
it comes to earth it geti very little roll.
Play the ball off a point about opposite
the left heel, and at the instant of contact
draw the hands in a bit. Allowance must
be made for the slice partly neutralized
by the wind. This shot is particularly
effective for a long approach to a green
over a hazard just in front of it

Now and then a brassie shot with a
proper amount of hook or pull imparted
to it is very useful. For example, one of
the finest shots of this character I ever
made was at Garden City in 1908 in my
match against Walter J. Travis in the

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

semi-finals of the national championship.
Travis had me 2 down and 4 to play, a
very substantial lead, but I captured the
next two holes and we were all square.
At the next tee I got a good drive and
what followed was described by Travis
himself in an article in “The American
Golfer” for April, 1909. After gener-
ously stating that he could testify from
personal experience to my “remarkable
skill with this club” (the brassie), he
wrote :

“Just take, for instance, his second shot ^ Difficult
on the seventeenth hole at Garden City in ^”‘”"”"‘
last year’s (1908) championship in the
semi-final round. The match was all
even. He was some 240 yards at least
from the hole, which was on the right-
hand side of the green, with a row of trees
bordering the line of play to the right,
directly paralleling it. And trouble to

GOLF BOOK

the left. The least bit of a mistake meant
disaster — the loss of at least a stroke — per-
haps the loss of the hole I And how su-
perbly he rose to the occasioni His shot
was truly magnificentl Played boldly,
with a suggestion of hook, it gave him a.
putt for a 3 — and virtually settled the
match.”

It did settle the match. I finished two
up and then defeated Max Behr 8 up and
7 to play in the final round for the cham-
pionship itself.
The The spoon is a club with many features

of the brassie, generally with a longer
face and slightly more lofted. I never
use a spoon, because I believe it tends to
spoil a man’s game by leading him to
spare his shots and shorten his game. I
prefer to use the right club for the dis-
tance I wish to make, hitting the ball
squarely and accurately with about the

P»X,ATE XIV— STANXE FOR HANGING LIE WITH THE BRASSIE
; rith i loot well in advance of Ihe left. Keep the eye fixed on I
— ‘•¦¦¦* immpdiatelv back of the ball.

HOW TO PLAY THE BRASSIE

same effort every time. Some players use
spoons for cleek shots and shorter shafted
ones more laid back for mid-iron strokes,
but I have never found any necessity for
learning how to use two clubs to get about
the same result. For the player of slight
physique, or for older players, the spoon
provides a method of getting greater dis-
tance with less muscular effort than cleeks
and irons, but for the younger player and
for men of normal strength, my theory is The Spared
that irons are best. I believe in practi- f^^”gj
cally playing every full shot for all it is
worth, and do not favor three-quarter
shots or half shots with a stronger club.
Play the right club for the distance and
hit every stroke firmly and hard. On
short approaches there must be a varia-
tion in power, but wooden clubs should
be used for their maximum distance
safely inside the boundary of pressing.
123

CHAPTER XI
HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

THE cleek is the most powerful iron
in the bag and is a close rival of
the wooden ones as a distance gainer.
The Mott My cleek has a shaft two inches shorter
pMverful ^^^ driver, weighs about sixteen

Iron •” °

ounces and is heavier than either the
driver or brassie. Also, it has an unusu-
ally short face. Because of a mistaken
idea that the spring of the shaft gives ad-
ditional distance, many players use cleeks
with whippy shafts. Such shafts, I be-
lieve, are responsible for a great deal of
bad play with the cleek. As accuracy of
direction is more important than mere
distance at most stages of the game, it is
ridiculous to use whippy shafts in cleeks

or any other clubs.

124

HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

The more whippy the shaft the less EvUi of
chance one has of getting away a per- ^*If^’
fectly straight ball, because the give of
the shaft at different parts of the swing
is apt to permit the head of the club to
come to the ball at a different angle from
the one sought in the address. If you will
make a practice swing with a particularly
whippy club you will note that both at
the top of the swing, and at a point about
half-way down to the ball, there is a bend
to the shaft sufficient to materially change
tiie angle of the club head as it meets the
ball. When the ball is hit, particularly
as turf should be taken after contact on
all cleek shots, there is a third give of the
shaft that is very apt to result in faulty
direction.

If your hands are in advance of the
club when it comes in contact with the
ball, it stands to reason that the more

GOLF BOOK

whip you get from the shaft the more in-
tensified will be the inclination to slice.
Who ever saw a player putting with a
whippy shaft? To my mind it is as fool-
ish to use a whippy shaft in a cleek or
any other club as it would be to use it in ‘
a putter.

Back Sating

j^ore In making a cleek stroke, stand closer

Verttcal tQ tjig ball than vrhen using the driver,
playing it more to the right, witfi the
right foot well advanced and the left foot
about five inches back of it The swing
is practically the same as in the drive, ex-
cept that the club is not carried back
quite so far. The backward swing is
more vertical, and while with the drive
the effort is to swish the ball away, the
cleek stroke is more of a hit or chop.
Strike firmly into the ball with a strong
effort to follow through and get into the

turf after contact with the ball.
126

PLATE XV-ADDRESS WITH CLEEK

.„J.t*Il.. …..-;– -•–”"‘

HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

The difference between the cleek shot

and shots with the driver and brassie is

that with the former the ball is hit first

and then you take turf as you follow

through, whereas with the wooden clubs

the effort is to pick the ball off the turf,

except in the case of a cuppy lie where

the turf is sometimes taken before hitting

the ball. When a cleek shot is properly

made the ball will go off with great

speed, traveling comparatively low, and Tke Stance

may be depended upon to hold the line p^^

with accuracy. The stance should be

very firm and the weight should rest

fairly even on both feet. At the start of

the backward swing turn the wrists over

as with the driver, but do not allow the

left foot to rise on the toe off the ground

as in the tee shot. Try to keep the left

foot well rooted to the ground, for this

will overcome the tendency of lifting
127

GOLF BOOK

the body in the stroke, a habit which fre-
quently leads to a bad shot.

The left heel rises, but only slightly,
and the pressure.on the ground is through
the inner edge of the ball of the foot,
rather than on the toe, as in the tee shot.
Turn the body from the waist up, keep-
ing the head perfectly still and hold the
eye on the back center of the ball. Do
not try to pick up the ball as on the drive,
but hit at it accurately and take some
turf, and then follow through firmly and
positively.
Hit and Most players use a cleek as if they

Take Turf yf^^e trying to hit a ball off a putting
green without injuring the turf. This,
I think, accounts for their poor direction
and weak strokes regarding distance.
Hit the ball, take some turf and follow
through, keeping the eye on the back

center of the ball. If you play the shot
128

PLATE XVI— ADDRESS WITH THE CLEEK, SIDE VIEW
* ^M*^ be about opposite the center of the body, the right foot i

HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

in this way you will find that the cleek is
a very useful and dependable weapon to
have in your bag. Most players never
get acquainted with the cleek, and when- Uteful and

, , . t • . . – 1 Dependable

ever they decide to try a shot with it, do ffgapon
so with fear and trembling and in many
instances their over-anxiety leads to mis-
fortune.

Grip the cleek firmly with both hands
to prevent it from turning when it comes
in contact with the ground after the ball
is struck. The right hand relaxes its grip
slightly at the top of the swing, but
tightens again in the downward swing as
speed is applied and the ball is hit. A
common fault with cleek play is dropping
the right shoulder, which causes the club
head to strike the ground before reaching
the ball, and kills the possibilities of the
shot. To correct this error, stand an inch
or two further away from the ball and
129

GOLF BOOK

t; endeavor to keep the right shoulder in its

true plane throughout the swing. In
cleek play in the different conditions of
wind and for hanging and side-hill lies,
the explanations previously given for the
driver and brassie under identical condi-
tions apply, with the very slight differ-
ence in the swing back and hitting of the
ball, as indicated.
Driving- Personally, I prefer a driving-iron in

cZk”^”* place of a regular cleek. The face, in-
stead of being long and narrow like the
standard cleek, is deep and short and is,
perhaps, laid back a shade less. The face
is about one-quarter of an inch deeper
than the ordinary cleek, and the head is
about one-quarter of an inch shorter. A
much lower ball can be driven with this
driving-iron, and when there is a high
wind a low ball is of great assistance. I
seem to possess better control over the
130

PLATE XVII— TOP OF THE SWING WITH THE CLEEK

lowing the weight distributed between both feet, the left heel rising but slighdr,

HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

flight of the ball with my driving-iron
than with a regular cleek, and so prefer
to use it

In my own game the driving-iron, or
cleek, plays a very important part, and Goad for
I play it with full confidence regarding ^^«”<“*
direction, which frequently enables me
to lay a ball close up to the pin on a very
long approach to a green. I get a ball
almost as long as with a brassie, but more
uniformly straight on the line, with a fine
roll.

This shot is not a very difficult one, but
few players nowadays make it, and in con-
sequence it has won many a hole for me.
I have devoted much practice to the
stroke, and as a demonstration of its all-
around ability I may state that I played
the entire links of the Montclair Golf
Club in 77 strokes, using my driving-iron
alone for every shot from the tee, through

Iron From
Tee

GOLF BOOK

the green, for approaches, out of bunkers
and for putting.
Driving On many courses there are holes where

it is absolutely dangerous to use a driver
from the tee, where the player gets into
trouble if his ball go too far. For in-
stance, at Garden City there are some
holes where a long player is heavily pun-
ished by a full tee shot. During the
championship of 1908 I used my driving-
iron from several of the tees with good
effect where I wanted a drive of slightly
over 200 yards, but where one of 240
would have landed me in a bunker or
stretch of long grass, and perhaps, penal-
ized me a stroke.

In the championship at Wheaton, in
1912, 1 was decidedly off my game so far
as the wooden clubs were concerned. The
course was narrow, and in the finals
against Charles Evans, Jr., I practically
13*

HOW TO PLAY THE CLEEK

used my driving-iron from the tees.
Both rounds on the tenth hole, which ts
24D yards, I reached the green with my
driving-iron.

133

CHAPTER XII

THE GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB, THE
MID-IRON

f I’lHE mid-iron is the Jack-of-AlI-
1 Trades of golf. One can drive,
approach, putt and even get out of a rea-
Tke Star in sonablc amount of trouble with it. In
Contestt o”c-c*ub contests it plays the star part,
for a golfer armed with this single imple-
ment of his favorite sport can go round
the entire eighteen holes in such low fig-
ures, comparatively speaking, that he
wonders why the other clubs were in-
vented. As a matter of fact, however, it
is not the equal of the driver and brassie
for distance, it is far inferior to the
mashie for shots that require lofting, and
as an ever-present help in trouble it by
134

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

no means supplants the mashie niblick.
Nevertheless, as the marine is the Handy
Man of the British Navy, the mid-iron is
the Handy Club of golf. Furthermore,
although the iron clubs include the cleek,
driving-iron, mid-iron, jigger, mashie,
mashie niblick and putter, the mid-iron
aione has won the distinction of being re-
ferred to as “the iron.”
The mid-iron is the favorite club of Easiest

T T

most golfers. In my own case I would g
rather play a full iron Shot up to the hole
than any other stroke in the game. When
the caddie hands me the iron I feel sure
that the chances of bringing off a success-
ful shot are largely in my favor. Differ-
ent golfers excel with different kinds of
clubs and on different strokes. It does not
matter so much regarding the length, loft
or shape of the club, as that the player by
reason of much practice with it acquires
135

GOLF BOOK

confidence that he can get just such re-
sults with his favorite club nearly every
time he makes a stroke with it. The ma-
jority of golfers find that the iron is th«
easiest club in the bag to play with. They
can almost invariably get the ball up
cleanly and away. This simplicity is due
to the fact that a comparatively short
swing is used, and the loft of the club
represents the normal, between the cleek
and the mashie. The face is not as
straight up and down as the cleek, nor
as much laid back as the mashie. It is
perfectly designed to hit the ball by the
simplest sort of a stroke, get it up cleanly
and for fair distance.
The St^ In an article elsewhere on the cleek I
” have pointed out the desirability of using

a stiff shaft. This matter of shafts, to my
mind, is of great importance, and too
much cannot be written on the subject
136

PL.\TE XIX— TOP OF SWING OF MID-IRON SHOT

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

Whenever I see a man using a club with
a whippy shaft, I always feel that he is
laboring under a heavy additional handi-
cap. If you will stop to consider that
accuracy is more essential to good golf Accuracy
than mere distance, particularly when />£,,–„
playing iron shots, you will readily un-
derstand that with a shaft which permits
the club head to whip from side to side,
it is a mere matter of luck whether you
meet the ball squarely on its face or not.

My iron is 38?^ inches long, one inch
shorter than my cleek, and I stand a little
nearer the ball when using it. The
weight of my iron is 15 ounces. I play
the ball from about opposite the center
of my body, with the right foot advanced
about three inches farther than the left
The weight of the body is more on the
right than on the left foot

The swing with the iron is practically
»37

GOLF BOOK

a duplication of tliat with a cleek, with
two exceptions. The club is not swutig
back so far and the back swing is a shade
more vertical.
Eye on the Keep the eye on the back center of the
of Ik b”//’^'*^” “”"^ ^^ head still — that old warning
which we hear so often, and so often dis-
regard at some critical stage of the game,
and make a defective stroke.

In playing an iron shot, the matter of
keeping the eye on the ball is of more
than ordinary importance. To get sat-
isfactory results the ball must be very
accurately hit, and this cannot be done
if the eye is not on the ball. The iron
stroke, like that of the cleek shot, is more
of a hit than a sweep. The club itself
shouljl be gripped firmly with both
hands, with the wrists stiff when the club
head comes in contact with the ball.
Remember, that as in all other iron
138

Bwerihy

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

shots, you must hit the ball fimily and ^”’ ^if”
‘ ¦’ ¦’ Take Turf

then take some turf and follow through.

If you leam to do this you will get a

longer and straighter ball than if you

merely try to pick the ball cleanly off the

turf as most players do.

Another important factor in iron play

is that of always making a sufficiently

strong shot to insure being up to the hole.

This is essential on all approach shots.

Far too many players are satisfied when

playing an approach if they can get the

ball near or on the green. They lose

sight of the main purpose of all ap-

proaches^the desirability of aiming at

the hole rather than merely to get on the

green. At one time I felt the same way

myself concerning the approach shot.

About seven years ago I was following a

well-known golfer in company with other

spectators. I noticed that whenever he

»39

GOLF BOOK

played his approach shots, he played not
for the green but for the pin itself. This
was plainly visible by the careful way in
which he sought a certain line to the near
edge of the green or just short of it, with
allowance for the run to the cup. He
would make exacdy the right allowance
on shot after shot, and get down in one
putt on enough greens to convince me
that this was the secret of the highest
grade of golf.
Play for Since that time I have devoted much

attention to practicing this approach shot
to the pin, and I now think it is the
strongest part of my game. From the
very day I first took it up I could see a
marked improvement in my scoring. To
put a bit of golf wisdom into verse,

Aim for the hole,
Allow for the roll!

Many well-known writers on golf
140

the Pin

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

recommend the cultivation of the half-
iron shot That is to say, they spare the
shot when the distance sought is too short Tht Half-

- , ., . 1 , , ., Iron Skot

for a full iron, and too great for a full
mashie. This shot is one of the most diffi-
cult strokes to master to the extent of
securing dependable consistency of exe-
cution from it. It is very hard to prop-
erly time the stroke. To my mind it is a
very hazardous and unreliable shot to
attempt in a close match. Naturally, in
the half-iron stroke the club is not taken
back as far as in the full stroke. Upon
the prolongation of the back swing de-
pends altogether the amount of distance
that is to be gained on the shot. The
wrists, instead of bending, are kept rather
rigid. The body, also, is kept still, and
there is less pivoting or turning of the
body from the htps up, than on the full

shot Instead of raising up on the right
141

GOLF BOOK

foot, that foot should be kept well rooted
to the ground. The right leg should be
kept still.

Unless you have mastered the shot,
which it may take you years to do, you
will find it very hard to hold the ball on
line on account of the difficulty of prop-
erly timing the shot. As I have stated
elsewhere in this book, I do not believe in
spared shots, and I seldom use the half-
iron stroke unless there is a very strong
head wind. In place of spared shots with
the mid-iron, I use the jigger and get
far better results.
To Get a It often happens that it is necessary to
pull your second shot with a mid-iron in
order to reach the green. Some obstacle,
such as a tree or a grove of trees, juts out
into the line between you and the hole.
In other situations you may find the hole

laid out at an angle, and if you do aot

142

Pulled Ball

m XXI-HOW THE CLUB SHOULD TURN AWAY FROM THE BAlJ
h cleek and mid-iton diots. the club as it is brought Uck should turn aw»jW

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

make proper allowance from the tee, you
are compelled to pull the second shot to
get to the green. To secure a pulled ball
with a mid-iron, stand with the ball op-
posite the center of the body with the left
foot about four inches in advance of the
right. Swing the club back close to the
body and, instead of finishing straight on
the line of play, let your arms follow
through out from the body, toward the
right of the line of play. If these direc-
tions are closely followed the ball will
gradually woik to the left in its flight.

If you want a quicker pull, turn the toe
of your club in and make the swing as
above. This shot has often pulled me
out of a bad place and enabled me to win
or halve a hole that otherwise would have
been lost.

There is a very useful shot with the ChipSkott
mid-iron known as the chip shot or run- “” “”"
143

GOLF BOOK

up approach, when the ball is lying from
five or ten yards from the green with
rough grass intervening. When the ball
is in the same situation with smooth grass
between it and the green, I advise the use
of the putter. To get over or through the
rough grass irregular of texture and of
different holding power, it is best to use
the chip shot with the iron. Grasp the
club rather firmly in the palm of the left
hand and in the fingers of the right, the
thumb of the right hand resting on the
shaft The ball should be played from
about opposite the left heel, with the
right foot well advanced, and the body
facing well toward the hole.

The body, shoulders and head remain
motionless, the shot being made only with
the wrists and arms. Don’t hurry the
stroke. Pick the ball up cleanly and
without taking any turf. After you have
144

GOLFER’S FAVORITE CLUB

judged the amount of strength necessary
to send the ball to the cup, pick out some
spot on the green where you wish the ball
to strike and run the remainder of the Play to Hit
way, and then play to hit that spot. This ‘*’ ^*’
is a shot that has won many a hole for
me and not a little applause. I can usu-
ally count on getting very near to the
hole, and having a chance to go down in
one putt. As the ball usually takes a
slight twist to the right in its run, it is
well to aim just a shade to the left of the
pin. The ball gets a nice little run from
a mid-iron with a certain amount of back-
spin that helps it to hold the line and find
the bottom of the cup if it be given a
chance.

Also, the mid-iron is a very useful club

for putting on a rain-soaked or rough

green at times when the ordinary putter

seems hopeless. The ball starts off with

GOLF BOOK

a jump on such shots, then rolls true to
the line with back-spin that assists in
holding the cup when it gets up.

It is desirable that the golfer practice
each of these strokes with his mid-iron
until he can depend upon it for satisfac-
tory results under the various conditions.
The When he has mastered it, he will have

added to his equipment a club with which
solely he should be able to make a round
of eighteen holes only a few strokes worse
than his best score with a full set of clubs.

Poo-Bah

of Golf

146

PLATE XXII— ADDRESS FOR JIGGER SHOT OF ABOTt’^MS^YARDS
‘he ball is opposite the center of the body and the right foot is well id advance)

PLATE XXIU-TOP OF SWING FOR JIGGER SHCTt™ ‘
¦- -ot i.ta b«k u hr «. I« a n,W-TO shot. A Ihree-qu^t.r
a needed to produce the desired result. ^^^”

CHAPTER XIII

THE USEFULNESS OF THE JIGGER

PARAPHRASING the scriptures
without any intention of being in
the least bit sacrilegious, What shall tt
profit a man if he make a two- hundred- ff^hat Shall
and-twenty-yard drive and a two-hun- ^ jf^^f
dred-yard brassie shot near the green and
then foozle his approach twice and get a
six? There ts no profit in such a propo-
sition, but loss of the hole in all probabil-
ity. Poor approaching, going short of
the hole or overplaying it — what a vast
number of matches have been lost because
of these faults.

Clever play with the jigger would have
turned disappointment into rejoicing, de-
feat into victory. .

<47

GOLF BOOK

Spare the The usefulness of this club has received
Shot. Spoil ^j^j ordinary consideration from the

the Sirote ¦’ ¦’

great majority of golfers because it is a
recent invention. Before the jigger was
introduced I experienced great difficulty
in playing shots of about i6o yards. The
distance being too short for a mid-iron
and too long for a mashie, I endeavored
to negotiate the stroke by using a half-
iron. The results were not satisfactory.
Experimenting, I discovered that I was
able to accomplish much better results in
these betwixt and between shots with the
jigger, so I discarded the spared iron
shot and adopted the jigger for all short
strokes. Spare the rod and spoil the child
is no truer than spare the shot and spoil
the stroke. As I have explained fully
in another part of this book, I do not be-
lieve in spared shots with any club.

When I state that the weakest part of
148

Bwerihy

USEFULNESS OF THE JIGGER

my game at that time — the time I
commenced experimenting — became the
strongest through my action in adopting
the jigger, my fondness for the club will
be understood. I honestly attribute a
great deal of my success to the use of the
jigger.

I advise every golfer to use this club, ^’^^ ^’”"

prove Oni’t

because I firmly believe that it will im- Qame
prove his game. My, ji^fger is 37 inches
long and weighs 16 ounces. – Like my
other iron clubs, it has. a stiff shaft. I
have always taken it for granted that the
driving-iron was the heaviest iron club
in the set, but in weighing my clubs re-
cently I found, to my surprise, that the
jigger was of the same weight as the driv-
ing-iron. All iron clubs should be rather
heavy in the head and have stiff- shafts.
In order to time the shot properly you

must be able to feel the head of the club
149

GOLF BOOK

Poor
Timing,
Poor
Direction

throughout the swing. The lighter the
club, the more difficult it becomes to time
the stroke, and poor timing means poor
direction.

Also, accuracy is enhanced by the use
of heavy irons because less effort is re-
quired to get distance. Furthermore,
they help the player to take turf after
the ball is struck, insuring a proper fol-
low through. AH first-class golfers agree
that in playing iron shots the best results
are obtained by taking turf, but differ
when they try to explain why this is so.
The reason is clear to my mind. If you
attempt to pick the ball off the grass, the
ball will be struck on the bottom instead
of in the center of the face of the club.
If the stroke is to receive all the power,
it is necessary to strike the ball with the
center of the club. This can only be ac-
complished by bringing the club down in
ISO

PLATE XXV— FINISH OF A SHOT WITH THE JIGGER

\rt tn BBt a nmnrr follow ihroiiph tiirf mimi he lalcn nfipr thp hall i* Mrurk.

USEFULNESS OF THE JIGGER

back of the ball and going through into
the turf.

In playing the jigger, the club is not Three-
brought back as far as the mid-iron. A ^”f^’”
three-quarters’ swing is what is needed to
produce the desired result If you study
the pictures of the mid-iron and jigger,
you will note the difference in the back
swing. The jigger is more of a push shot
That is to say, oil account of the three-
quarters’ swing the play or bending of the
wrists at the top of the swing is, to a great
extent, eliminated, and the result is more
of a push with the arms stiffer than in a
mid-iron shot. When properly played
this is a beautiful shot to watch. The
ball, although flying low, will have a
great deal of back spin and when it strikes
the putting green will stop quickly.

Time and again spectators have told
me that although they were certain my
‘SI

GOLF BOOK

jigger shot would run clear across the
green, much to their surprise the ball
would stop dead within reasonable put-
ting distance of the hole.
Be Sure Keep youF head still and your eyes

” ‘ f’ glued to the back center of the ball. The
majority of approaches fall short, so be
sure to be up, for the old golf motto is
“Never up, never inl” When you have
mastered the jigger shot you will gain
confidence and play right up to the pin
without fear.

One of the worst faults among good
and indifferent players alike, is trying to
figure out the right club to use for the
second shot while they are walking from
the tec to where the ball lies. I have lost
many holes because I yielded to this
weakness.

Although I know only too well that
attempting to judge the distance while

USEFULNESS OF THE JIGGER

on the way to the ball means disaster in
most cases, nevertheless I find myself un-
consciously trying to decide what club to
use.

Wait until you get to your ball, judge First Judp-
the distance carefully, and once having ^’^
decided on the proper club do not hesi-
tate or change to some other club. He
who hesitates loses confidence, and lack
of confidence usually results in a poor
shot. I am convinced that in nine cases
out of ten one’s first impression is correct.
Having promptly decided that you will
use a jigger or a mid-iron or some other
club, make the shot with the same com-
mendable promptness. Take the proper
stance, address the ball once or possibly
twice, and then hit iti Fussing over the
ball, changing one’s stance several times,
addressing the ball again and again, and
again, until everyone around the tee is

GOLF BOOK

saying to himself, “For heaven’s sake,
man, hit iti” are faults that hurt one’s
game and popularity. By actual count I
have seen a player address the ball twelve
times before he hit it, and then, as the
Irishman would say, “He didn’t hit it at
all, at all!”

Alex. Smith, the wonderfully clever
professional, of whom I have already
A Second to Spoken, walks up to the ball, devotes not
the Addresi ^^^^ ^ second to the address and then
makes the stroke. If a master of the
game see no advantage in fussing over
and fiddling around the ball, die novice
and even the somewhat experienced
player can well afford to stop the prac-
tice. The jigger shot, like all the others,
is not to be learned in a moment. If you
are not getting along well with this club,
devote a morning or part of an afternoon
to practice in approaching.
154

PLATE XXVIII— HNISH OF CHIP SHOT WITH JIGGER, SHOWING

USEFULNESS OF THE JIGGER

Generally speaking, good golf should Approach-
consist of a drive, a second shot, an ap- “•*”^”«’
preach and a putt, consequently ap-
proaching well is a vital requisite. To
go even farther, I consider approaching
and putting the most important parts of
the game.

Indifferent work in one or the other,
or in both of these specialties, has lost
many a match for golfers whose long
game is excellent. Beyond question, it
is a great satisfaction to be a long driver.
The player who can step to the tee and
send a straight ball down the fair green
200 or 250 yards, naturally feels a glow
of pleasure in the achievement and wins
the admiration of the gallery, but if he
can neither approach nor putt he has lit-
tle chance of success in match or medal
play.

In playing chip shots I prefer to use
155

GOLF BOOK

the jigger, and I have already gone into
detail concerning this in my article on
the mid-iron. Consequently it will not
be necessary for me to describe the pro-
cedure here.

CHAPTER XIV

MASTERING THE DIFFICULT MASHIE

THE mashie is the most treacherous
club in the bag, the most difficult
to master, but once in subjection to the
player’s will and skill it is a club of great
value. My observation leads me to be-
lieve that the majority of players have
more trouble in learning to play the
mashie properly than any other club.
Weakness in mashie play is manifest not
only in mediocre players, but also in our
best amateur golfers in this country, with
few exceptions.

In my opinion this weakness is caused Practice U
not only by lack of knowledge on the part
of players as to the correct methods used
in making mashie shots, but by lack of
practice as well. If, instead of practicing
157

GOLF BOOK

driving and putting, which seems to be
customary, they would utilize their spare
time in playing twenty or thirty balls up
to the hole from different distances, they
would greatly improve their approach-
ing and thus round out what otherwise is
TkeMtukiea creditable game. In my article on the
J. jigger I have expressed the view that,

with the possible exception of putting,
approaching is the most important factor
in golf, and I take the liberty of repeat-
ing the gist of the statement here because
as implements used in approaching, the
mashie and the jigger divide the honon
about equally.

As mashie play is one of the most diffi-
cult departments of golf, it is apparent
that more painstaking practice is re-
quired if one is to become proficient in
the use of this club. When you have
mastered the mashie you will have a de-
158

THE DIFFICULT MASHIE

cided advantage over your less skillful
opponent Time and again, in matches, I
have seen holes that were lost apparently,
either halved or won by a good approach
shot. For example, a player has been
bunkered by a poor shot from the tee and
is compelled to sacrifice a stroke in get-
ting out of trouble, but by laying his
third shot dead to the hole gets a four.
His opponent, having played his second
shot to the green, is making mental cal-
culations that by winning this hole he
will be 2 up and 4 holes to play, a very
comfortable lead.

Suddenly the air castle is shattered by A Jolt t
his rival’s perfect approach, and his “‘”"‘
nerves are- given a disquieting jolt. As a
result he overplays the hole on his ap-
proach putt, misses his attempt to secure
a 4, and instead of being 2 up, as he an-
ticipated, finds the match all square.

GOLF BOOK

Losing a hole which you have mentally
jotted down on the card as won, is the
worst blow that can fall upon a nervous
player, except the loss of the match itself.
Never count a hole as won until the balls
are in the cup.

Good approaching is bound to get on

the nerves of your opponent and affect

“Rub o’ the his play. While he will be little con-

R7Zncinf *=^™«^ ^^°^^ y*’”‘* ^’”*g driving, he will
become nervous when he sees your ball
lying five or six feet from the hole after
your approach. Many a time under such
circumstances he will take his eye off the
ball or through some other fault miss his
shot. I have met players who claimed
that they never missed shots because of
nervousness, but I have always put these
claims in the same class as a “rub o* the
green,” which, you will recall, doesn’t
count for anything.

160

THE DIFFICULT MASHIE

I have played my share of nerve-rack-
ing matches against the cleverest ama*
teurs on both sides of the Atlantic, and
as a member of the gallery I have seen
scores of similar clashes on the links be-
tween experts. As a result of this obser-
vation I can state without qualification
that every man who plays golf has lost
matches and missed shots on account of
nervousness at some stage of his golfing
career.

My mashie weighs 14 ounces, and is The Best
36^4 inches long. It has a narrow blade, “”"*”
or face, with a fair amount of loft, and
the blade is fitted to a stiff shaft As
there are many different patterns of
mashies, the player will have to discover
by experiment which pattern suits his
play best. Experience has convinced me
that better results can be obtained by us-
ing a mashie with a narrow face. The
161

Mashie

GOLF BCX)K

clumsy, heavy, broad-bladed mashies are
not of the proper coastruction for playing
a delicate shot. It must be remembered
that the mashie was not made for long
shots and should only be used for dis-
tances of eighty yards, or less.
The Grip I grip the club in the palm of my left
hand and in the fingers of my right, with
the right thumb down the shaft Placing
the right thumb in this position will im-
prove your direction.

Stand close to the ball with the right
foot well in advance of the left

The ball should be about on a line with
your left heel.

Keep a firm grip on the club through-
out the swing.

In the back swing the club is taken
straight up from the ball with the wrists
and forearms as shown in one of the
plates.

162

Bwerihy

PLATE XXXI— STANCE FOR THE MASHIE
The riRht toot is well in advance of Iht- left and t!ie ball is aliout oprosite llie left heu

Flmu CtnrWu by A

PLATE XXXn— ADDRESS FOR THE MASHIE SHOT, SIDE VIEW
Hold the dub 6nnly with both hands with the right tbuinb down the shaft.

THE DIFFICULT MASHIE

Keep the right elbow close to the body
throughout the swing.

The shot should be played with the The Body
wrists and arms. The body should be ‘ ‘*’
kept rigid except for a slight turning of
the shoulders in the back swing.

The right leg should remain rigid
throughout the swing, and the left leg
should bend slightly in the back swing.

Keep the heels on the ground through-
out the swing and hold the head abso-
lutely still.

Keep the eye a shade under, instead of
on, the back center of the ball. The dis-
tance is regulated by the length of the
back swing.

A common fault among golfers in play-
ing mashie shots is swinging the club
back too far. This results in poor timing
and a poor follow through, because, on
account of the length of the back swing,
¦«3

GOLF BOOK

the player will check the club when it
comes in contact with the ball.
The Follow The folIow through is very important,
and in order to get it the player must take
turf after hitting the ball. Many players
make the mistake of trying to assist the
ball to rise, instead of letting the lofted
face of the mashie accomplish the desired
result. The important things to remem-
ber when playing the mashie are to keep
the body and head still, and to follow
through well and take turf.

i64

CHAPTER XV

WHEN AND HOW TO PLAY THE
MASHIE NIBLICK

THE average player never thinks of
using a mashie niblick unless his
ball is in a bunker. This club was con-
structed not only for getting out of
trouble but also for shots through the
green. Very often you arc called upon to
pitch a short approach shot that will stop
dead when it strikes the ground on ac-
count of a sand trap at the edge of the
green directly between your ball and the
hole.

The mashie niblick, having a great Getting
deal of weight in the heel and a broad, ^”‘^ ^f’”
well-laid back face, is best suited for
shots of this character. When the shot is
played properly it is surprising how
i6s

GOLF BOOK

quickly the ball will stop after striking
the green. In playing short pitch shots
from long grass the mashie niblick can
also be used to great advantage. Caus-
IVhen the jng a ball to drop dead is a very difficult

Ball Drops , , , „_ , , .

Qg^ shot to play, but not difficult to explain.

Have you ever noticed the peculiar action
of a billiard ball that has been struck on
its back center by a hand brought straight
down toward the table? It will run
along the table a short distance, then the
back spin imparted by the downward
blow of the hand will exert itself and
the ball will stop and then come back to
the hand.

To produce the same effect in golf so
that the ball will drop dead because of
back spin, the face of the club must strike
the ball in the same manner that the hand
strikes the billiard ball. One day I was
playing a four ball match with Frederick
i66

THE MASHIE NIBLICK

Herreshoflf and two others at Garden
City. After driving from the third tee,
I was compelled to pitch my second shot
over a sand trap directly between me and
the hole. It was a hard shot, because the
flag had been placed near the sand trap
and because of a following wind and a
keen green.

The ball, after striking the green, only The Cut h
ran about three feet and stopped two feet ‘*’ ^”^
short of the hole. I holed out and then
discovered that the ball had a deep cut
in its side, making it unfit for further
play. This cut was caused by the face of
the club when it was brought down
straight against the back center of the
ball.

In addressing the ball the right foot

should be well in advance of the left, with

the ball about opposite the left heel. The

club should be taken straight back from

167

GOLF BOOK

the ball with the wrists. The face of the
club should not be turned away from the
ball as in the other iron shots, and the
swing should be out from rather than
If^itk around the body. Make the stroke with

T^J your wrists and arms. The body should

and drmt ¦’ ¦*

not enter into the shot. In fact, it is most
important that the body and head remain
still. Another important thing to re-
member in playing this shot is to keep
your eye on the ball. If you look up a
fraction of a second too soon you will
either half-top the ball or it will shoot off
at right angles. The elbows should be
kept in toward the body. Remember to
hit the ball first and then take turf. After
the club strikes the ball be sure to turn
the wrists up.

When the head moves the eye is taken
off the ball, and this is the cause of most

of the shots that are missed in the short
1 68

GOOglC

^•¦x–

PLATE XXXVI— TOP OF SWING WITH THE NIBLICK
he dub is taken UD straieht fmm ihc hnll with the wrists. Keep (he eye fn

PLATE XXXVU— BACK VIEW OF TOP OF SWING WITH THE NIBLia

THE MASHIE NIBLICK

game. The first warning the beginner
receives is, “Keep your eye on the ball !’*
but keeping your mind on the ball ex-
presses it better. When I am playing in
matches I remember the importance of
this warning, and through my mind,
again and again, goes the phrase :

“Keep your eye on tke baiH”

Naturally, the beginner will find great FourYeari
difficulty in learning how to play this shot “f^””‘”"
well, but he can do so if he be willing to
work. I practiced this particular shot
for two or three hours at a stretch about
three times a week, for four years. This
will give the reader some idea of the
amount of practice necessary to become
expert in playing the different golf shots.
I know a number of very good golfers
who have never been able to learn how
to play this back spin approach. I recall
169

GOLF BOOK

a match at Garden City in which I was
one down and one to play. The last hole
is about i6o yards, and the tee shot must
be played across a pond. The green is
guarded by a large bunker back of the
hole and there are traps to the right and
left. There happened to be a strong fol-
lowing wind which made it difficult to
hold the green. I pitched a cut shot with
A Cut Shot the mashie and the ball ran only a few
]jj’* ‘*’ *«* ^^^” striking the green, but my op-
ponent, although his ball struck just over
the pond some twenty feet short of the
green proper, ran clear past the hole into
the bunker at the rear. He lost the hole
and the match because he was unable to
play the shot with proper back spin.

True, the match was all square at this
point, but the same shot gave me the vic-
tory on the nineteenth hole. In playing

this hole I hooked my drive and my ball

170

PLATE XXXVIH— FINISH OF MASHIE NIBLICK SHOT OUT OF BUNKEI
This remarkable picture shows the ball in night. The wrists are turned up after t]|

THE MASHIE NIBLICK

landed in some weeds twenty yards from
an ice-house, near the green, so that the
house was directly in line between me and
the hole. To reach the hole it was neces-
sary to play the ball over the building.

In this emergency I chose a mashie nib- Over the
lick, struck almost straight down behind ” *”"
the ball, turned the wrists upward
quickly as the club went under it, and
it rose sharply, cleared the ice-house and
dropped dead to the hole. Owing to the
back spin imparted to the shot the ball
rolled but a few feet after it struck the
green. These incidents are related with
but one idea in mind, and that is to im-
press upon the reader the remarkable
value of the mashie niblick when it is
played properly.

Although the wrists are allowed great
freedom, the shot should be made very
decisively. In playing short pitch shots
171

GOLF BOOK

from the loDg grass, the golfer will find

it necessary to judge by the eye whether

From the it is better to use the tnashie or mashie

oaf rast j^j(j|j(.j^ jg-jj 5g( ^jg J.JJJ |jg ijjj (Jown^

but when the ball is fairly deep in the
grass and the grass is heavy, it is advis-
able to use the mashie niblick.

Take the club up straight and keep the
eye on some spot directly behind the ball.
When playing short approach shots near
the green, pick out some spot in line with
the hole and plan to pitch the ball to that
spot, relying upon the roll to carry the
ball to or near the cup.

It often happens that the ball will be

found lying in long grass a foot or two

high. In playing this shot, remember to

take the club up straight from the ball

and to quickly turn the wrists upward

after the ball !s struck. If you attempt to

take the club back from the ball along
172

GOOglC

THE MASHIE NIBLICK

the ground, the long grass will wind
around the shaft and rob the stroke of its
power. It will also turn the toe of your A Very
club in towards the ball, causing a pull, ‘^’”‘”‘”
and though you may get the shot away,
the ball will remain in the long grass.
This shot from the long grass is one of
the most difficult, “in the bag,” as the ex-
pression goes, but it may be mastered if
the player will devote considerable time
to the problem.

173

CHAPTER XVI
PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

ALTHOUGH putting appears to be
the simplest thing in golf to the
beginner, after a little experience he will
find out that it is not only the most im-
portant but also the most difficult part of
the game. As the address, or aim, must
be absolutely correct as well as the esti-
mate of the distance and the amount of
power needed for the stroke, the putt de-
mands a greater degree of skill than any
other shot
Confidence Furthermore, in order to be a good,
eceuery consistent putter the player must have
confidence. Good putting is half con-
fidence. The only way to secure confi-
dence is by practice. There is no reason
174

D,g;

PUTTING A TEST OP NERVE

why every golfer should not be a good
putter, provided he gives the correct
amount of study and practice to this de-
partment of the game. Although over Very Few
half a million people are playing golf ^
in America to-day, there are compara-
tively few really good putters. The rea-
son for this is lack of confidence.

It is on the putting greens that most of
the matches are lost and won. It is on
the putting green that you have your last
chance of winning the match, or of mak-
ing up for the shot you missed through
the green, and many a hard-fought con-
test has been decided by a single clever
putt. The greatest test of a golfer’s nerve
in a close match is on the putting green,
and there are situations in which the
strain calls for every bit of steadiness and
self-control the golfer possesses. For in-
stance, after a long and gruelling match
175

GOLF BOOK

in which it has been nip and tuck all the
way, the last green is reached and the
player’s opponent has holed out for a 4.
The player has reached the green in 3
and is now confronted with a four, or
five-foot putt upon which the fate of the
mateh depends. He cannot win — but he
can losel To halve the match and save
himself from defeat he must hole that
putt. He grits his teeth, grips his club

firmly, addresses the ball and then ?

Well, if he have a proper amount of con-
fidence in his ability to make the putt he
will probably hole out and halve die
match.

How to Learn how to putt well, so that you

will possess confidence. Devote as much
of your spare time as possible to this part
of the game. A golfer has the nightmare
when he dreams he is taking three putts

on every green. Don’t have golfer’s
176

Putt fVtU

PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

nightmare I Practice putting for an hour
at a time. As there are many different
kinds of putters, the beginner will have
to find out from experience which putter
suits his game best. Try out the various
makes, select the one you have the most
confidence in and by all~ means stick to
that club. Stand with your feet close to-
gether, the right foot being well in ad-
vance of the left The ball should be
about opposite the left heel. In selecting
a putter get a club with an upright lie
because in order to get a good line on the
hole it is necessary to stand well over the Stand Well

ball. 2″”" ‘*’

Ball
After you have taken your stance and

placed your putter at right angles to the
hole, back of the ball, allow your eye to I

pass over an imaginary line from the ball
to the hole. When you have judged the
distance, or the amount of strength re-
177

GOLF BOOK

quired to send the ball the distance be*,
tween you and the hole, allow your eye
to pass back along this imaginary line
from the hole to the ball. Take plenty of
time to make up your mind about the
shot, but once having arrived at a definite
decision, do not wait any longer but putt
the ball. The longer you wait and fuss
over the putt, the less chance you have of
holing the ball. If there is any noise or
movement near by, wait until it ceases,
because the slightest distraction at the
instant you hit the ball is apt to cause
disaster.
A Putting This reminds me of a laughable inci-
‘^ dent that occurred at Apawamis several

years ago. “Old Sport” Lowery was out
on the links with a somewhat inexperi-
enced Italian caddie. When they reached
a certain green the Italian took the red
marking flag from the hole, and Lowery

178

GOOglC

PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

bent over to putt. As he did so the caddie
carelessly began to wave the red flag back
and forth. Lowery caught the movement
out of the corner of his eye and paused.
The red flag at once became motionless.
Again Lowery bent over to putt and
again the red flag waved. Once more
Lowery paused and the red flag ceased
waving. Finally, after this performance
had been repeated three or four times,
Lowery straightened up and growled to
the Italian:

“When in h is this blast going oflf,

anyway?”

There is a difference of opinion as to
the best manner of gripping the putter, Mr Grip
and I shall not discuss each particular /<“*’*’
grip, but shall explain the grip I use my-
self. Years of experience and practice
have convinced me that this grip suits my
game best I grip the club with the fin-
179

GOLF BOOK

gers of both hands, and both thumbs are
down the shaft. Also, I interlock the lit-
tle finger of my right hand with the index
finger of my left hand. This interlocking
helps the hands to work in unison, which
is very important. As putting is a deli-
cate stroke, you must grip the club firmly
with the fingers and not the hands.
Gripping with the fingers enables you to
feel the club and improves your direc-
tion and accuracy.
Hands. I* ’8 * well-known fact that the ball

fi’risu and will keep a better line if the club be held
firmly, and will be less likely to be de-
flected by irregularities in the putting
green. The hands, wrists and arms are
the only parts of the body that enter into
the putting stroke. In long, or approach
putts, the shoulders enter the stroke
slightly. The body should be kept abso-
lutely immovable. In short, two of the

PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

most important things to remember are
to keep the head and body still.

In addressing the ball do not allow the
club to rest with its full weight on the Addressing
ground back of the ball, but let it touch ‘** ^”^
the ground lightly. The club should be
taken back straight from the ball along
the ground with the wrists and arms.
Keep your left eye on the back center of
the ball and do not lift your head until
you see the club strike that place. If you
take your eye off the ball a fraction of a
second too soon you will unconsciously
check the stroke and the ball will go to
the right of the hole.

Remember that the wrists and arms
should work in unison. The true put-
ting stroke is best described as a pendu-
lum movement in which neither the
wrists nor arms predominate. Do not
tap the ball, but take the club back in

GOLF BOOK

the manner I have already outlined and
follow through. I know a number of
very good putters who merely tap the
ball, but if you wish to be consistent you
will have to adopt the pendulum swing
and follow through. Some players ad-
vise the use of two putters, one for ap-
proach putts and one for short putts.
This, I think, is a great mistake. Putting
is difficult enough without changing your
clubs, becoming confused and worrying
over and wasting time in getting the ball
into the hole.
“A Drive I’he difficulties of putting always re-
andaPutt” mjnd ^nc of the old story about the some-
what pompous and egotistical player
who, upon reaching a certain tee, said to
the caddie:
“Boy, how long is this hole?”
“Four hundred yards, sir.”
“Ah, a drive and a putti”

THE !)KW YOlii:
PUBLIC IIBRMY

Digweriby

PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

With this contemptuous remark, the
player teed up, gave a mighty swing and
topped the ball, which rolled about four
feet off the tee.

Promptiy offering the proper club, the
caddie said, nonchalantly, “Now for a
h of a puttl”

If you should lose all confidence in
your putting, a change of stance or put- My Most
ters will sometimes be of great ‘as$i.8tance. ^?Y
I first used a putting cleek,.but, as I have
stated in a previous chapter, I now use
the Schenectady putter, the shaft of
which rises from near the center of the
head. This club is barred in Great
Britain, but may be used in the United
States. The putter I use has been my
property for eight years and is my most
prized club. When I am playing for a
championship I feel like taking it to bed
with me at night for fear it may be lost
183

GOLF BOOK

or stolen. I have used it in every match
since the day I first had its aid in defeat-
ing Travis at Nassau, in 1904. I believe
the center-shafted putter is built on the
right principle and that it will improve
one*s game because it has a tendency to
make one follow through.
Lofthfa In match play you will occasionally
*”"” find your opponent’s ball directly in line
between your ball and the hole, that is,
he has laid you a stymie. If it be impos-
sible for you to curve your ball around
your opponent’s by aiming a shade to the
left, standing with the ball well in front,
the club turned to the right, and drawing
the club in and across the ball at the mo-
ment of impact, causing it to slice, you
will be compelled to loft your ball over
the other ball with a mashie. In this shot
it is very necessary that you keep your eye

on the ball. Play off the left foot with
184

PUTTING A TEST OF NERVE

the right foot well advanced. The shot
should be made with the wrists alone.
This is a risky shot, and if you have two
for a half, it is better to take the half than
the risk.

CHAPTER XVII

BUNKER SHOTS AND HOW TO PLAY
THEM

‘ N years gone by one of the humorous
as well as tragic incidents of life
was described by the phrase, “Buncoed,
b’gosh !” Since golf achieved its wonder-
ful popularity on this side of the Atlan-
tic, the revised phrase is “Bunkered,
b’gosh r* Golf has its exasperations as
well as its joys, and chief among the
former is the long drive, or the long,
brassie shot, that slices or pulls a bit,
landing the ball in a sand pit at the base
of a high bunker.
ffoej of I’he woes of the unfortunate bunkered
have been described in song and story^
cartoon and jest, on both sides of the At-

Bunkered

l86

BUNKER SHOTS

lantic. A city near New York not only
has a golf club but it narrowly escaped
being benefited by the extension of the
New York City subway, which led a local
poet to write thus about one of the golf
club’s novices :

When Giflen in the bunker getSi
He wastes no time on vain regrets,
He digs that bunker to the core,
And brings the subway to our door.

When a player is bunkered, it is very Medal-
funny — for the other fellow. Getting „ “^
into the bunker is the easiest thing in the SpoUtd
world ; getting out is another story. Many
a promising medal-play score has been
ruined by one bad play that landed the
ball in a bunker, and by half a dozen
strokes wasted in an eventually successful
effort to get out on the fair green.

Beyond doubt most players devote
more attention to the problem of keeping
187

GOLF BOOK

out of bunkers than they do to learning
how to get out when fickle fortune gets
them in. It is really surprising how lit-
tle thought is given to this important
phase of golf. Think of the countless
number of strokes thrown away by golf-
ers in trying to get out of bunkers, and
yet how seldom one sees anyone practic-
ing these shots and endeavoring to im-
prove this department of the game so
that in the future the player will be rea-
sonably certain of getting out of trouble
with the loss of only one stroke.
Scylla and It is a common experience to see play-

Ckaryhdis … , .

ers busily engaged m practice putting,
approaching or driving, but rarely do
you see them in a bunker playing ball
after ball in an effort to learn just how to
escape from the Scylla and Charybdis of
golf with a single, well-directed stroke.
I found it necessary to practice these

BUNKER SHOTS

banker shots by playing ten or twenty
balls for hours at a time out of different
lies, and the players who read this book
will be compelled to go through the same
performance if they wish to acquire the
secret Frankly confessing that it is no
easy matter to describe the correct modus
operandi, I shall content myself with do-
ing my best The niblick is the most
valuable club for bunker shots. Often
it happens that the ball will be lying well
in a bunker, allowing the use of a mashie,
but the niblick is the proper club to use
in most cases.

Select a niblick that is well laid back, Ditreford
weighing not less than one pound. The ” *”"
shaft should be stifiF and not of whippy
character. The most important thing to
keep in mind, is to be sure and get the
ball out ofthe bunker in one stroke. That
is to say, disregard distance; take no
189

GOLF BOOK

chances; get the ball out Don’t make
the mistake of trying to get distance by
using a mid-iron or jigger instead of a
niblick. In most bunker shots the ball
must rise quickly, and it is easier to get
the ball up with the niblick on account of
its lofted face. Trying for additional
distance by using a club with a straight
face is an all too common fault among
players.
Not Wonn When the ball is lying well it is a great
iht Risk temptation to use a mid-iron, or even a
cleek, but a moment’s thought will show
that the possible (not probable) advan-
tage to be gained is not worth the risk.
In match play a man is often justified in
taking a chance, because failure can only
mean the loss of the hole, but in medal
play, when you are competing against
the whole field, it is better to disregard
everything except the single idea of get-
190

BUNKER SHOTS

ting the ball out with the loss of one
stroke.

The shot should be made as if you in-
tended driving the head of the club
straight down into the sand without fol-
lowing through toward the hole. The
club should be taken up straight from the
ball with the wrists, and brought down
straight about one inch in back of it.
Keep the eye on the sand an inch behind -^w” Behind
the ball and aim for this spot. It is not
necessary for the face of the club to come
in contact with the ball itself; make no
attempt to follow through, but let the
club stop because of its own exhausted
momentum after it has gone well down
into the sand beneath the ball.

Keeping the head still and the eye fixed

on a spot directly back of the ball are

two of the principal things to remember.

As most bunkers have a high face the
191

GOLF BOOK

ball must rise quickly, but this desired
result will not happen if the club strike
the sand too close to the ball. On the
other hand, if too much sand be taken the
stroke will be robbed of all of its power,
and in either case the stroke will be a fail-
ure. Gauging the shot to a nicety is by
no means an easily acquired accomplish-
ment, and this is the reason why playing
out of bunkers is so difficult Also, it is
hard to judge the strength or thickness of
the sand — a very important matter — be-
cause you are not allowed to touch the

A Pair of sand with your club. However, you can
‘.’ plant your feet firmly in the sand when

Feet addressing the ball, and after a little ex-

perience you will be able to estimate the
strength of the sand by means of a pair
of well-trained feet.
Often it happens that the ball will be

lying well in a sand trap just off the edge
192

BUNKER SHOTS

of the putting green and you can play it ^ Delicate
, , . … . , . . fFHslShot

dead to the hole by a wrist shot without

taking any, or but very little, sand, rely-
ing on the lofted face of the niblick to
give the ball the necessary rise without
digging into the sand back of the ball.
It is a very delicate and treacherous shot
because the wrists must be turned up
quickly just as the ball is struck. Often,
this shot will save the hole, but, as I said
at the beginning, the important thing to
remember is to be sure to get the ball out
in one stroke.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PSYCHOUX3Y OF GOLF

GOLF is a game of the head as well
as a game of the hands. The
golfer who does not use his head will
never achieve any great proficiency in
the sport. A really clever player takes
note of everything about him that may
Takes have an influence on the result of his
Note of strokes and does his best to use it for

Everything

his benefit. When the wind is dead
against him on the tee, and the bunker
ahead is likely to trap his shot because of
the adverse wind, he plays short if there
seem small chance of carrying the bunker
because but little distance will be sacri-
ficed, and because a trapped shot is cer-
tain to cost him one stroke and possibly
194

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

two or three. In match play this mis-
fortune would cost him the hole and in
medal play it might cause him to lose
the day’s competition. As every golfer
knows, the low score in a medal play
event is often but one stroke better than
the score of the second man.

The old adage, “Look before you

Beftre
leap,” when applied to the royal and an- yo^ pi^y

cient game of golf, should read, “Think
before you play.” There is no virtue, no
success in walking up to the ball and hit-
ting it blindly. Study the lay of the land
ahead, remember the condition of the
ground, plan to avoid the traps along one
side of the course, or the other, make al-
lowance for the wind, canvass all these
things quickly and then make your shot
I have seen noted experts devote over a
minute to the study of a putt before the
putt was made. When they were badly
195

GOLF BOOK

bunkered, I have seen them play back so
that the second shot would safely clear
the obstruction and give them good dis-
tance. I have seen them slice or hook a
ball deliberately so that it would pass
round a tree in the line of play and roll
to the putting green. I have seen so
much back spin applied to a mashie shot
that when the ball struck the putting
green it actually rolled toward the man
who played it.
Thought A player must be fairly expert to do
iTslui ^°™* °* ‘^^’^ things, and in such in-
stances mere thought will be of little
value unless it be backed by skill, but
from the first drive to the last putt the
player should make good use of his rea-
soning powers. Suppose, for example,
that the drive is along the edge of the
links and the wind is apt to carry a
straight or hooked ball out of bounds to
196

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

the left. How easy it is for the player
to take this fact into consideration and
drive a little further to the right than
usual, or slice the ball a trifle to counter-
act the force of the wind. Suppose that
the player knows he cannot reach the
green in one shot and has a bad brassie
lie. The thoughtless player will play
the brassie and, doubtless, get a poor
shot and poor distance. The player who Will Play
thinks will play the safer mid-iron, get ‘*/.f*^”‘
good distance and reach the green on his
next shot, lying 3 as against the brassie
player’s 4. Often, in medal play, have I
seen golfers refuse to take advantage of
the rule which permits them to lift and
tee up the ball with a loss of two strokes
only to lose stroke after stroke in unsuc-
cessful attempts to get out of trouble and
finally, in disgust, pick up the ball, there-
by disqualifying themselves. A mo-
197

GOLF BOOK

ment’s thought would have convinced
them that the safe and wise thing to do
was to lose two strokes rather than risk
such a disaster.
Changing Often during a thirty-six hole match,
the condition of the ground undergoes a
remarkable change and the player should
note this and make allowance for it For
example, owing to a heavy rain over-
night the links are soft and slow and the
ball gets only a fair amount of roll in the
morning. The sun is hot and by i :30
P. M., when the afternoon round is to
start, the ground has become well dried
out and the ball gets a long roll, conse-
quently much less power is needed to du-
plicate the approach shots of the morn-
ing. The player must remember this
from the moment he makes his first tee
shot in the afternoon round, or a few

strokes or a few holes will be lost before
198

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

he wakes up and adjusts his play to the
new condition of the links.

Beyond a doubt, there is greater op- Match
portunity for head work in match play ^^ , ‘”
than in medal play. In the latter the
golfer is playing against the entire field,
and he is doing his best to turn in the
lowest possible score — so many strokes
for the entire eighteen holes. There is
no direct competition. He and his com-
panion are not playing against each other
except in a general sense, and each man^s
interest in the other largely consists in
his duty to see that the other plays the
game according to the rules governing
medal play contests, counting every
stroke, holing out each putt, etc., etc. If
he fail to do this he is a traitor to every
other player in the competition and is
himself disqualified, as a matter of

honor, no matter whether or not the com-
199

GOLF BOOK

mittee learns of his failure. la match
play the contest is man against man.
It It Man The two players go out together, and
Mtfn ^^’¦^ ^^^^ ‘^ ^ separate battle in itself.

Smith wins the first hole and is i up.
Jones makes a desperate rally and cap-
tures the second hole, and the match is
all square. They tie the third hole. All
square. Smith wins the fourth and fifth
holes and is 2 up, and thus, hole after
hole, the golf battle rages. Such matches
often go 18 holes, 36 holes, yes, even 50
holes before one contestant or the other
wins.

In a hand-to-hand struggle of this
character the golfer who keeps perfectly
cool, holds his temper no matter what
happens, plays with thoughtful delibera-
tion and carefully studies his opponent,
will have a decided advantage over an
adversary who gets nervous, loses his

GOOglC

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

temper because of bad luck or a bad shot,
plays hastily and devotes but tittle
thought to his shots and to the tempera-
ment of the man he is playing. While
it is highly improper and against the eti-
quette of golf to say or do any unsports-
manlike thing that will annoy or irritate
your opponent, there are legitimate acts
that may prove useful in breaking down
his nerve and making him “go up in the
air,” to use the expressive metaphor of
the streets. Suppose, for example, that
your opponent particularly prides him-
self concerning the great distance he se-
cures in driving, and that you know he
confidently expects to outdrive you from
start to finish during the match. If you Jalt His
have specialized a bit in the psychology “”^ ‘”"
of golf you will guess shrewdly that if
you equal or surpass his drives from the
first, second and third tees his confidence

GOLF BOOK

will receive a severe jolt, worry will set
in and he will at once commence press-
ing every tee shot beyond the limits of
prudence. In the game of golf confi-
dence is a great helper. Let a player lose
it and he is marked for slaughter.

On the other hand, an attack of over-
confidence is apt to be fully as disastrous.
Overconfidence and carelessness are team-
mates. If you can do so, break down
your opponent’s nerve by outdriving him
and by setting a heart-breaking pace from
the first tee, but simply because you have
him a few holes down do not hold him
too cheap and ease up in your efforts.
fVhen Ike As eveiy experienced golfer knows, the
Ball Rolls ,j„jg Ijjjii jg fj.i^.,^ j,nj eccentric. It will

for You -’

“roll for you” hole after hole as if it
were bewitched in your favor. You will
drive out of bounds and the ball will
hit a tree or a rock and come back into

202

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

bounds again. Your approach shot will

strike the green three feet off the line to

the hole, yet the ball will deliberately

turn to the right or left, make straight

for the cup as if pulled by an invisible

string and drop in as if there were no

other place for it to go. Then, after

“rolling for you” for a time it will “roll

against you” with the perversity of the

evil one. You will top your drive, foozle

your approach and miss your two-foot

putt, and before you quite realize it your

opponent will have squared the match

and be leading you by a hole or two.

Consequently, it behooves you to keep on

playing golf with all the skill at your

command until your man is actually

beaten. Several years ago a well-known Snm Up

player was 7 up and 7 to play, “dormic *”‘ ^”

7,” in golf phraseology. All be needed to

win was to tie one hole and he evidently
203

GOLF BOOK

thought the match was as good as ended.
Then, thoughtlessly, he committed a
grave breach of golf etiquette by calling
out to a friend, “Who do I play in the
next round?” Naturally, this incensed
his “dormie 7″ opponent who immedi-
ately began playing with all the clever-
ness and determination he could possibly
summon and actually succeeded in win-
ning eight holes in succession — and the
match I
Loit Nerve. Moral : Never prematurely announce
LottMatch tj,e g0if funeral of your opponentl On
another occasion I saw an overconfident
player who rejoiced because his match
was “dormie 6″ in his favor, lose seven
holes straight. He became careless, lost
a few holes, then lost his nerve — and the
match I
Another important thing the real golf

psychologist remembers is to refrain

204

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF

from playing a hazardous shot when he
is a stroke or two ahead of his opponent
through the green and there is no neces-
sity for doing so. For example, far ahead
is a brook directly in front of the green.
The distance is so great there is small
chance that either he or his opponent
can carry the brook and reach the green.
Being one or two strokes ahead, he plays
short of the brook so that he will be sure
to reach the green in the next shot. On
the other hand, his opponent, being in a
fair way to lose the hole, hazards the long
and difficult shot because an unusual
carry or a lucky bound may send his ball
to the green and possibly give him a tie.
Owing to the situation, what is folly for Fotty end
one is wisdom for the other. ” “‘^

The golfer who wishes to secure health
and happiness from the sport should be a

philosopher. He should strive to play
205

GOLF BOOK

his best, but if that be none too good, he
should not permit, the fact to worry, irri-
tate or anger him. One day I saw a
golfer who became so angry because he
was playing poorly that he took his clubs,
one after another, from his bag and broke
them across his knee. Swearing that he
would never play again, he hurried back
to the club house. Two weeks later he
was back on the links with a new bagful
of clubs.
Cultivate ^ ^^n who gets into a rage, swears and
Self-Con- breaks his clubs, and petulantly drives
the inoffensive ball off into the woods
should either reform or give up the
game. He is reaping no benefit mentally,
morally or physically. Let him go beat
carpets! No true lover of golf will
mourn his loss I

GOOglC

CHAPTER XIX

WHY THE BUSINESS MAN SHOULD
PLAY GOLF

ONE does not need to be in the
championship division to enjoy
golf. He can play the game the very first
time he handles driver, mid-iron and put-
ter and ofttimes, alas I play it much hetter
than he can the third or even the tenth
time. Furthermore, he can always find jiwayt
someone in his class, some worthy oppo- ^»™^’»

in Hit

nent, no matter whether he can play Class
eighteen holes in loo strokes or 80. Even
when his partner is a better player there
is always the handicap to equalize mat-
ters and make the battle over the links a
hard-fought one.

American business men are hard work-
ers. Many of them toil all day indoors
207

GOLF BOOK

and get no exercise except their daily
walk or occasional sprint for a train.
They need fresh air, relaxation, some-
thing that will give them exercise and
take their minds off business for a few
hours. “All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy,” and they do not play
enough. They get too thin or too fat,
they worry about business until they can-
not sleep nights, and life becomes one
Golf and long hard grind. When they were boys
and young men they played baseball, but
as they grow older they find that base-
ball is too strenuous for them; that a
game or two a year between the Fat Men
and the Slims or the Bunny Hugs and
the Grizzly Bears is more apt to be a
bone breaker, than a body builder. Not
long ago a friend, aged 49, played one
game of baseball that netted him $250.
In sending him a check the accident in-

BUSINESS MAN AND GOLF

surance company’s broker wrote: “For
heaven’s sake switch to golll’*

Sliding to second base on the chin, one
eyebrow and a brittle elbow at 49 doubt-
less is now classed as “extra hazardous”
by that company.

Baseball, splendid game as it unques- TenaitToo
tionably is, is too strenuous for the aver- °”‘”"”>’”
age business man unless he is quite young.
The same statement applies to football.
Tennis is fine sport, too, but a two-hour
match under a broiling sun is hard work
for a man of 45 unless he is in the pink
of condition. It takes more out of a man
than it puts into him. My home golf
club had a dozen good tennis players and
four courts a few years ago. Every ten-
nis player who is old enough to be a
business man is now playing golf and the
courts are used by the boys and girls.
Said one of the tennis men: “Tennis is
209

GOLF BOOK

a great game, but I am as fond of golf
and golf benefits me more because it
gives me the exercise I need widiout
wearing me down.”
Once a Fad In America golf was taken up as a
Necestitf ^^^ ^”‘^ ^”^ become a necessity. Society
made a fad of it because it was “so Eng-
lish, you know,” and for a time a golfer
was not considered to be the real thing
unless he wore a red coat with bright
gilt buttons, knee breeches and thick golf
stockings that turned over just so at the
top and made even a lean calf look fairly
plump.

Years ago society lost interest in golf,
a red coat on the links is now about as
rare as a midwinter robin, knickerbock-
ers have in great measure given way to
trousers, but the grand old sport has
steadily and rapidly grown in popularity
each year and to-day its devotees are num-

BUSINESS MAN AND GOLF

bered by hundreds of thousands and its

links are valued at millions of dollars.

Why? Because there was a logical ^ Reason
For Golf
reason for the perpetuation of the game.

The business man took it up because

every week it gave him the sort of brawn

and stamina-building exercise he needed,

not too violent, but just strenuous enough ;

because it interested hinn and called him

to the links regularly with a call that

would not be denied ; because it increased

his strength, cleared the cobwebs from

his brain, made him forget his worries

and prolonged his life. To this the

doubting Thomas makes reply as follows :

“But why should a business man who
needs exercise in the open air play golf?
Why doesn’t he go out and take a ten-
mile walk instead? It would do him as
much good.”

Possibly it would, but experience in-

GOLF BOOK

dicates that while he may take the walk
one day, or two days, or three days, he
will not stick to it for the simple reason
that it is a monotonous proceeding and
does not interest him enough. Golf is a
far different proposition. It gives him
all the walking he needs, for twice around
the links will carry him six or seven
miles, and as he walks he battles con-
He BaiiUi stantly with a tantalizing little ball,
Little Ball striking it gently to produce one sort of
shot, putting more poWer into the stroke
to secure another result, hitting it with
every ounce of strength in his body to
get a good mid-iron shot, a long brassie
approach or a far-reaching drive. Nearly
every muscle in his body from his toes
to his neck is brought into play. Ankles,
calves, thighs, waist, back, arms, hands
and shoulders all have their work cut out
for them and there can be no shirking.

GOOglC

BUSINESS MAN AND GOLF
How the heart beats and how the lungs
expand with deep breathing as the golfer
toils up a steep hill, reaches for his bras-
sie and puts all his brawn and brain — for
headwork a-plenty is ¦ needed — into a
mighty shot destined to reach the putting
green 200 yards distant or maddeningly
roll along the turf and stop seven feet
from where he stands!

Golf interests him, tantalizes him, The Lure
lures, rewards, disappoints, delights, ex- “^ ^*’^
asperates him. There are so many things
he can do wrong and he is so determined
that he can and will do them right.

His opponent, too, has boasted of his
prowess as a golfer, and right there and
then he is going to have it “put all over
him” seven up and six to play or Molly
Stark will be a golf widow before nightl

In every up-to-date golf club some in-
teresting contest is scheduled for each.

213

GOLF BOOK

Saturday and holiday, and what joy the

golfer feels as he proudly bears home

Hit First Yds first cup, what a hero he is to his
Golf Cup

family and friends even when he modestly

explains that he had thirty handicap and
really should have had but twenty-five.
It makes no difference to them. How
could he possibly win a cup if he were
not a crackerjack golfer?

Walking is good exercise, but golf is
walking plus so many other pleasing and
alluring features that there is no fair com-
parison between them. A millionaire
who owns a six cylinder automobile will
not walk three blocks to the railroad sta-
tion without grumbling when the ma-
chine is temporarily “off its game,” but
he will joyously tote a heavy golf bag
seven miles in a thirty-six hole golf match
for an eleven dollar silver mug and heave

a sigh of regret because the sun has gone

ai4

BUSINESS MAN AND GOLF

down and it’s too dark to play a few
extra holes.

The younger a business man is the A Health
more success he will have in learning to
play a fair game of golf, a game that will
give him a place among the first or sec-
ond class players of his home club. There
is a well known tradition that no man
who takes up the game after he has
passed thirty-five can ever achieve great-
ness as a golfer, but at least one noted
American amateur golfer has made him-
self an exception to the rule. However,
in golf as in other sports, the best time
to learn is in youth, but if one cannot
take up the game at nine and win the
amateur championship at twenty as I did,
he can still get plenty of pleasure and
profit out of it even if he swing a club
for the first time at the age of forty, fifty,
or even sixty. I know a man who at fif ty-
215

GOLF BOOK

five was making a great fortune and
losing his health. His family ph^tcian
said, “Drink a little whisky every day.”
A noted specialist said, “Don^t drink a
drop of whisky, play golf.” He took the
specialist’s advice. At first he could not
play half way round the links, nine holes,
without being done up physically, but
his health began to improve, his strength
and powers of endurance increased and
Now He now he can play all day, covering thirty-
AUD ^ *’^ holes, without being tired out Fur-
thermore, with barely two years of prac-
tice he can more than hold his own against
quite a number of men who are ten years
younger in years and as many years older
in golf.

There is another excellent reason why
the business man should play golf, espe-
cially if he has political ambition. Both

William Howard Taft and Woodrow
216

BUSINESS MAN AND GOLF

Wilson trained for the presidency on
the golf links and each won the Presi-
dent’s cupl

Bwerihy

CHAPTER XX

HOLES IN ONE AND OTHER REMARK-
ABLE SHOTS

O’

^NE of the ambitions of every
golfer is to make a hole in one
shot The feat, which is a combination
of skill and luck, is not uncommon, yet
it always causes a mild sensation when-
ever it is performed. The ball, driven
from the tee, lands near or on the edge
of the green, rolls toward the hole as if
drawn by a magnet and drops in. A. C.
Ladd of the Henley-on-Thames Golf
Holed Out Club is credited with having holed out in
y ^^ one shot on a 330-yard hole. One ex-
planation of this phenomenal shot is that
the ball was driven down hill and rolled

a great distance after it struck the turf.

21S

HOLES IN ONE

It Is extremely probable that Mr. Ladd
could try to duplicate the shot on that
particular hole for the remainder of his
lifetime without succeeding.

I have met hundreds of golfers who Tkree
never saw a hole made in a single shot, , “^
but I have had the good luck to place
three of such holes to my credit. The
first one was at the old Oyster Bay Golf
Club. I drove across a pond a distance
of 150 yards to the third green. The shot
was only a mashie pitch for an adult
player, but I was only fourteen years of
age and used a mid-iron. Imagine my
delight when, upon reaching the green,
I found the ball in the holel

Four years later I was playing in a

four ball match at the Deal Golf Club

and used a driving iron on the sixth tee.

The ball was at least three feet off the

line of the flag, but when it struck the
219

“Yoi^re a
Robba-r

GOLF BOOK

green 175 yards distant, it kicked In to-
ward the cup. We saw it roll on the
putting green but did not suspect where
it was until one of the caddies found it
in the hole.

Shortly before I won the champion-
ship at Wheaton in 1912, Marshall Whit-
latch and I were playing Oswald Kirkby,
New Jersey State champion, and Robert
C. Watson, who is now president of the
United States Golf Association. The
match was over the excellent nine hole
course of the Mahopac Golf Club. The
first hole is about 120 yards from the tee
and the green is out of sight The gal-
lery had gone ahead and members of it
called back stating where Kirkby’s, Wat-
son’s and Whitlatch’s balls landed. Then
I hit mine.

“It’s on the green!” cried the gallery.

Silence for a few seconds.
220

HOLES IN ONE

“It’s dead to the holel”

Another second’s silence.

“It’sinfir

“Travers,” said Watson, “you’re a rob-
ber I”

One day I was practicing putting on
the green devoted to that purpose at the
Montclair Golf Club. Near by was the
regular eighteenth green. “Tom” An- ^»dm9a’i
derson, the club professional, took half jj^^,
a dozen balls, went back about two hun-
dred yards to a point from which he could
not see the green and practiced brassie
shots. Soon he came into the club house
and announced with natural pride that
out of six brassie shots he had holed one
in one shot, two in two shots and three
in three shots. After “Tom” had fittingly
bought liquid refreshment for the crowd,
it was gently broken to him that a mis-
chievous waiter had sneaked upon the

GOLF BOOK

putting green, placed one ball in the hole
and assembled the remaining five nearby.
Then “Tom” said — but no, let me draw
the curtain on the scene I

However, it is only fair to “Tom” to
state that during his long golfing career
he has holed many a drive in a single
shot.
fFonderfttl Oftentimes a player makes a hole in
gf^^^ the second shot under circumstances that

give the feat as sensational a character as
holing out in one. For example, at the
Metropolitan Open Championship on the
EnglewQod links in 1912 Gil Nichols, a
well-known professional, holed a second
shot with a cleek at a distance of between
180 and 200 yards.

The most remarkable putt I ever saw
was one made by Walter J. Travis at Gar-
den City in 1908 during the second round
of the national amateur championship.

HOLES IN ONE

He was playing against H. H. Wilder of
the Vesper Country Club in a desper-
ately contested match that went to the
forty-first green before Travis won. Wil-
der had the veteran donnie, 4 up and 4
to play, but Travis won the thirty-third TrmuWas
and thirty-fourth holes. Travis was f’**!”.’

¦’ for Life

playing for life because a single halved
hole meant defeat. On the thirty-fifth
(seventeenth hole) Travis’s ball lay
between two mounds on the putting
green, each mound being about a foot
high, and he had to make a twenty-
five foot putt to win the hole. Either
because he was stymied, or for some
other reason, Travis could not play
straight for the hole which was on
the same level as his ball. He studied the
shot a minute, then deliberately played
up the side of one mound toward the

hole twenty-five feet distant. The ball
223

Fnm tke

GOLF BOOK

climbed the mound, ran along its rounded
top for at least fifteen feet, then slant-
ingly ran back to the level green again
and rolled into the hole.
Av>€f On another occasion, when Travis was

stymied at this hole, I saw him play di-
rectly away from the hole up the side of
wie of the mounds. The ball ran part
way up the slope, then rolled down again
and went into the cup.

Now and then holing even the third
shot is quite as remarkable as holing the
first. Not long ago an Upper Montclair
golfer was playing in England with a
British professional and his son. When
they reached a certain hole, distance
about 400 yards, the professional re-
marked with natural pride:

“I got this hole in 3 once — only time
it’s ever been done, sir.”

“Huh!” cried the American in jest, “I
224

HOLES IN ONE

could do it in 3 myself if you would let
me play without a coat.”

In England it is bad form to play di-
vested of this garment ; in Ajmerica there
is no taboo of the sort, and most Ameri-
can golfers cannot play well when wear-
ing a coat

“I’ll lay you thirty shillings to one
you can’t do it in 3,” said the profes-
sional.

“And I’ll do the same,” said his son.

“The bet’s on,” replied the American, a S’vcty
stripping off his coat A long drive was ^*”’”‘«’
supplemented by a strong brassie shot,
and the American found his ball in front
of a very high bunker, beyond which the
green was hidden. Although the hole
itself was invisible, he could see the flag
marking it and he had one shot left
Taking his mashie he pitched the ball

over the bunker, and when they reached
225

GOLF BOOK

the green and found his ball in the hole,
the sixty shilling blow almost killed both
father and son I

In golf as in every other game of skill
there are players who are a bit inclined
Munchatueuto draw upon their imaginations in the
Linkt matter of remarkable shots, but now and
then even strictly veracious players are
fooled by some mischievous person and
believe all their lives that they have per-
formed some extraordinary feat. Several
years ago a passerby was standing near a
certain hole on the links at Essex Falls,
N. J., when he noticed two balls, one
after another, land on the putting green
in front of him. They had come from
the tee which could not be seen from the
putting green because of intervening
trees and bushes. The moment the two
balls struck the putting green an equal

number of boys dashed out of the bushes,
226

HOLES IN ONE

picked up the balls, placed them in the
hole and immediately vanished. His
curiosity aroused, the passerby waited for
further developments. In a few mo-
ments a very fat and dignified looking old
gentleman and an equally plump and dig-
nified looking old lady, attired in golf
costume, sauntered up to the green and
made a long, vain search for the balls.

Finally the fat man casually inspected A Great
the hole, then frantically beckoned the **^’™’
fat lady to approach. She did so hur-
riedly and the pair, side by side, peered
into the cup.

“Great Scottl We both holed out in
onef” shouted the fat man.

“Great heavens ! so we did/” screeched
the fat lady, and plucking the two balls
from the cup they started on the run to
tell their friends the remarkable talc. No
doubt they are telling it yetl
227

CHAPTER XXI
THE ETIQUETTE OF GOLF

EVERY golfer should be thoroughly
familiar with the rules govern-
ing play, and with the etiquette of the
game. In the legal fraternity there is a
Ignorance well known adage to the efifect that ignor-
ance of the law is no excuse. The same
adage applies to golf. In a medal play
competition, for example, how unfair it
is to other competitors, who have strictly
observed the rules, when some unin-
formed or unscrupulous player fails to
count all his strokes, or hole out every
putt with the result that he comes home
with the winning score. Quite possibly,
too, he has soled his club in every bunker
and sand trap. It is not only his duty to
228

GOOglC

THE ETIQUETTE OF GOLF

know that such things are improper and
cause him to incur penalties, but it is the
duty of his partner as well to see that each
penalQr incurred is inflicted.

A competitor in match play may con- No Genius
cede a putt to his opponent if he choose, ‘”"^ *’”"‘
but one player cannot concede a putt to
another in medal play or permit him to
do anything else that is against the rules
governing stroke competitions. Some
golfers seem to have no genius for figures.
They cannot count correctly and, unfor-
tunately, their general tendency is to be
one stroke shy rather than one stroke too
many. The majority of the poor mathe-
maticians are not dishonest. They have
bad memories, or are a bit careless, and
they soon outgrow the fault. Now and
then, however, one hears of an occasional
golf kleptomaniac whose passion for win-
ning is so strong that, consciously or un-
229

GOLF BOOK

consciously, he will take anything he can

get away with. His fate is a sad one, for

he is soon a marked man in his club.

ShoMlJ First of alt, the novice should know

„T” ‘ and observe the rules. Second, he should

Rules ‘

be familiar with the etiquette, not only
for his own pleasure but for that of the
other players on the links. Golf is a
gentleman’s game and a golfer should be
courteous, polite and unselfish. Some
phases of the etiquette are intensely im-
portant because they are demanded for
the safety of other players. When a
player selfishly drives before the pair
ahead have played their second shots and
•*¦* “”* “f range, some one is apt to be
It is no joke to be struck by
it golf ball. Men have been
the ball. Other men have lost
of an eye.

played golf stroke is a delicate
230

THE ETIQUETTE OF GOLF
and difficult feat, and the rule of etiquette ^>^”

Sptat;

which states that no player should move Dt„’i
or speak while his opponent is making **”
it, is inspired by the fact that the slight-
est distraction is apt to spoil the shot
Incredible as it may seem to the reader
who has never followed a very important
golf match, I have seen two thousand
spectators mass themselves several deep
around the four sides of a putting green,
and stand absolutely motionless and silent
while one of the contestants made his
putt. Following the stroke there would
be a buzz of conversation, possibly a
cheer or a clapping of hands, and then,
as the second player received his club
from his caddie and bent over to putt,
the entire two thousand again would be-
come as motionless as statues and as silent
as a convention of the dumb. The crowd
knew the etiquette and observed it
331

Mobbed

GOLF BOOK

ff^ouU Doubtless, had any member of it laughed,
./”A./”* shouted or whistled he would have been
mobbed. The etiquette, as given in the
United States Golf Association’s year
book, is as follows:

1. No one should stand close to or
directly behind the ball, move, or talk,
when a player is making a stroke.

On the putting-green no one should
stand beyond the hole in the line of a
player’s stroke.

2. The player who has the honor
should be allowed to play before his op-
ponent tees his ball.

3. No player should play from the tee
until the party in front have played their
second strokes and are out of range, nor
play up to the putting-green till the party
in front have holed out and moved away
from it.

4. Players who have holed out should
a3»

THE ETIQUETTE OF GOLF

not try their putts over again when other
players are following them.

5. Players looking for a lost ball
should allow other matches coming up to ff’hen the
pass them ; they should signal to the play- ^ ‘
ers following them to pass, and having

given such a signal, they should not con-
tinue their play until these players have
passed and are out of reach.

6. Turf cut or displaced by a player
should be at once replaced and pressed
down with the foot.

7. A player should carefully fill up
all holes made by himself in a bunker.

8. Flayers should see that their cad-
dies do not injure the holes by standing
close to them when the ground is soft

9. A player who has incurred a pen-
alty stroke should intimate the fact to his
opponent as soon as possible.

233

CHAPTER XXII

“FIRST AID” TO THE GOLFER
HIS GAME”

” HAT a note of tragedy there is in
those few words, “the golfer off
his game.” Possibly there may be a
note or two of comedy as well, but if
there is he doesn’t hear it. He is the
most miserable object on earth. A week
ago everything was lovely and he was
playing so well that he was shaking hands
with himself after every stroke. As
He Got a everybody knows, a “Birdie” is a hole
captured in one stroke under par, and
didn’t he get a “Birdie” on that long sev-
enth hole only last Saturday? Of course
he did. “Billy” Smith saw him do it,
and hasn’t he buttonholed every member
of the club since and told him all about
834

“Birdie”

THE GOLFER “OFF HIS GAME”

it? No getting away from it — nor from
him, either I

A week ago he didn’t have much re- NoRapect
spect for “Colonel Bogey,” because the ^’”‘ ^”^’^
Colonel wasn’t “classy” enough. It was
an easy matter to halve htm and not very
difficult to beat him on quite a number of
holes. A week ago “General Par” was
the only mythical personage on the links
who was entitled to respect, but the bot-
tom has dropped out, the beautiful golf
bubble has burst and it’s a plain ,case of
“Woe is mcl” The golfer “off his game”
cannot drive, approach or putt, he
doesn’t know what the matter is, and he
has completely lost confidence in himself.
In this chapter I shall endeavor to give a
few suggestions designed to assist him in
getting back “on his game” again. There
is a reason for each misplayed stroke, and
every golfer who cares anything about

Digwerih/

GOLF BOOK

the game should make an effort to ascer-
tain the reason as well as the remedy.
Slicing A very common fault is slicing the

the Ball . ,, ¦ . -r .

ball, causmg it to curve away off to the
right of the line of play. This not only
causes loss of distance, but is apt to carry
the ball out of bounds or into trouble.
Eight different faults that cause a sliced
ball, with the remedies for them, may be
outlined as follows:

1. Gripping with the right hand too
loose or with the left hand too far under
the shaft.

To correct this tighten the grip of the
right hand and turn the left hand so that
the left wrist is more nearly parallel with
the shaft.

2. Starting the back swing out from
instead of around the body, causing the
club face to come across the ball,
slicing it

236

THE GOLFER “OFF HIS GAME”

To correct this, endeavor to swing
around the body instead of out from it,
and allow the face of the club to turn
away from the ball in the back swing.
If the player go to the opposite extreme
and get a pulled ball as a result of this When the
change, let the club swing a trifle further „”.. ‘
out from the body.

3. Pulling the arms in toward the
body as the club strikes the ball.

To correct this follow through straight
toward the hole.

4. Falling away from the ball at the
moment of impact

To correct this take a firm stance and
have the weight of the body more on the
toes than on the heels.

5. Standing too close to the ball, caus-
ing it to be struck with the heel of the
club.

To correct this stand a little further
237

GOLF BOOK

away from the ball, with the toe of the
club about opposite the ball in the ad-
dress.

6. Checking the swing at the moment
of impact.

Timing To corrcct this follow through prop-

erly without the slightest hesitation.

7. Starting the hands in the down
swing before the head of the club is set
in motion, causing poor timing. (By
timing I mean perfect rhythm. Don’t
hurry the swing. If the hands are in ad-
vance of the head of the club a slice will
follow; if the club is in advance of the
hands the result will be a pull.)

To correct this be sure that the hands
and the face of the club are in the same
position as in the address when the face
of the club meets the bait.

8. Looking up too soon.

To correct this keep the eye on the ball.
238

THE GOLFER “OFF HIS GAME”

The various causes of pulled balls, and Ta Correct
the methods of correcting the faults, are ” ^””
these:

1. Gripping too tightly with the right
hand, or having the right hand too far
under the club.

To correct this loosen the right hand
and keep turning it over in successive
shots until the pull ceases.

2. Swinging the club back too close
to the body.

To correct this take the club back a
trifle more out from the body.

3. Standing too far in advance of the
ball.

To correct this place the ball nearer
the left foot.

4. Standing too far frcHn the ball,
causing it to be struck by the toe of the
club.

To correct this stand closer to the ball.
239

Topping,

Sclaffing,
Skying

GOLF BOOK

Naturally, no golfer can see himself
play, consequently it is difficult for him
to discover his own faults. Hence the
necessity of having a good professional
or amateur instructor.

Topping the ball is caused by lifting
the head too soon, or by pulling the arms
up at the moment the club head strikes
the ball.

To correct this keep the head still and
follow through properly.

Sclaffing is caused by standing too
close to the ball and by dropping the
right shoulder as the club face reaches
the ball.

To correct this move further away
from the ball and endeavor to keep the
right shoulder in the same plane through-
out the swing.

If you are skying your shots you have

the ball too far in advance of the center
240

THE GOLFER “OFF HIS GAME”

of your body, or you are dropping the
right shoulder.

To correct this stand with the ball op-
posite the center of the body and keep
the right shoulder in the same plane
throughout the swing.

If you find that your putts are going
to the right of the cup, you are either
pulling the arms in, or taking your eye
off the ball, or not following through.

If your putts are going to the left of
the cup your swing, instead of being
along the line of the putt, partly de-
scribes an arc as the club head ap-
proaches the ball.

To correct this swing straight back and
follow through toward the hole.

When you are “oQ your game” in put- Ckanfe

ting, change your putter or stance. An ex- f”"”^ *”

cellentway to regain confidence is to place

the ball about one foot from the hole and
241

GOLF BOOK

putt out two or three times from this dis-
tance. Then take the ball a little further
away and go through the same perform-
To Regan ance. Continue to do this, each time
ConSdtnce 8°*”2 further away from the hole. Then
take the ball back toward the hole and
begin all over again, each time putting
hard for the back of the cup, until you
have regained your confidence. As I
have already stated, good putting is half
confidence, and by diligent study and
painstaking practice you can acquire the
necessary confidence and become a good
putter, thereby learning the most impor-
tant and also the most difficult part of
golf.

‘^HE foUowine pages contain advertisements of a
- few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects.

The Mystery of Golf

By ARUOLD haultadt

SOME PRESS OPnnOKS

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MR. J. SUTHERLAND in Ike OA3LV NEWS.— “A diort time
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. . treat! his subject In a moat

BOSTON GiOflE.-” While The Mystery of Golf could only have
been written by an ardent golf enthusiast, it is more than a g<^ book.
There b interwoven with it a play of mild philosophy and of pointed

OBSERVER.— “K welcome conqiauion to the ^xirtaman’s

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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The Soul of Golf

Dtcwattd Ctelk, Svo. tiMO nd, postpaid $3.14- lUuslraUi.

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be seriously handicapped-
It does not concern itself with showing how the golfei must play
certain strokes. That certainly may be done better on the links
than in the smoking-room; but it concerns itself deeply with those
things which every golfer who wishes really to know golf, should
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By THE SAMB AUTHOR

Modem GoU

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Notwithstanding the large number of books that have been written
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Mr. Vaile in this book has produced a work from which a person
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govern the flight and turn of the ball that he may soon become a coD’
fident and good player.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Pobllahm 64-66 Fifth Aveane Kew Todc

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Golf Seminar: Practical Golf- Walter J. Travis- 1901

coolhq — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:12:33 +0000

PRACTICAL GOLF

Walter J. Travis

1901

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

WITH the ink scarce yet dry it becomes nec-
essary to issue a second edition, and I frankly
own that I gratefully appreciate the ready rec-
ognition which the first met with. The origi-
nal work remains intact, with the exception
of a few verbal corrections.

Growing out of more extended observation
and experience, a new chapter has been added
on “Hazards”; also new chapters concerning
the development of the “Haskell” ball and
the introduction of aluminum clubs.

W. J. T.

Feb. 14. 1902.

PRACTICAL GOLF

point. Appreciating after a few attempts
my comparative helplessness, I first provided
myself with all the available literature on
the subject, and after digesting, as well as
the circumstances would permit, the manifold
instructions laid down by several eminent
writers, I then endeavored to discover by as
constant practice as permitted which particu-
lar method best suited me and promised the
best results.

Of course this involved a world of experi-
menting before any fairly well-defined style
was finally evolved, but all this experimental
practice was not by any means thrown away.
It brought me into actual touch with a variety
of ways of making the different strokes and
producing the desired results, and, best of
all, gave me a fairly clear insight into the
true relation of cause and effect — valuable
information in times of stress. If I happened
to top, sclaff, slice, or pull, or do any of the
things which I had better left undone, it did
not take me long to locate the actual trouble
and to apply a remedy.

•It is therefore a question in my mind whether
I am not better off as a result of all the enforced
groping at fundamentals, and having been
forced to work out my own salvation, than if

STANCE AND GRIP

I had started under more favorable condi-
tions, and had the benefit of the ordinary
professional instruction procurable. Which
leads me to remark, en passant, that as a
general rule the average professional, while
he may be a good player, lacks the faculty
of imparting proper information to beginners.
He can again and again give one a practical
illustration of how a certain stroke should be
made, having, as a rule, learned the game
imitatively when young, and making the
shot intuitively without troubling himself
to analyze the why and wherefore, but when
it comes to dissecting the stroke and explain-
ing the producing causes — well, that’s an-
other matter, and usually unsatisfactory to
one of an investigating turn of mind.

Nevertheless, for the general run of be-
ginners a professional coach is necessary
N«™ity for the cultivation of a proper style at
olod * ne suir t *f an y degree of proficiency is
style sought. If left to himself the tyro is
very apt to sacrifice future possibilities of ac-
quiring the art of making a stroke properly —
and which can only be attained by constant
practice of what at first seems the hardest and
most unnatural way — in favor of what ap-
pears the easiest. He wants to “get there.”
_ 3 .

i b y

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

He does, after a fashion. He arrives quickly
at a certain stage of mediocrity, but improve-
ment beyond such a point is extremely diffi-
cult, if not impossible. And before any sub-
stantial or permanent improvement can be
effected, he will require to unlearn a good
deal, and start afresh on correct principles.

On the other hand, the player who models
his game on the lines of first-class players
will find improvement comparatively slow,
but having developed a correct method and
sticking to it, improvement is bound to follow,
and he will have acquired a style which can
be fairly depended upon to decrease his handi-
cap. All good players work practically on
the same basic principles. There are of course
certain individual mannerisms and peculiari-
ties, but underneath all these the bed-rock
of the stroke is substantially the same. It
matters little whether one plays off the right
leg, the left leg, or stands square; the stroke
is fundamentally the same, with some slight
modifications, more or less effective.

Let us now proceed to consider the drive, and

endeavor to illuminate its most salient
stln™ features. The position or stance taken

for making the stroke has more or less
influence on the flight of the ball. These po-

* by

STANCE AND GRIP

sitions are usually known as playing off the
right leg, standing square, or off the left leg.
Dealing with the former, which is that most
usually adopted — probably for the reason that
the player can see better the proper direction,
and feels less liable to send the ball flying off
at a tangent — the right foot is placed more
or less in advance of the left, parallel with the
line of play, and according to the extent to
which the right foot is advanced so is the
weight of the body transferred.

In standing square both feet are on the
same line, and the weight rests equally on
each. Off the left leg means that the right
foot is withdrawn, being more or less back
of the left, and the weight of the body rests
more or less on the latter.

I rather favor driving off the left leg, as it
appears easier to get the arms and body around
in the upward swing without the hitch which
one seems to encounter about three-quarters
of the way up when the right foot is in front.
Apart from this, however, there is very little
difference in actual results of length of drive.
The ease and rapidity with which the weight
of the body and arms is transferred from the
left leg to the right and back again, joined to
wrist action — concerning which reference will
7

* b y

PRACTICAL GOLF

later be made — are largely, if not wholly, re-
sponsible for long driving. If one man can ac-
complish this more easily and naturally by a
certain stance, then by all means let him stick
to it. It matters little whether he now and
then slices or pulls with more or less frequency ;
these faults are not the outgrowth of any of
the styles referred to, but proceed from other
causes which will be dealt with in due course.

Reference to the first illustration shows
that the right foot is a few inches back of the
left. An inch or so either way matters little,
but the more the right is advanced, the greater
is the check towards getting the arms and body
around, and the upward swing is curtailed
accordingly, and the distance of the resultant
stroke shortened. So clearly is this recog-
nized that by far the large majority of good
players instinctively control and regulate
their approach shots in this manner. The
shorter the distance to be traversed, the more
the right foot is advanced, as a general rule,
With but few exceptions the very longest
drivers have the right foot slightly back of
the left. So much for the stance. Now for
the grip.

Reference to Fig. 4 shows that the club
rests more at the base of the fingers, while

- STANCE AND. GRIP

Fig. 5 indicates a firmer grip well in the palms
pi the hands. The latter is, in my opinion,

ncern . more conducive to greater power and
log the productive of longer distance. Fig. 6

0rlp shows a still sturdier grip, with both
hands, more in the palms and with the knuc-
kles well under. This style is more affected
by cricketers and baseball-players, but is open
to the objection that it induces a tendency to
hit the ball with tautened muscles, and dis-
courages a proper follow through. Nor does
it permit of a sufficiently free play of the
wrists, which is absolutely essential to long
driving.

The relation of the hands to each other is
a very important point. If the left hand is
held with the knuckles under, as shown in
Fig. 6, the right hand must also be gripped
well under ; otherwise, if held with the knuckles
not so far around, as shown in Fig. 4, an
almost certain slice will be the result. In-
versely, if the left hand grips as in Fig. 4,
and the right as in Fig. 6, a pull will result.
The reason is simple and apparent. By way
of practical illustration rest the club squarely
on the ground, held lightly in the tips of the
fingers, with the face at a right angle to the
line of play, then grip with the left hand only,

PR A C T r C A L GOLF

with the knuckles well under; withdraw the
club a yard or so and bring it back to its orig-
inal position, and it will be found to have the
face turned outward slightly to the right.
Unless the grip of the right hand also has the
knuckles well under, the hands are not acting
in unison, and the ball will go to the right
On the other hand, if the club be held with the
right hand only, with the knuckles well under,
and the same operation repeated, it will be
found that the face of the club will be slightly
turned in and a pull will be the outcome. This
matter of grip is one of the most pregnant
causes of slicing and pulling. There are
others of comparatively lesser importance,
however, which will be treated further on.
Perhaps the best guide to insure the proper
relation of the hands is to grip with both hands,
with the knuckles well up, so that the Vs
formed by the junction of the thumb and first
finger of each hand are in a straight line as
viewed by the player looking down the shaft.
This position, however, is cramped and un-
comfortable, and is not recommended, ex-
cept for the purpose mentioned. Now it is
important to remember that in changing from
the position described, as the left hand is
turned towards the left, outwardly, the right
12

STANCE AND GRIP

hand must also be turned to the right, out-
wardly, in a corresponding degree. If either
hand is allowed to turn more than the other
the face of the club will not present a true
right angle to the ball, and a slice or pull
will the more likely be produced, as the case
may be.

The laws of motion are unchangeable, and
a ball hit in exactly the same manner each
time will follow the same course again and
again without the slightest variation. To.
do this, however, is extremely difficult, if not
impossible, and therein lies half, or perhaps
more than half, of the fascination of the game.
It is human nature to be forever striving for
the unattainable — in golf, to repeat at every
hole that magnificent drive, that approach
which came within an ace of holing out and
which is absolutely dead, or that putt a dozen
or so yards off which found the bottom of the
tin, and was destined to do so from the start.
During the round one or more of these perfect
strokes occur, even to the veriest tyro, and
their successful accomplishment tends to make
large amends for the far greater number of
badly executed shots, and to keep alive the
keen desire to duplicate them — if not at this
hole, at the next — if not to-day, to-morrow.
13

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

After this digression it is time to revert
to the unfinished question of the grip. As a
general rule the left hand should grip some-
what more firmly than the right. At the same
time the club should be held pretty tightly
with both hands. Gripping tightly with the
right hand is apt to cause pulling, due either
to the tendency to slightly turn the face of the
club in at the moment of impact with the ball,
or to the difficulty of going properly through
and bringing the arms around instead of letting
them go freely away after the ball. If a man
is constantly pulling, a remedy may be found
by holding the club more loosely in the right
hand. If, however, this does not correct the
trouble he will probably find that he is grip-
ping wrong — either too far around with the
right hand or not far enough with the left,
usually the former. If, on the other hand,
he is slicing, he will almost assuredly effect
a cure by gripping tightly with the right hand,
or by paying closer attention to the harmo-
nious grip of both hands, as already touched
upon, and by following through properly. In
this connection, however, it is proper to add
that other causes may lie at the root of
the trouble than those already mentioned.
These will be taken up when the matters of
14

STANCE AND GRIP

swing and the relative position of the player
to the ball are gone into.

Having thus far disposed of the questions
of stance and grip, I will endeavor to ana-
lyze the swing. Too much stress can-
swin B n °t De ^’d on the importance of utiliz-
ing the wrists properly. Reference to
Fig. 7 shows the club about half-way up to the
shoulder. Comparison with Fig. 8 discloses
several points of dissimilarity. In the first the
hands and arms have been taken up straight,
and the club’s face is looking more squarely
at the ball. The knuckles of both hands are
in practically the same position as when the

ball was addressed, whereas in the succeeding

illustration it will be seen that the club face

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

is turned more away from the ball, and the
knuckles of both hands have turned corre-

“$ ::

*XJ

spondingly. In the former case the wrists
have been held rigid, while in the latter they
have been allowed, in a perfectly natural
manner, to turn. This turn of the wrist
exercises considerable influence on the speed
of the swing, accelerating it in a very marked
degree — imparting velocity in the downward
stroke which cannot so well be secured in
any other way. This fact can easily be de-
monstrated by swinging a cane or a headless
shaft, first with the wrists rigid and then
supple, with the turn described. The dif-
ference will be at once apparent

THE SWING

The wrist movement may be said to be
mainly contributed by the left hand in its
The p a n initial stages, the right wrist following
wrttti m u n iso n – At the top of the swing the
perform knuckles of the left hand will be lying
almost flat and uppermost, the toe of the club
pointing almost straight down to the ground.
The trouble with the large majority of players
who do not drive well proceeds from the fear
that if the face of the club is allowed to be
diverted in the upward swing from the angle
at which the ball was addressed — if, in other
words, it is turned in any way — a slice will
result. Consequently it is carried up straight
and the stroke is robbed of a great deal of power.
There need be no such fear. Start the wrists
right in the upward movement and they will
take care of themselves in the downward swing,
if left alone. If the turn is hurried, however,
b 17

PRACTICAL GOLF

the face of the club will be turned slightly
in , and the ball foundered or pulled, while if
the turn is not made soon enough a slice will
result, owing to the club face pointing some-
what to the right.

After the ball is struck, everything syn-
chronizing harmoniously, the hands and arms
should be allowed to go well forward, and about
half-way on the follow through the wrists will
again perform a turn exactly the reverse of
that in the upward swing. Before we arrive
at that stage, however, it is proper to say a
few words concerning the upward swing.

With the club gripped pretty firmly with
both hands in the manner already described,
it is well to see that the whole machinery is in
good working order by waggling the club a
few times over the ball, allowing the wrists to
turn freely, without, however, relaxing the
grip. The waggle should be entirely free
from any stiffness. Which simply means
that the wrists should be brought into active
play. Do not on any account in this pre-
liminary address lift the club up. Lifting
the club presupposes stiffness and rigidity
of muscles, and the resultant stroke cannot
be thoroughly satisfactory. By means largely
of the wrists swing the club back of the ball
18

THE S WING

as far as it will go along the ground — some
three or four inches — until the arms assert
themselves, and raise it on its upward journey;
continue the swing until the club is about
horizontal back of and across the right shoulder,
allowing the body to freely turn at the same
time in a natural and unassisted manner;
keep the head perfectly still, with the eye
intently fastened on the ball; and, when the
top of the swing is reached, without paus-
ing, bring the arms and body around as
swiftly as possible and swish the ball away.

Now there are several things you must not
do, apart from those mentioned. Do not seek
to artificially raise the left foot on the
Don’« * oe – Strive rather to keep it rooted—
the natural turn of the shoulders and
body rotating to the right will bring it up and
around. Keep the right leg as stiff and as
straight as possible. And whatever you do,
don’t move the head.

The time-honored injunction laid down by

all writers and teachers to “keep your eye

on the ball” — which eye, by-the-way?

Head — would be more aptly expressed by

insisting upon the head being kept

absolutely still and in the same position as

in the address until the ball is struck— or

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

even a moment after. If the head is kept still
no swaying of the body can be indulged in,
and hands, arms, and everything must revert
to the original position assumed at the com-
mencement of the stroke, thus insuring the
ball being hit cleanly. If, however, the head
is allowed to move, the chances are that a
sclaff or a top will result. If the head is kept
in the same position throughout the swing,
the player may even go so far as to abso-
lutely shut his eyes and be reasonably cer-
tain of getting the ball well away, provided no
jerk is introduced. Any doubt as to whether
the head is moved may easily be satisfied by
the player assuming a position with the sun
immediately back of him, and watching the
shadow of his head during the swing. If the
head is shown to move, the swing should be
persistently practised until this fault is reme-
died.

It has been suggested that in the upward
swing the club should be swept close to the
ground. This flattening of the arc of
¦bout the the circle will largely prevent any ten-
swioB dency t strike into the ground back of
the ball, for as the club is withdrawn so it will
almost assuredly describe the same course in
the downward swing. It will furthermore con-

-*y

THE S WIN G

siderably lessen the chances of driving a high
ball. Moreover, the flatter the swing, the
greater is the latitude for correction of any
error. The accompanying diagrams will il-
lustrate this very clearly.

The swing indicated in Diagram 9 means
that the club has been taken more vertically
away from the ball in the
upward stroke, and has con-
sequently been brought down
straighten In Diagram 10
it will be observed that the swing is much
flatter, and as the arc of
the circle is greater, the
club head is moving longer
in the same plane as the
ball, thereby augmenting the chances of hit-
ting it more correctly.

Reference has been made to the introduction
of a jerk in the swing. This is generally a sure
sign of pressing — i. e., suddenly exert-
p™m m S? more power than usual. The effect
usually is to depress the right shoulder,
and sclaff badly. If the extra power is har-
moniously distributed, no harm is done. As a
general thing, however, it is advisable to keep
back some reserve force. The man who utilizes
his full measure of existent strength at every
21

–C–

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

full stroke is far more liable to drive unsteadily
than he who represses such inclination and
determines to keep well within his natural
limitations, and the few yards occasionally
gained by pressing when the shot comes off
do not compensate for the more frequent
foozles.

It is not given to every one to drive a very
long ball. The unusually long players possess
certain physical advantages which are
Drivl’j denied to ordinary mankind in a de-
gree. Some naturally are gifted with
abnormal wrist power or strength of arms or a
very rapid swing, either singly or collectively.
All of these qualities may be developed to a
certain extent by less favored mortals. Occa-
sionally, by a happy conjunction of all the ele-
ments that constitute the perfect stroke, an
unusually long ball may be driven, but there
is a natural average limit to every man’s long
game, and a full recognition of this fact would
save many a wasted stroke.

Reverting to the question of keeping the
eye on the ball, or, in other words, of keeping

k« p the head still, countless are the strokes
‘on’ the” imperfectly made through looking up

b«ii a fraction of a second before the ball
is properly struck. This diversion of the eyes

THE S WIN G

from the ball causes the head to move, and
with it the arms, and the chances of clean
hitting are materially lessened. After the ball
is struck no power exerted by the eyes can
exercise the slightest influence on the ball.
To insure the stroke being properly made it
is not a bad plan to keep the eyes fastened
on the spot where the ball was before the
stroke was completed.

In the upward swing do not allow the club
to go so far back as to lose command of it.
It is not really the length alone of the back-
ward swing that contributes distance so much
as the rapidity with which the club head is
moving at and just after the moment of im-
pact. Very many players are enabled to
secure the desired velocity with a compara-
tively short swing and get almost as long a
ball and generally a straighter one than the
devotee of a full swing.

Timing the stroke properly is of vast im-
portance. Usually the player is in too much
of a hurry to get the ball away, and hits too
soon. Let him resolve to centralize the power
of the stroke immediately the ball is reached,
and carry it through the ball, and a gratifying
increase of distance will be manifested and a
sweeter feeling communicated.
23

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Do not ease up as soon as the ball is struck;
by all means keep up steam until the arms are

Tht well away on their upward journey.
Follow- A great deal more depends upon the

IOU ‘ maintenance of speed after the ball is
struck than is commonly supposed. This part
of the stroke is known as the follow-through,
and plays a very important part in the length
of the drive, as well as in straightness.

All which has been said concerning the
driving stroke may be largely practised in-
doors, without a ball. The only objection is
that the player cannot see himself, and unless
he is under the eyes of a competent instructor,
is very apt to drift into faulty methods of exe-
cution. Such solitary practice, therefore, is
not advisable to any great extent.

So far, the component parts of the swing
have been analyzed without detailed reference
to the position of the player to the ball. This
has a very marked and varying influence on
the stroke, and is deserving of a few words. –
Broadly speaking, the nearer the ball is to
the left foot the higher it will be driven, and
with a greater tendency to be sliced than if
placed nearer to the right foot, the latter posi-
tion being more provocative of a lower tra-
jectory and a pull. The leading cause of a
24

THE SWING

high ball being driven is attributable to the
fact that the position assumed is such that the
club is just on the eve of its upward journey,
and the face consequently is slightly turned
back, towards the player.

The tendency to slice is due partly to the
restricted area left for the club to go through
fllisin the ball, making it more difficult to fol-
»od low on properly, and also in a measure
u ‘ Dg to the ball being hit slightly to the right
of its centre. Either of these causes alone will
produce a slice. Striking the ball to the right
of its centre will impart a rotary movement
from left to right. Being struck to the right,
the ball will naturally start off to the left of a
straight line, and as the energy of the forward
stroke diminishes, the power of the spin will as-
sert itself and cause the ball to describe a curve
to the right. With a pulled ball it is just the
opposite — the ball is hit to the left of its centre,
t. e., nearer the player, producing a spin from
right to left. When the ball is placed nearer to
the right foot the point of contact with the club
in the ordinary swing is brought nearer to
the player. With the ball placed about mid-
way between the two positions mentioned the
club will meet it exactly in the centre, and a
rotary movement in a straight line is im-
27

i b y

PRACTICAL GOLF

parted, and given that the head is allowed
to go straight through the ball, no slice or pull
can result. If, however, the ball is hit dead
in the centre, and the arms be drawn in at the
moment of impact, a slight slice will ensue,
as a modified spin from left to right will be
given the ball.

Apart from these causes slicing or pulling
may follow from the ball being hit in the centre,
but with an inclination towards the heel or toe
of the club. If hit on the heel the weight of
lead behind the point of impact leans to the
right, and a slice is invited, while the reverse
is true in favor of a pull if the ball be hit on the
toe of the club. At the same time it may read-
ily be understood from the foregoing that it
is possible to slice with toeing and pull with
heeling, although this is not commonly done.
A slice pure and simple invariably describes
a curve from left to right, the curvature being
governed by the amount of spin. A pull is
just the reverse. Neither must be confounded
with a clean-hit, straight-flying ball which
is off the line, to the right or the left, from
start to finish. .

Such error in direction is usually due to a

faulty stance — to the player being turned

away from the hole to the right or around

THE S WIN G

too much to the left. Yet very many players
misapprehensively speak of such strokes as
being sliced or pulled. A true conception of
the governing cause would go a great way
towards correcting the trouble. The illustra-
tions (Figs. II and 12) show the top of the
swing and finish of the stroke, respectively.

Ill

THE LONG GAME

IN the upward swing it will be noticed that
the body has been turned very freely, with the
natural transferrence of weight almost en-
tirely to the right foot, and that the left foot
has been pulled up and around on the toe.
Without such aid the downward stroke would
be lacking in pith. To get the shoulders
into the stroke they must first come around,
in conjunction with the lower part of one’s
anatomy, smoothly and freely revolving on
an axis which may be represented by an imag-
inary line drawn from the head straight down
the back. Otherwise the arms alone, un-
assisted to any appreciable extent, are called
upon to do the work, with material loss of
distance.

Another point may be observed: The club
head has only a very slight dip from the hori-
zontal at the top of the swing. This, com-
30

THE LONG G A ME

bined with the free turn of the body, indicates
a pretty firm grip with both hands, with a
sense of command over the club.

In the other illustration the position is al-
most exactly reversed, the right foot rising

Tho on the toe, due to the weight of the

Body- body being thrown by the swing on
to the left, and the club finishing
over the left shoulder.

As a general thing the majority of players
fail to properly utilize the weight of the body
and drive mainly with the arms only, and they
also take the club too far back in the upward
swing. Another very common fault is falling
back immediately after striking the ball.

Every golfing stroke describes a circle, or a

segment of a circle. With a long shaft the

periphery is of course larger than with a short

one, and flatter. In other words, with a long

shaft the club head is not moving so long in

the proposed direction of the flight of the ball

as it is with a short shaft. This would not

be the case if the centre of the circle could

be raised in proportion to its circumference, but

the axis of the circle, represented by the

Accuracy player, remains the same in all cases.

The paramount reason, if not indeed the

only one, for Harry Vardon’s consistent accu-

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

racy of direction is due, in the present writer’s
opinion, to his using short shafts, and by stand-
ing pretty erect to the ball. The axis of the
swing is in a more perpendicular plane to the
ball, with the inevitable result that the club
head is moving longer in the line of play.
This insures the ball being struck more accu-
rately in the centre, and, what is of equal im-
portance, of the club going through the ball
straighter. The movement of the arms is nat-
urally out and towards the hole, while with a
long club more or less of an effort is required
to let the arms go forward instead of obeying
their natural inclination to turn around to the
left.

If neither the ball nor the club head possessed
resiliency it would matter little what became
The im- of the club after the ball were hit true,
portanc* The point of contact Is very small,
Follow- hardly any larger than a pin head,
Through y e j. everv player must frequently have
noticed the imprint of the hall on the head
after a vigorous stroke, sometimes as large
as, if not larger than, a silver quarter. This
flattening of the ball furnishes proof that it
is in actual contact with the club for a frac-
tion of time after being struck, and during
that time is of course travelling in the same
32

THE LONG GAME

direction as the head — probably for an inch or
so. Consequently it becomes a matter of im-
portance what becomes of the club head just
after the moment of impact, when ball and
head are practically one. During this crucial
part of the stroke the head should be at right
angles to the line of play. This is the essence
of the follow-through, and it is probably due
to a practical recognition of this principle and
by the simple means employed that Vardon’s
play is so uniformly straight, using, as he
does, very short clubs. I am not sure also that
his peculiar grip does not lend to accu-
toi’ orip rac Y< as by putting the thumbs down
the shaft and overlapping the forefinger
of the left hand with the little finger of the
right hand, it is practically impossible for the
club to turn in the hands in the upward or
downward swing, and therefore it must revert
to its original position, as in the address. Var-
don himself avers that he can drive a longer
ball with what may be termed the orthodox
grip, but at the sacrifice of accuracy, and I find
no reason to doubt this. I know of a number
of good players who have adopted this Vardon
grip, and who assert that their direction has
been wonderfully improved. Vardon, however,
has been endowed by nature with very large
C 33

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

hands, and, using comparatively thin grips —
which, by-the-way, cannot be too strongly
recommended — he is obliged to get rid of his
fingers in some way, hence perhaps the par-
ticular style adopted. He also possesses un-
usually strong wrists, which, combined with
the fact that he "hits so blamed hard," ac-
counts for the distance obtained.

Unless the ordinary player is gifted with
such advantages — i.e., big hands and strong
wrists — he probably will get better general
results by gripping in the regulation manner
and by using shorter clubs.

It may have been noticed that Vardon's
long shots are principally all carry. This
is partly attributable to the upright swing.
The enormous distance obtained, however, is
such that he can well afford to do without
the roll which follows from using longer clubs
and playing with a flatter swing. The longer
the club, however, as already pointed out, the
greater is the liability to slice or pull.

It will be noticed in the foregoing illustration
that in the finish of the stroke the hands are
pretty well over the left shoulder. The natural
tendency of such is to induce more or less of a
pull. It may be laid down as an axiom that
the farther the arms are carried around to
34

THE LONG G A ME

the left, between the neck and shoulder, the
greater is the pull when the ball is played from
a point nearer to the right foot, and the greater
is the slice when the ball is nearer to the left
foot. The operating causes have already been
explained.

Unless against an adverse cross-wind, the
writer generally plays with the deliberate inten-
tion of getting a touch of pull. Such a
iw'l'p'u kaN ^ i&s great running powers, and, be-
ing usually comparatively low, is ex-
ceedingly effective against the wind. Occasion-
ally, however, the pull fails to materialize, but
no great harm results unless too much allow-
ance has been made for the hook. The finish
of the stroke, so far as the position of the
hands is concerned, is largely governed by
the line of retraction.

THE SECOND SHOT

On all first-class links a large number of
the holes should be so laid out in respect to
distance as to call for at least two full shots
to reach the green. Where the lie admits and
distance is required, the driver is preferably the
club to use. It frequently happens, however,
that the ball is not lying well, and the brassey
35

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

is called into requisition, a slightly greater
amount of loft on the face enabling the player
to get the ball up more quickly. In this con-
nection it may be remarked that the

p"y y better the player the greater is his abil-
ity to negotiate a poor lie. The stroke
is practically the same as a tee shot, excepting
that the club should be taken up somewhat
more vertically and the hands slightly drawn
up immediately after the ball is struck, thus
making the swing somewhat more elliptical
than in the drive proper. The ball should be
struck very accurately, and rather with the
idea of driving it into the ground. The lofted
face, joined to the slight whipping up of the
hands at the proper time — that is, after the
club meets the ball — will produce the desired
result. Do not, on any account, seek to bring
the hands up too quickly, otherwise a top will
assuredly result. Play with the ball somewhat
nearer the right foot, and don't hurry the
swing. Disabuse your mind of any idea that
a little more effort than usual is necessary;
rather go to the other extreme and take things
quietly, and concentrate everything upon hit-
,ting the ball accurately and smoothly.

For brassey shots generally, it will be found
an aid towards accurate striking to look not
36

PLAYING A HANGING LIB

* by

THE LONG GAME

at the ball itself, but immediately back of it.
This will largely prevent the common tendency
to top. If, on the other hand, the general rim
of strokes are sclaffed, the player may find a
remedy by reversing the process and looking
squarely at the ball, or even at that part of it
which is nearer to the hole. With a little
practice the player may very soon satisfy him-
self as to the correct point of aim adaptable to
his particular style. As in the tee shot it is
very important to keep in mind the necessity
of timing the stroke properly. Too much
energy is generally wasted by introducing the
power too soon. Let the upward swing be
such as to get the club back pretty smartly
to the horizontal, and to bring it down so as
to get the maximum amount of speed within
about eighteen inches or so before the ball
and about a couple of feet after the ball. Con-
centrate all the power in that spread of about
three or four feet. Upon the wrists devolves
the main burden of this particular part of the
swing. They impart that delightful snap
which contributes so materially to length
without apparent effort. This wrist move-
ment in itself is not discernible to the eyes
of the onlooker, except in so far as it differen-
tiates the stroke from the ordinary one where
39

PRACTICAL GOLF

the hands are taken back straighter — and, of
course, brought down correspondingly. It
cannot be illustrated in the ordinary photo-
graph, and, indeed, is very difficult to accu-
rately describe.

Very many players have no difficulty in
getting away very good balls from the tee, ^
pi»yi m but are troubled in negotiating a Q
B«o(im brassey shot. This is perhaps largely
attributable to using too high a tee.
Driving from a lower tee, or none at all, will
be found very helpful when it comes to the
second shot.

After the drive, and with the hole still some
one hundred and seventy or one hundred and
eighty yards away, it will sometimes hap-
pen that the ball has to be played from a
hanging lie sloping towards the hole, with a
bunker intervening. To get the ball up more
quickly hit it slightly on the heel of the club,
making allowance for the resultant slice by
aiming somewhat to the left of the hole. Take
particular care to let the club go through
the ball according to the dip of the ground,
and not to turn the face in.

Illustration Fig. 13 will serve to furnish an
idea as to the stance adopted for this particu-
lar stroke. It will be observed that the ball
40

THE LONG GAME

is much nearer to the left foot than in the tee
shot, while the right foot is more advanced,
being a couple of inches or so in front. By
striking the ball slightly towards the heel of
the club and immediately after bringing the
arms somewhat in and finishing well out, a
slight spin is imparted to the ball which causes
it to rise more quickly. To further assist in
getting the ball up the hands should be held
somewhat lower down than usual, so as to
bring the heel of the club closer to the ground
and the toe slightly cocked up.

* b y

APPROACHING

THE "quarter" game, with putting a very
close second, may be regarded as the most
difficult part of the art of golf. In driving
and playing through the green distance is
the prime object to be achieved, combined with
a fair measure of accuracy. While it is, of
course, desirable to be in line with the flag in
the long game, yet a dozen yards or so either
way make little appreciable difference, as there
is sufficient latitude allowed. But when it
comes to getting the green on the next, more
careful calculations have to be made, both in
respect to strength and to accuracy.

Apart from the tee shot any stroke that is
capable of landing the ball on the green, even
with a driver, brassey, or full cleek, may be
said to be an approach. The ordinary accep-
tation of the term, however, embraces dis-
tances from, say, forty or fifty to one hundred
42

Digitized by

A P P R O A C H I N G

and fifty or one hundred and sixty yards
from the hole. A fairly good player can
easily get the latter distance with a cleek.
Lesser ranges may be negotiated with a mid-
iron or mashie. The driver is, of course, the
most powerful club, followed in due order by
the brassey, the cleek, the mid-iron, and the
mashie.

According to the distance from the green
so does the experienced player regulate the
stroke by the particular club employed. It
is easier to play a full mashie shot, for instance,
than a half-iron. Given that the ball be hit
true, each club has a certain maximum range,
and the player should familiarize himself with
the full capabilities of his clubs, and govern
his approaches accordingly. So far as the
cleek and iron are concerned, the stance and
swing are practically the same as in the drive,
excepting that it is advisable to stand a little

The more over the ball, and not to take the
M««hJe club so far back in the upward swing.
ppro " : When you come to within, say, one
hundred yards or thereabouts of the hole, the
mashie may be brought into requisition.

For a shot of this distance the right foot

should be advanced a trifle more than usual,

with the ball somewhat nearer the right foot.

PRACTICAL GOLF

Grasp the club firmly, with the sole at right
angles to the line of play, and play straight
for the hole. Make the stroke with decision.
Aim to hit the ball in its centre with the middle
of the face, and let the club go through and
slightly into the ground. Follow through as
in the drive. Do not attempt to jerk the stroke,
unless the ball be lying badly. Be very par-
ticular not to take any turf until after the ball
is hit. The ball must be hit clean, and the
club allowed to go through into the ground
immediately after, and not on any account
before, reaching the ball. Do not allow the
club to trail along behind the ball in the up-
ward swing; rather make a point of taking
it up straighter — more vertically.

In the same way that the club is withdrawn,
so is it Ukely to come down upon the ball.
This is a golfing truism, and such an important
one that we often lose sight of it altogether.
If the club be swept along the ground, back
of the ball, the chances are in favor of a top,
unless it should be lying very well. Irre-
spective of the lie, it is better to adhere to the
same methods throughout, and play each shot
the same way — except in the case of a very
cuppy lie, which will be considered in its prop-
er place.

•3,

A P P R O A CHIN G

Within sixty to eighty yards of the hole
some slight modifications are necessary in the
stance and the stroke. The right foot should
be brought further forward, with the ball a trifle
nearer the left foot. The face of the club should
be inclined to the right, so that it would appear
as though the player intended going several
yards to the right of the hole. At the same

time the aim should be correspondingly
with cat t° the left of the hole. In making the

stroke hit the ball smartly somewhat
across, i. e., draw the arms in a trifle, immedi-
ately after the ball is struck. This combina-
tion will produce a perfectly straight ball, with
a good deal of cut, which will have a retarding
effect on its run. Precisely the same methods
are employed for shorter distances. The face
of the club may even be turned slightly more
away from the hole to the right, with the heel
well down to the ground. Hitting with the ¦
heel of the club meeting the ground after the
ball is struck will cause the ball to rise more,
and, joined to the spin imparted by drawing
in the arms and turning the wrists upward,
will produce a very dead ball with hardly any
run.

The essence of the stroke consists in hitting
very sharply, and in turning the wrists up-
D 49

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

ward immediately after the ball is struck. The
club should be grasped very firmly, but more
with the fingers than in the palms, and the

GRIP FOR APPROACHING

stroke made very decisively with a free use of

the wrists. In all of these strokes the elbows

should be pretty well bent and fairly well

A P P R O A C H I N G

tucked in towards the body. For the shorter
strokes, the feet should not be raised at all
from the ground, the body being allowed to
turn from the knees only, and principally from
the left knee. For the longer shots the turn
of the knees is more pronounced, and the left
foot shifts slightly inward on the side, tow-
ards the toe.

An exceedingly dead ball may also be played
by standing well back, laying the club almost
flat, and cutting clear under the ball. The
stroke is comparatively easy if the ball is ly-
ing well, but not otherwise. In this stroke
the club head is well in advance of the hands.
It may be well to remark here that in all strokes,
of every description, a high ball with com-
paratively little run follows when the club is in
advance of the hands, and, inversely, a ball
with a lower trajectory and more compensating
run results when the hands are in advance of
the ball. A full recognition and practical ap-
plication of this principle would go a great
way towards simplifying the problem of mak-
ing the ball fall dead or of imparting addition-
al run, as may be desired.

Going with the wind, and playing a mashie

shot where it is necessary to pitch right on

to the green, and make the ball stay there, it

PRACTICAL GOLF

is absolutely essential to put a decided cut on
the ball. As already explained, this cut stroke
is made largely by hitting across the
tfwtad k^'- I n addition to the retarding ef-
fect on the run produced by the spin
thus given, the stroke may more easily be
accomplished by letting the club reach the
ball before the hands are in the same vertical
plane. In other words, stand with the ball
pretty well in front of you.

Playing dead against the wind the same
methods may be employed, but as practically
no run at all follows, the ball must be hit much
harder, and may safely be played close up to
or even beyond the hole. It is perhaps safer,
however, to play without any decided cut under
such circumstances, but rather in the way
suggested for a shot of eighty to one hundred
yards, regulating the strength according to
the distance.

So far I have dealt entirely with the mashie
in approaching. I do not intend by this to
suggest that this particular club only should
be used. In point of fact, I rarely play with
a mashie unless there is a bunker or rough
ground intervening. When the nature of
the ground permits, I consider it safer and
easier to run up, either with a cleek, iron, or
54

A P PR O A C H I N G

putter, with more or less cut according to the
unevenness of the ground. With a straighter-
faced club it is much simpler to determine the
strength required, and much easier to be sure
of hitting the ball cleanly than with a more
lofted one. The more the club is lofted or the
face laid back the greater is the accuracy re-
quired. The more simply the approach shot
can be played the better, as there is greater
latitude for error than in using any of the
heavily lofted clubs.

In the running-up stroke it makes compara-
tively little difference if you should happen to
get a little too much down to the bail,
uo u D p nK or half-top it, whereas with the lofted
approach, and with the same measure
of strength applied, getting too much under
means being away short, while a topped
mashie is generally far over the hole. Then,
again, with the mashie, the ball may possibly
pitch on a hard and bare spot, or on sand, or
it may strike some irregularity of surface,
and so completely upset the finest calcula-
tions. It must also be borne in mind that
while in the air the ball is more at the mercy
of the wind, while if kept closer to the ground
the wind exercises very much less influence.

At the same time no one can rank as a first-
55

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

class golfer who is not a master of the lofted
approach shot in all its moods and tenses.
There is no department of the game which
calls for such a high degree of skill and the
exercise of such sound judgment as approach-
ing. Here strength and direction must be
supplemented with a measure of delicacy and
fine discrimination such as are not called
for in any other department of the game,
unless, indeed, we include the approach putt,
which is really an offshoot of the approach
proper, and is usually made under more ad-
vantageous circumstances.

The man who can be reasonably sure of lay-
ing his ball, not only on the green, but within
comparatively easy putting distance of the
hole time and again, manifestly has a great
advantage over a less skilful player, every-
thing else being about even. A single putt
saved here and there is a material gain. The ob-
ject of the game is to get the ball into a very
small hole in the fewest possible number of
A We|| _ strokes. To do this, on a first-class
rounded course, it is of course essential that the
successful golfer should play a well-
rounded game. He must drive well, approach
well, and putt well. He can never hope to
occupy the premier position if he is weak in
S6

a s

A P P R O A C H I N G

any one of the three departments. Extraor-
dinarily long driving, for instance, does not
compensate for poor approaching or poor put-
ting. It is much better to be an adept at put-
ting than at driving. If a man drives fairly
well, say from one hundred and seventy to
one hundred and ninety yards, and approaches
and putts with consistent accuracy, he is much
better off than the player who gets one hun-
dred and eighty to two hundred yards from
the tee, and then shows weakness in approach-
ing or putting. The good approacher, pro-
vided he putts fairly well, saves many a stroke
by laying his ball so close to the hole that he
goes down in one on the next, when the other
player takes two — and sometimes more.

The method of approaching so far treated
is what is commonly known as the bent-arm
stroke — that is to say, the arms are not kept
taut or stiff, but are allowed to bend at the
elbows, and to turn more or less from the wrists.
At the same time the club is grasped firmly
with both hands. If anything, the right hand
and arm contribute a shade more power than
the left. The stroke partakes more of the
character of a hit than a swing, as exemplified
in the drive — a sharp, snappy hit, entirely free,
however, from jerk.

PRACTICAL GOLF

There is another way of making approach
shots which is very effective. In this the
arms are kept stiff, and the wrists are
'¦how ' scarcely turned at all. There is more
of a swing than a hit in the stroke,
and the shoulders are brought more or less
into play. The ball may be kept on a very
true line by this method, but it will have a
lower trajectory and greater run. It is useful
on a windy day, or when the nature of the
ground admits more of a running - up ap-
proach. For all-round purposes, however, it
does not possess the full share of merits of the
other style already dealt with.

It is comparatively easy to play an ap-
proach shot from a good lie, as then one may
give the larger share of his attention to
Li«" r the necessary strength, being reason-
ably sure of hitting the ball clean. It
frequently happens, however, that the ball may
be lying badly, and greater nicety is then re-
quired to get it away. Let us take a ball
lying in a cup with a tuft of grass behind —
the ordinary type of poor lie, or even in a
wagon rut — and with a bunker, say forty or
fifty yards away, guarding the green. The
stiff - arm stroke here is useless. Even the
other style mentioned has to be slightly modi-
60

A P P R O A C H I N G

fied. Grasp the club very firmly in both
hands, stand with the feet farther apart than
usual, with the ball nearer to the right foot;
take the club up straighter, more perpendic-
ularly, and bring it down sharply into the
ground straight behind the ball. The sole of
the club will have to cleave the ground a trifle
before the face reaches the ball in order to get
it up properly, and it will then go through into
the ground immediately underneath the spot
where the ball was lying. Don't try to get
the ball up; the lofted face of the club will
do that; rather go to the other extreme, and
make up your mind you are going to drive it
into the bowels of the earth. It is astonishing
how far a ball can be shot out of what looks
like an impossible lie by these means. The
great thing to remember is that the club will
do the work if you give it a fair chance. Don't
turn the face in, and don't take your eye off
the point of aim just behind the ball, until the
club has sunk well into the ground ; and don't
be afraid to hit on account of the slight jar
to the wrists which follows the impact.
- When the club has gone well into the ground,
giving it plenty of time, then you may flex
the wrists slightly, to lessen the shock and
direct the passage of the club towards the hole
61

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

and further assist in getting the ball up. Of
course the execution of a stroke of this kind
will dig up a blanket of turf, and will carry
with it the unpleasant suggestion that you
must inevitably smash the shaft of the club
into flinders. But if you have faith in the
resiliency of hickory it will be of material aid
in executing the stroke properly, and your
shaft, if a good one, will be none the worse.
One more piece of counsel — take as little turf
as possible before striking the ball itself.

V
PUTTING

Assuming that the approach stroke has
been properly executed, the ball should now be
on the green, not so far from the hole as to
render it at all uncertain about going down in
two more — and very frequently in one. But
alas for human frailty ! It is quite possible even
with the best players that the ball is occasion-
ally either short of or possibly over the green
proper, with some indifferently rough ground
to be negotiated before the putter may or-
dinarily be used with safety or precision.
Where the intervening space is covered with
fairly long grass a mashie or an iron is really
necessary, but if there should be no long grass

Th= other than the ordinary fair green, free
Approach from any bunkers, a running-up ap-
proach may safely be played with the
putter. It is imperative, however, to bear in
mind that the stroke should be different in
63

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

kind from the ordinary putt You should aim
to hit the ball as if it were your intention to
drive it into the ground; stand rather more
than usual in front, and strike the ball with
the face of the club slightly turned in. This
will cause the ball to jump, due to its contact
with the ground immediately after being struck,
but it will keep a wonderfully straight line, de-
spite irregularities of surface, and will usually
be found nearer the hole than if a more lofted
club were used. A stroke of this kind may
be played even fifty or sixty yards from the
hole, and with far more certainty of result
than if a mashie had been used. With the
ordinary putter, more or less straight-faced,
it is much easier to hit the ball truly and to
regulate the desired strength than with any
of its more lofted brethren. Nor does it make
so much difference if the ball be lying badly,
since you do not desire to get it up. With a
comparatively straight-faced club it matters
very little, in a stroke of this kind, whether
the ball is struck above or below the centre
of the club, but it makes a world of difference
if such liberties are taken with a mashie, the
greater angle of the face of the latter not al-
lowing such a wide margin for error.
Another way of playing the stroke, in simi-
64

* b y

PUTTING

lar circumstances, is to stand with the ball
well in front of you — still using the putter —
the club head rather in advance of the hands
and the face slightly turned outward, to the
tight, and put cut on the ball by drawing
the arms in a trifle just at the moment of strik-
ing. This will cause the ball to rise slightly
immediately after being struck. Such a stroke
is useful where some roughish ground has to
be traversed just in front of the ball, or when
it happens to be either teed up or lying in short,
soft grass.

The simpler the means employed to get the
ball into the hole the better. It is much easier,
and less fraught with danger or risk of failure,
to run a ball up than to pitch it. If pitching
were easier, why not putt with a mashie?
Never use a mashie or any heavily lofted iron
when the necessity for pitching does not really
exist. It requires a certain fine discrimina-
tion, however, to know, the moment you get
up to your ball, just what kind of a stroke
should be played, and the proper club to play it

with. Don't allow yourself to get into
Hesitate *- ne wav °f hesitating or questioning

whether you should take a mashie or
an iron or a putter. Make up your mind at
once, and stick to it. Another thing is worth
E 65

PRACTICAL GOLF

remembering in connection with the short
game, and that is not to allow yourself to
. dwell upon the strength of the next stroke
while walking up to your ball. Wait until
you get to it before making any calculations
of this kind. And let me again and again
urge you not to be in any hurry to look up
after you have made the stroke. To my mind
there are two rocks upon which the large ma-
jority of players split, two things we all do,
more or less, and which are provocative of
poorly executed strokes: one is looking up
too soon, especially in the short game, and
the other hitting too soon, particularly in the
long game.

Now that we have managed, more or less
successfully, to get on the green, the serious
business of getting the ball into the
th " 0,1, hole in one or two strokes presents it-
self. And mighty serious business it
is too. Putting, that is consistently good put-
ting, is perhaps the most difficult part of the
game, with the possible exception of really
first-class approach work. Driving is largely
mechanical, the one essential being to keep
fairly straight. In that department of the
game you are never troubled about going too
far, or if any possible doubt exists on this
66

PUTTING

score you may easily remove it by using a
weaker club. The approach is somewhat more
complex, for here accuracy and strength are
the elements. Even this part may be largely
simplified by using a cleek, iron, mashie, or
putter, each having a certain fairly well-
defined capacity in respect to distance.

But putting calls for the highest degree of
skill and the nicest kind of judgment both as
regards accuracy and strength. By accuracy
is meant the passage of the ball over an im-
aginary line between it and the hole. You
may possibly be able to keep your ball along
this line, but if it is hit too hard it will probably
jump the cup, while if the necessary strength
is lacking it certainly cannot go in. It all
seems easy enough, especially to the man who
has never tried it, and who is not saddled with
recollections of innumerable misses in the past,
sins of commission and of omission. Which
leads me to remark that one of the prime req-
uisites to good putting is an abounding con-
fidence in one's ability to lay the ball dead
when several yards away, or positively run it
down when within reasonable holing-out dis-
tance.

Let us examine into the character of the
stroke in reference to accuracy more particular-
67

PRACTICAL GOLF

ly, dismissing, for the time being, the question
of strength. If one can succeed in getting the

Accuracy "^ *° rUn ^ TUe ' more t" 311 h*"^ °f * ne

in terrors of putting are gotten rid of
"* at the outset, and the mind may then
be concentrated on the important matter of
strength.

In respect to accuracy, it is imperative that
you should act upon some well-defined prin-
ciples. Proceed first by taking a glance
back of the ball towards the hole, and trace
the line over which it must pass, noting for
subsequent guidance a particular blade of
grass on this imaginary line. Take your
stance and square the face of the putter at
perfect right angles to the blade of grass you
have picked out by resting it immediately in
front of the ball. By resting the club in this
way in front of the ball it is easier to get the
correct base-line, and, furthermore, it assists
in going through the ball properly when the
stroke is made.

Now withdraw the club and let it rest gently
on the turf close up behind the ball, taking
care to preserve the correct angle. Let the
eye run quickly over the imaginary line to
the hole, so as to determine the requisite force
to be applied, and then make the stroke.
68

PUTTING

If the club presents a perfect right angle
in reference to the line of play during the
period of contact with the ball, and no irreg-
ularities of surface or obstructions interfere,
the ball will almost certainly run straight,
and assuming that the right amount of strength
has been employed it will stand a much better
chance of finding the hole than if the player
simply trusted to luck, and with each new putt
changed his method according to the whim of
the moment.

The matter of stance is of some importance.
It may be said that there are three ways of
standing in relation to the ball and the
stance l' ne °f P' av : °ff t ne left leg — that is,
with the weight resting mainly on the
left and with the ball nearer to that foot ; off
the right leg — the reverse of the previous po-
sition; and standing square — i.e., with the
ball about midway between the feet. The
player must discover by practice which style
is productive of the best general results, and
having done so, it is advisable to adhere to it.
At the same time, when the ball persistently
refuses to be holed it is rather a good plan to
switch off and adopt one of the alternative
positions mentioned. A change of this kind
is often beneficial.

PR A C f I C A L GOLF

The accompanying picture illustrates the
grip affected by the writer. It is not contended
Re >rd that this is in any way better than the
in E ibe orthodox grip for the general run of
‘ p players, but exhaustive tests — and
under fire — have demonstrated conclusively
that it serves its purpose somewhat better

PUTTING GRIP

than does the prevailing style. It will be ob-
served that both thumbs are laid down the
shaft, and that the index-finger of the right
72

PUTTING

hand touches it also at the tip, towards the
back of the shaft. Grasping the club in this
way, and with the fingers, one seems to feel it
better and to be able more accurately to de-
termine the proper degree of strength to be
applied to the stroke. Then, too, it Jessens
one’s innate tendency to pull the ball, a ten-
dency which the orthodox grip rather encour-
ages. Close observation of all missed putts
discloses the interesting fact that by far the
large majority go to the left of the hole,
thereby indicating the presence of a pull, due
to the arms being slightly drawn in just after
striking, instead of following through on the
line to the hole. Throwing the burden of the
work on the right forefinger seems to counter-
act any such fault, and not only is the club
guided better, but greater delicacy of touch
is apparent, and, consequently, the matter of
strength is better controlled and regulated.

It will be found, generally speaking, that
better results follow by gripping the club
pretty firmly, with the fingers — firmly but not
tightly. A very tight grip is usually at the
sacrifice of delicacy. A firm grip insures
the ball keeping its line more accurately and
not being deflected by irregularities of any
kind. The rougher the green the more is
73

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

this essential. The hands should be kept as
close together as possible, the grip of the right
rather predominating.

The club should be taken away from and
brought back to and follow through the ball
with a smooth, even movement, free
B «]]| from any jerk. A choppy kind of
Don’t hit stroke, a tap, or a hit is not recom-
mended. Putts may, of course, be holed
by each and all of these methods, but not, I
think, with the same degree of consistency.
Endeavor to take the club back and let it fol-
low after the ball on the correct line of the
putt. Aim to strike the ball exactly in the
centre, and don’t be in any hurry to look up
after the stroke. As a general thing, the
centre of the club is the best part to strike
with, but a great deal of course depends
upon the balance. With certain clubs better
results are obtained by striking somewhat off
the toe.

In addressing the ball do not allow the
club to weigh heavily on the turf; rather let
the touch be very delicate. Whatever the
distance may be, always go for the hole; in
other words, be up. In this way a certain pro-
portion of long putts will be brought off. Aim
to be just a shade over the hole, but not so far
74

PUTTING

beyond as to make at all uncertain the holing
out of the next, in case of missing.

Endeavor to make every stroke with con-
fidence and decision. Lack of confidence
Neceuit S oes a great way towards inviting a
orconfi- miss. Don’t unduly hang over the
ball, and don’t be too keen to note
any fancied irregularities of surface between
it and the hole. In respect to both the cor-
rect .line and the necessary strength, be gov-
erned by your first impressions, and let the
muscles act upon the information so conveyed
without further ado. You may occasionally
go wrong, but the general results will approve
the wisdom of such procedure.

PUTTING— Continued

In putting, it is of prime importance that
the body should be kept immovable, the hands,
wrists, arms, and, to a certain extent, the
shoulders only entering into the stroke. If
the body be allowed to participate in the work
an element is introduced that only complicates
the situation, and makes this part of the game
altogether uncertain. It is difficult enough,
in all conscience, to control the strength of
the stroke by simply using the other members ;
add the weight of the body, however little,
and you will get such additional run on the
ball as will carry it away over the hole and
prove utterly demoralizing to the player.
Neither should the wrists alone play any undue
part. The less they are employed the better,
for uniformity. They should act in perfect
harmony with the other factors, the whole so
blending and merging into each other as to

PUT TIN G

produce a rhythmical unison, and leave the
player wholly unconscious of any particular
element being present. There should be more
or less of an air of stiffness about the stroke,
free, however, from any rigidity born of taut-
ened muscles.

The head, of course, must be kept absolutely
still. At the moment of striking, the eyes —
particularly the left — should be in-
Eyc P fl.ed tently fastened, not only on the ball,
on the k u t on ^e dead centre of the ball tow-
ards the back, where you intend hitting
it. It has been suggested that the left eye
more especially should be directed at the ball.
This will involve a slight turn of the head
away from the hole. In this attitude less
encouragement is given to pull the ball —
and, as I have previously remarked, this
matter of pulling is one of the greatest of
all putting sins. As a further aid, it is ad-
visable to get both elbows in line, parallel with
the line of the putt. This will necessitate
the turning of the left elbow away from the
body, the right being somewhat tucked in
towards the thigh, but not being allowed to
rest on it. By letting the club swing in the
manner described it will be noticed that it
meets and goes through the ball with the face
77

PRACTICAL GOLF

at a perfect right angle with reference to the
line to the hole, and that is the whole essence
of good putting. There is no mystery at all
about it. The laws of motion are unchange-
able, and given- that the ball be hit truly on
scientific principles, such as I have endeav-
ored to outline, it will assuredly run straight
on a smooth and true green, and be far more
liable to keep a straight line on an indifferent
one than if hit “in any old way.”

In respect to the proper degree of strength
to be applied, this is largely governed not only

by the weight but also by the lie of
n»v’ the club – With a h eavy club less

force is necessary to make the ball
travel a given distance than with a lighter
one. So it is with a straight – faced putter
as against one a trifle lofted or laid back.
The more it is laid back the greater is the
undercut or backward spin, and the harder
must the ball be struck. Such a club is
very useful on a keen green, as there is less
liability of over – running the hole. Then,
too, the shaft plays a very important part.
With one possessing an undue amount of spring
it is very difficult to gauge the correct amount
of strength necessary. It is better to err on
the right side and play with a very stiff shaft.
78

PUT TIN G

Probably the best all-round weapon is a
putting-^leek of medium weight, and not too
much lofted.

I am not an advocate of wooden putters.
Off wood the ball is endued with much greater
wooden running power than off iron, and there-
in* other fore the stroke calls for greater exer-
cise of delicacy. Moreover, the ball
does not appear to hug the ground so closely,
and is consequently more apt to jump the
hole. These very qualities, however, make the
wooden putter rather desirable for running-up
approaches. Nevertheless, I believe the ordi-
nary putter to be, on the whole, the more trust-
worthy for such strokes.

A little experimenting and practice with
different kinds of putters will shortly satisfy
the player which particular one is best suited
to him, day in and day out, and when this
discovery is made, stick to it. You may,
however, have a fancy for another with which
you are perfectly deadly at times, but hardly
feel like pinning absolute faith to it on all
occasions. In an important match it is not a
bad plan to stick it in your bag, and if you
happen to have a poor putting streak on don’t
hesitate to try a change. Putting is largely
mental, anyway, and humoring one’s self in
79

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

this department of the game often produces
the desired results. On certain greens the
ordinary putter works admirably. More es-
pecially on those which are very true. If
at all rough the putting-cleek will probably
prove the more serviceable. In the hands
of a finished player, however, it makes com-
paratively little difference which he uses.
A good player must be highly adaptable;
quick to recognize exactly the kind of stroke
required, according to the nature of the sur-
roundings, and so “make the punishment
fit the crime.” Such a player will not hesitate
to take his putter when the ball is a yard or
so off the edge of the green, but he will modify
the stroke slightly by altering his stance,
playing with the ball well forward, almost
opposite the left toe, and with the club head
in advance of the hands. This will cause
the ball to be slightly lofted, barely sufficient
to skim over the intervening rough part, and
to have a free run up to the hole. The same
results may more easily be attained with
a putting-cleek, owing to the face being more
laid back, by standing with the ball just a
little more forward than usual. Or, if pre-
ferred, an iron may safely be used. It largely
depends upon the nature of the ground, and
80

PUTTING

no hard and fast rule can be laid down to govern
such cases.

Before concluding this chapter it is proper
to say a few words concerning stymies, which,
justly so or not, form a recognized
stymies part of the game. Nearly every de-
gree of stymie is capable of being
negotiated, by (A) curling your ball around
the opposing one, (B) lofting over it, or (C)
putting a follow -through on your ball and
striking your opponent’s, causing the latter
to jump clean over the hole and yours to go
in. • Everything depends upon the position of
the balls in reference to the hole as to the
means employed to make the stroke success-
fully, joined also to the undulating or other
characteristics of the •green. Occasionally the
undulations of the ground offer assistance.
Putting such aside, however, and taking a
flat green, with the opponent’s ball a trifle
to the right of the line to the hole, it is possible,
by turning the face of the putter a good deal
to the right and hitting towards the heel, at the
same time drawing it sharply across, to so
slice the ball as to make it describe the neces-
sary curve. Care must be taken, however, to
aim to the left of the other ball. Sometimes the
balls are so situated as to make it desirable to

PRACTICAL GOLF

curl around the opposite way, from right to left.
The method of procedure in such case is ex-
actly the reverse of the foregoing one. Let
the ball be nearer the right foot, turn the face
of the club in so as to face well to the left of
the hole, and hit the ball more off the toe,
commencing the stroke inward and finishing
outward, across the ball, aiming at the same
time to the right of the other ball. The spin
given to the ball will cause it to curl in from
right to left. It is imperative in both cases
that the ball should be struck with decision
and not in a half-hearted, timorous fashion.
For that matter, by-the-way, this applies to
all strokes. It frequently happens that the
balls are so lying as to make it practically
impossible to effect either of the strokes men-
. tioned. In such case there is no alternative
but to loft your ball over the other with a
mashie. To do this you must hit the ball very
clean, without a suggestion of sclaff or top.
It is done almost entirely with the wrists, rather
snappily, and with a slight upward turn just
at the moment of impact. The eye must be
kept fastened on the ball. Looking up a
fraction of a second too soon is fatal. The
stroke may the more easily be accomplished
by playing the ball well off the. left leg, rather

PUTTING

more in advance than usual. The head of
the club will thus lie natter and will assist in
getting the ball up more quickly, with little
run after alighting. Whether you play to
pitch the ball right into the hole or short of it
depends of course upon their relative positions,
Confidence may be said to be a prerequisite
in bringing the shot off successfully. Much,
too, depends upon whether you are playing
for the hole or a half. Sometimes the shot is
of such a hazardous nature that it is better
to play safe and accept a half rather than run
any undue risk of losing the hole by knocking
your opponent’s ball in. But if you are play-
ing for a half you have got to take the bull
by the horns and risk it.

Occasionally you will be confronted with an
absolutely dead stymie by having your oppo-
nent’s ball just on the edge of the cup, your own
being so close, say seven inches to a foot away,
that it is impossible to negotiate the stroke by
either curling around or lofting. In such
extremity there is only one way of getting
your ball in the hole unaccompanied by your
opponent’s, and that is by what is technically
known in billiards as the follow shot. Hit
your ball towards the top, just above the centre,
and aim directly at the other ball. Strike

PRACTICAL GOLF

with sufficient force to go at least twice as far
as you would ordinarily wish to. This addi-
tional strength is necessary to cause your
opponent’s ball to jump the hole upon being
struck, your own meanwhile dropping into
the hole. It is surprising how frequently this
will happen when the stroke is executed prop-
erly. At all events it is worth trying in an
emergency, especially when you have only
one for a half.

VII

PLAYING OUT OF HAZARDS

On all first-class courses the bunkers or
hazards are so arranged as to impose a penal-
ty on a poorly played stroke. Outside of long
grass these are ordinarily of artificial produc-
tion and take the form of cop-bunkers or shallow
pots of varying sizes filled with sand. It is
mucrTeasier to get into them than it is to get
out of them — usually. Yet it should not cost
more than one stroke to get the ball out, if
properly played. Let us take the case of a ball
lying in sand with the cop or face of the bunker
a yard or so away and several times as high.
It is obvious that the essential part of the
stroke is to get the ball to rise quickly in order
to clear the obstacle. This cannot pos-
oui of sibly be accomplished with the ordinary
Difficui- s t ro ke. In the first place the club itself
must not come in contact with the ball
at all when it is desired to make the latter rise

«7

PRACTICAL GOLF

almost perpendicularly. The character of the
stroke must also be radically altered. The club
should be taken up as straight as possible —
up, not away from the ball — and it should be
brought straight down again on the same line.
The aim should be back of the ball an inch or
so, depending entirely upon the height and
proximity of the bunker to be surmounted.
The stroke is no longer a swing, but a genuine
hit, delivered with all the force at command.
For this purpose the club should be gripped
very firmly. It is the kind of a blow that you
would give a snake, for instance — no love tap,
but full of concentrated energy, even to the
point of vindictiveness — straight down, with-
out any thought of any jar to the wrists result-
ing. This is substantially the sort of stroke
necessary. In practice no jar or shock to the
wrists will follow — the yielding nature of the
sand will avert all possibility of anything of
the kind. Firmness and determination are
absolutely essential in playing bunker shots.

We are dealing now with the ball not teed
up or lying merely on the surface of the sand,
but with the ordinary, every-day lie met with
— and bad enough it usually is. “Desperate
diseases require desperate remedies,” and lies
of this sort call for strokes of a special nature.

PLAYING OUT OF HAZARDS

To assist in getting the club up more ver-
tically a rather wider stance than usual should
be taken. The greater the initial loft desired
the more should the aim be farther back of
the ball, allowing the head of the club to sink
down into the sand. Do not attempt to aid the
club in getting the ball up. The impact be-
hind the ball, joined to the lofted face of the
club, will do the work without any extraneous
effort on your part. Undoubtedly the best
club to use is the niblick, by reason of its small
head, lofted face, and greater weight. Very
many good players, however, use a mashie,
which, in their hands, answers the purpose
almost as well.

On several courses bunkers will be found
with high, steep faces or cops. When the
ball is lying directly at the foot or very close
up to one of these (unless practically teed up)
it will be almost impossible to play it out
straight. In such circumstances it is advisable
to face around to the left and play at an angle,
so as to allow a greater margin of clearance
in the upward flight. Sometimes, however,
this is inexpedient, when the ball is towards the
left of the bunker, and getting it out would
land it in rough grass or bad ground.

If it is impossible to play to the right owing
91

* b y

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

to close proximity to the face, it is then better
to play back. Each and every shot in golf
should be played with especial reference to the
following one. If you are bunkered close up
to the green, then endeavor to pitch over. If,
however, the green is some distance away and

can be reached after playing back, then
P B«k’ ! P’ a y back, especially if you have any

doubt about getting out towards the
hole. And in playing back always remember,
if the next shot is a long one, that you want to
be sufficiently far away from the bunker to clear
it on the following stroke and at the same time
gain the necessary distance. Unless, however,
the chances are much against you it is better
to play out towards the hole. If you get out
in this way you can’t get in the same bunker
on your next stroke, while there is always
a possibility of doing so when the ball has
been played back.

There is, perhaps, no part of the game that
calls for such exercise of judgment as when
you are in a hazard. How many a fine score
has been ruined by lack of discretion and self-
control! The ball is lying badly, and you
attempt to play it out and succeed only in put-
ting it in a worse position. After expending
several strokes in a vain effort to get it over

PLAYING OUT OF HAZARDS

you determine to play it back. You do so,
but your previous experience has proved so
demoralizing and has so undermined your
confidence that it is no small wonder if you
manage to put your next shot slap into the
trouble you have just emerged from.

In medal play it is better to play cautiously
and avoid taking any undue risks. In match
play you must be governed largely by your
opponent’s score.

Unless the ball is lying fairly well and there
is no opposing face the stroke necessary to
get it out of sand is different in character from
the ordinary one. Always remember this.
At the risk of being tiresome let me briefly
run over what you should do. First make up
your mind where you intend playing the ball,
then take your stance, with feet wide apart and
worked firmly into the sand, and with the ball
Hit B>ck aDOU t midway between. Grip tightly
of me with both hands and bring the club down
as straight as possible until the sole is
within an inch or so of the top of the sand, where
you propose striking, behind the ball. Keep
your eye rigidly fastened on that spot — not on
the ball — and withdraw the club on a straight
line up to the right shoulder; a straight line,
mind, not a rounded one. Then bring it down
93

PRACTICAL GOLF

again on the same straight line with all the
force you can controllably command, consistent
with accuracy. As it sinks into the sand its
course may then, but not until then, be slightly
directed towards the ball. It will be found a
hard matter to bring the club down too straight
— the natural tendency being to make a curve.
As one is not of course permitted to sole the club
in a hazard, a certain allowance must be made
on this account in the aim, otherwise there is a
great liability of hitting too close to the ball
or even the ball itself. This point should
also be carefully remembered in playing for
distance out of a sand pit or fairly level stretch
where there is no obstruction in front, and
where it is not necessary to get the ball up
quickly. In a case of this kind both the up-
ward and downward hit — the term is used
advisedly, as all bunker shots should partake
more of the nature of a hit than a swing —
should be less vertical, and the point of aim
may be directed a trifle closer to the ball.

The preceding remarks may also be applied
to a ball in long grass, more especially with
respect to the necessity of using a more or less
perpendicular stroke. If the swing is more
rounded — the ordinary stroke, in short — the
head of the club will encounter a larger share
94

PLAYING OUT OF HAZARDS

of grass, and in cutting through it a great deal
of the power of the stroke is lost, to say nothing
of the possibility of the head being turned
or twisted.

When a ball is to be played out of a hazard
of any kind the prime consideration should be
to make sure of getting it out. The great
mistake which many players make is to strive
both to get it out and get length as well, and
in their effort to get distance (and very fre-
quently distance would not be of any material
help) they do not give proper attention to the
fundamental question of hitting the ball clean
and simply extricating it from the hazard.
Having failed to get it out on the first essay
they consider the wasted shot has got to be
made up — and this is usually the beginning
of a long procession of abortive strokes.

When it is desired to play the ball on a certain
line the player squares the face of the club
at right angles thereto, which causes
th’chfb ^ to go straight if properly struck.
Occasionally, however, this is not ad-
visable. For instance, the ball may be lying
at the edge cf a fence where it is not possible
to make the swing in the direction that you
desire the ball to go. Let us take, for ex-
ample, a ball lying within a foot or so of a
95

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

fence parallel to the line of play, and where,
owing to its lie, it can only be fairly hit at
the imminent risk of sending it into the fence
or out of bounds.

All that is necessary is to face the club
around in the direction that you wish to send
the ball and play the stroke in the regular way.
Do not change the stroke itself in any way;
the angle of the face of the club will do the
work. As a further aid it is well to hit some-
what off the toe of the club. Instead of the
ball following the apparent line of play, as
indicated by the swing, it will shoot off at a
tangent,, under the influence of the abnormal
facing of the club.

VIII
GENERAL REMARKS

Practising.— With the majority of players
very little, if any, time is given to earnest,
painstaking practice; they want to play the
round of the course and nothing but the
round, pleading that they haven’t the time
to waste over solitary practice. Now it takes
a very long time, under such circumstances,
for any man to acquire any degree of pro-
ficiency in the game. It would be infinitely
better and more enduringly satisfactory if he
were to steel his heart against the pleasure of
playing around with one of his own calibre,
and once in a while betake himself to some
unfrequented part of the links, and with half a
dozen old balls put in an hour or so of good,
hard work. The duplication, again and again,
of full strokes with each club would give him
an opportunity, unobtainable quite so well
in any other way, of ascertaining exactly his
G 97

PRACTICAL GOLF

limitations, and furnish a chance of correcting
existent errors. In actual playing there are
only eighteen tee shots in the round, mostly
full drives, with relatively less strokes with
each other club used — excepting the putter.
After a poor stroke of any kind, he has
no opportunity of trying another for some
time, and even that may possibly be just as
badly executed, in another way. One may
be topped, another skyed, a third sliced, and
so on.

The very best players will occasionally go
off with some particular club. The remedy
correct- ‘ s *° S° ou t alone, or, better still, with

‘”z an instructor, and master the stroke.
Unfortunately the player cannot see
himself, and can only determine from actual
results what the contributory causes are. Prog-
ress, therefore, must necessarily be slow unless
he is under the eyes of some one competent
to point out the actual root of the fault. If he
is really anxious for improvement, however,
he will not mind all the trouble which such
practice entails, and will acquire a fund of
knowledge that cannot but be ultimately useful.

He will find out from such experience, by
varying his methods of playing, how mistakes
are made and how to correct them. Until

* b y

GENERAL REMARKS

he has worked out his own salvation in
some such way he will hardly make any
growing or permanent improvement in his
game.

Take the drive, for instance. Your pet
weakness is slicing. First look at yourself,
as it were, and see just what you are doing
which does not correspond with what you should
do. Try this, that, and the other thing, until
you see signs of improvement, and when you
find you are on the right track keep working
on those lines. The experimenting you have
gone through will at least have been of some
value in teaching you what to avoid.

So many things are responsible for slicing,
either singly or collectively, that it may take
even a first-class coach some little time
principal to put his finger on the actual seat of
cawei of the trouble, and the chances are that it
will take you much longer, unassisted.
Don’t be discouraged, however. “Genius,”
Carlyle, I think, says, ” is simply the capacity
of taking infinite pains.”

It may not be amiss to here recapitulate a
few of the principal causes of slicing :

Hitting off the heel.

Pulling the arms in.

Improper position of the hands in gripping.
99

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Gripping loosely with left hand, and tightly
with the right.

Standing too far back of the ball.

Each of these faults has already been treated
fully in a previous chapter. Now it is not a
bad idea in seeking a cure for any faulty
methods into which the player may uncon-
sciously have drifted to deliberately try the
effect of the foregoing and carefully observe
the results, making such changes as may be
necessary in order to arrive at accuracy. It
may possibly happen that only one screw is
loose, in which case a beneficial change will
soon manifest itself. When you succeed in
getting away several satisfactory balls con-
secutively, take particular note of everything
entering into the stroke. In this way, and
this way only, can steadiness or consistency
be the more quickly attained — the doing of
the same thing in the same way every time.
Never mind if your grip or stance or swing
may be outside the pale of orthodoxy, so con-
sidered — if you can secure distance and rea-
sonable accuracy by any particular style
affected, that is the style you should cultivate,
provided it is easy and natural.

Pulling or hooking is so comparatively
rare, and the reasons therefor having already

GENERAL REMARKS

been given, it is unnecessary to here dwell
at any length on this fault.

Topping is far more common, and usually
proceeds from over-eagerness to see where the
ball is going, the eye being diverted from
Losing the ball before it is actually hit. The
up too sams j s largely true also of sclaffing.
The remedy is to steel your mind against
any thought of looking up until three or four sec- .
onds after the ball has been struck. This is one
of the very hardest things to do in the whole
game. This looking up too soon does not make
nearly so much difference in the long game as
in approaching or putting — there it is absolutely
fatal. Another cause of topping or sclaffing
is by standing too close to or too far away from
the ball. Until you fall into the way of in-
tuitively gauging the proper distance at once,
it is well to make sure you are right by meas-
uring the distance with the right arm only
gripping the club, extended in an easy, natural
manner, shuffling the feet until you feel per-
fectly comfortable; then grip with the left hand
and don’t change your position.

After a man has acquired the art of hitting
clean and straight, then he may proceed to
satisfy himself as to how far and how sure
he can go with each club. A thorough knowl-

PRACTICAL GOLF

edge of the maximum value of the individual

clubs is essential and can only be obtained

by practice. If you are burdened with

Fit« ; a fear of being short, by all means take

Distance a more powerful club; it is much easier

to bring the shot off successfully with

an easy swing with the stronger club than to

force matters with a weaker one. Make up

your mind to be always up to or even slightly

beyond the hole. Never under-club a shot.

It is advisable not to devote too much time

to practising with any single club. With the

Don . t driver endeavor to play straight into the

ov«r- wind, and take your time between each

prac in s t ro jj e un t;i y 0U have sen t ff na H a

dozen balls. Playing against the wind is the
best kind of practice, as any errors of slicing,
pulling, or skying, are more clearly made mani-
fest. Don’t drive more than five or six balls
consecutively, otherwise the muscles will soon
become tired.

After the drive take your cleek and play
the balls back, taking them just as they lie.
Make a point of never improving the lie;
rather go to the other extreme and place them
in an indifferent one. Do this with all clubs,
excepting the tee shots. If you can succeed
jn negotiating them fairly well out of a poor

GENERAL REMARKS

lie you may rest assured you, can do better
with a good lie.

Then take a turn at short approaches before
trying your brassey, regulating the use of
the clubs in such a way as not to run any
risk of fatiguing yourself.

Practice of this kind now and then will effect
a very marked improvement in the game of the
comparative beginner, and will also tend to
strengthen the game of the more advanced
player, far more than any amount of match play.

If you are working up for any important match
or tournament it is well to commence practis-
ing a few weeks beforehand, devoting a
ing ror couple of hours a day twice a week to a
T m”™” thorough acquaintance with your clubs.
Do not, however, continue such practice
up to the day; stop two or three days before
the competition. In the mean time play a few
rounds, if possible, against a slightly stronger
opponent. If a man could always play against
a somewhat better player a very sensible im-
provement would assert itself in his game,
while the contrary is very apt to be the case
if he should keep on playing with a weaker
man. If you feel that you have any advan-
tage at all always concede such odds as will
compel you to play your best game to win.
103

PR A C T 1 C A L GOLF

Outside of the above, I do not recommend
any special training for any important event
Let your habits of life, if temperate, remain
unchanged throughout.

All of the important tournaments in this
country have as their basis a preliminary
stroke competition of eighteen or thirty -six
holes, as the case may be, those making
either the sixteen or thirty-two lowest scores
being eligible to continue at match play.

The This has proved to be an admirable
America system. No one can be considered a

y ¦”" finished golfer who does not combine
in himself the qualities needed for both suc-
cessful stroke play and match play. The
good medal player is not necessarily a good
match player, nor is the good match player
always strong at stroke competition. It is
somewhat rare to find the player who is really
first-class in both departments.

In the preliminary round it is the more
common practice to first classify the com-
petitors on their known form before making
the drawings. There is a good deal to be said
in favor of such procedure, as it obviates the
possibility of a good player having a poor
player as his running mate, when justice is
done to neither as a general thing. The better
104

GENERAL REMARKS

player is unconsciously affected usually by
the comparatively poor showing made by his
competitor, and he is apt to play sympathet-
ically, while the weaker player is striving so
est to keep up that in
e fails to come within
mal game.

lursue in stroke com-
our mind to play each
:, arranging a mental
to the length of the
;nown ability to reach
lumber of strokes, ap-
> possible to par play,
e work of your com-
lat he does, play your
lot be made with espe-
one, not with reference
our present competitor.
iurself. Put aside en-
.at your ultimate score
e for all it is worth.
: discouraged by a poor
ilays. Blot out all re-
concentrate your mind
roke. Nor must you
nduly “set up” over
ood score back of you.

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Now all this applies very largely to match
play, but not wholly, for you have now to
a few regulate your game very frequently
word. D y wn at your opponent does, especial-
Match ly when he plays any particular hole
ptay unusually well. When he gets into
trouble, pursue the even tenot of your way,
taking no chances. But if, for instance, he
is on the green and absolutely certain to go
down in two more, and you are off the green
and playing the odd, you must make up your
mind that either the approach must be dead
or you must somehow hole out on the next,
particularly if you are playing two more on
the green. If, in such or like circumstances,
the loss of the hole seems assured, you must
play boldly in an effort to steal a half. It
is in such cases that the general character
of your play must differ from stroke compe-
tition methods. If you fail to halve the hole
you might just as well be still playing in
yonder bunker — whether you are one or six
strokes more matters little if the hole be
lost. So also must your general play be
governed if you are, say, four down with six
to play. Then, if ever, must you endeavor to
get inside your opponent, and keep him play-
ing the odd. You are playing a very up-hill
Io6

GENERAL REMARKS

game and are bound to take chances somewhat
out of the ordinary if you desire to win.

Over-confidence in your ability to beat an
opponent has lost many a match. “Thrice
armed is he who hath his quarrel just, but
four times he who gets his blow in fust.” You
are pitted against a man whom you can beat
with comparative ease, and you embark on
the round with a feeling that it does not matter
much if you lose the first few holes — you can
easily make them up later on. Now this is all
wrong. Almost before you know it the game
has advanced sufficiently far to make the result
anything but the sure thing you anticipated,
and a slight feeling of irritation is engendered
that you should be ” down ” to a weaker player.
This in itself is not conducive, as a general
thing, to bringing out your best game, and
when is allied to this feeling one of some
anxiety as to your being able to pull up, the
chances grow more remote of your being able to
do so. Your opponent meanwhile, encouraged
by his unexpected success, is brimful of con-
fidence and is in just the right vein to play the
best game of which he is capable. The best
way, therefore, is to endeavor to win the first
few holes, and not hold your opponent too
cheaply until the match is virtually assured.
107

CL UBS

To play the game properly the following
clubs are necessary: driver, brassey, cleek,
mid-iron, mashie, and putter. Although not
absolutely essential a niblick may also be
added. Many good golfers rarely cany one,
using the mashie instead, except perhaps in
an important match. Let us first take the
driver.

With all the varieties on the market — and
their name is legion — he would be fastidious
indeed who could not find one to suit him,
provided he knew what he wanted. Tastes
vary in a marked degree, and sentiment goes
for so much as to largely account for the many
different styles, for what may be eminently
adapted for A would be useless in the hands
of B. Yet we see B vainly endeavoring to
play with a club entirely unsuited to him,
simply because A does so excellently with
108

C L U B S

one of the same kind, B being totally unmind-
ful of the fact that their styles are wholly
dissimilar. So many things enter into the
make-up of the club, apart altogether from the
model or pattern of the head (such as the lie, the
weight, the length, and qualities of the shaft),
that it is a rare thing to find any two exactly
alike. It is, therefore, only by a good deal of
experimenting that the player can arrive at any

fair idea of what best suits him. Some-
th< cT U b» body has said that it is about as difficult
th Yo» a " *° se ' ec * a o"ver for another man as it

would be a wife. A divorce from the one,
however, is a simple matter, fn the hands of a
first-class player there is comparatively little
difference in results between any two entirely
different clubs that you may hand him, since
he has the faculty of quickly adapting him-
self to their peculiarities. And clubs have
peculiarities, as we shall shortly find.

It is much easier to get a club which will
humor your peculiarities than it is to play with
one which has peculiarities at variance with
your natural style. Make the club suit you
instead of making yourself suit the club.
The great thing is to know just what you need.
Few men have the time or the disposition
to run through the whole tribe of clubs and
109

PRACTICAL GOLF

ascertain for themselves, in a practical way,
whether they can accomplish better work with
a heavy head united to a stiff and long shaft,
or a heavy one with a stiff and short shaft, or
a heavy head with a long and whippy shaft, or
one with a short and whippy shaft, or, finally,
a light head with these various equipments.
As a general thing the beginner makes the
mistake of selecting too heavy a club, from a

lack of appreciation of the fact that it
"«»y is not so much the weight of the club

which drives a long ball as it is the speed
at which it is moving when it meets the ball.
It is obvious that in the hands of the ordinary
player a heavy club cannot be swung so fast
as a lighter one. When the beginner grasps
this fact in its true significance he will have
made a long step towards improvement in dis-
tance. Of course there is a limit as to the
weight of the head. With too light a one
the additional speed gained in the swing
does not compensate equivalently for the lack
of weight any more than the very heavy head
makes up for the necessarily slower swing.
There is a happy medium. This happy me-
dium, however, is not a fixed quantity, since all
men are not cast in the same mould. Some
have very strong wrists, some strong arms,

CLUBS

some are gifted with both, and when is joined
to this combination a Hssomeness of body,
the naturally long driver is the result. Such
a man is likely to have a very rapid swing,
and will probably prefer a stiff shaft. The
man with a less rapid swing will get equally
as long a ball by using a more supple shaft.
The more "music" there is in the shaft, how-
ever, the greater is the liability to slice or pull,
especially if the least pressing be indulged in.

Let us take the head by itself and examine it
in detail. It is usually made of beech, persim-
mon, or dogwood. A beech head is gen-
Head! erally credited with driving a slightly
longer ball, and usually one with more
carry. This is probably due to its more resil-
ient qualities. Being somewhat softer than the
other woods mentioned the ball sinks into the
face a trifle more appreciably, and therefore is
practically an integral part of the head for a
fraction of a second longer. In other words,
the head is in contact with the ball for a longer
period of time, infinitesimally so when actually
measured, but enough to store up a shade more
energy in the ball.

Beech seems to possess this quality of re-
siliency in about the right degree, being neither
too soft nor yet too hard. The climate here,

PRACTICAL GOLF

however, does not lend itself to the preservation
of the wood, and it very soon cracks in the
face, necessitating a leather inset. With a good
leather face, the head is almost as good as
ever, about the only objection being that in
wet weather the leather becomes more or less
pulpy, and consequently does not drive quite
so far. When the face shows signs of crack-
ing it should not be allowed to go too far before
being faced with leather. It will not do any
harm to a leather face to give it a coat of good
spar varnish. This will assist in filling up
the pores and help to keep moisture out. The
varnish should, however, be allowed to thor-
oughly dry before the club is used.

Next to beech, persimmon is a splendid
wood, and on account of its greater durabil-
ity is preferred by many players. It is not
quite so resilient as beech, but drives almost
as long a ball, and lasts much longer. Dog-
wood is also an excellent wood, somewhat
harder than persimmon, and more durable
than either it or beech. Except in wet weather
it is apparently improved in driving power
by being leather-faced. There is so little to
choose among the three woods mentioned that
it resolves itself into a question largely of sen-
timent, pretty much the same as the shape of

CLUBS

the head appeals to different players in various
ways.

Concerning models, it undoubtedly appears to
be the tendency to materially shorten the length
of the face, especially with class players.
sh°p=» The only advantage of a wealth of face
. is that it offers more margin for error, the
inaccurate player being more likely to hit the
ball with some part of it, even though a slice or
a pull may result through the ball being struck
off the heel or the toe of the club. The more
accurate hitter, however, finds that the weight
of the wood unnecessarily taken up by a long
face can be used to greater mechanical advan-
tage, and he accordingly proceeds to cut off
the toe and add its equivalent weight where
it will do the most good — behind the point of
impact. Or he gets a new club built on these
lines, and it does not take him long to discover
the greater merits of the change from the
longer balls he is enabled to drive. Another
feature in connection with the small - faced
head is perhaps worthy of consideration, in
respect of the lesser atmospheric resistance
encountered in the swing. Like the weight,
however, the size and shape of the head are
matters of individual preference.

Heads may be divided into two classes, those
H 113

PRACTICAL GOLF

with a scare to which the shaft is glued and
then bound with wnipping, and those into the
neck of which a hole is bored to re
H»d>». ceive the shaft. The latter are com-
1*»d! mon ly known as socket heads. Be-
longing to the latter family may be
included also the spliced fork, formed by saw-
ing a narrow slit about one-quarter inch wide,

SPLICED FOHK, REGULAR, AND FLUSH-JOINT SOCKETS

and two and one-half inches to three inches
deep in the neck. Both of the latter class ap-
pear to possess an advantage over the orig-
inal type in that the spring is brought closer
to the face, enabling a somewhat longer ball
to be driven. Moreover, there is not the same
liability of the head becoming unglued and
flying off the shaft.
Recognizing the undoubted merits of the
114.

CLUBS

ordinary socket head, a firm of well-known
manufacturers have developed the. principle
still further by shortening the neck until there
is practically no neck left, a hole being drilled

SHOWING SECTION OF AND A SCREW SOCKET

through what little is left of it with a left-hand
screw, to within about one -sixteenth of the
sole, and the shaft being firmly secured there-
in with glue. Actual tests have demonstrated
the longer driving power of this head.

The question as to how the head should
lie when affixed to the shaft is purely a mat-
ter of individual taste. It may, how-
Tht Lie ever, be remarked in this connection
that the player who is habitually prone
to slicing may remedy this weakness to some
extent by using a head with the toe slightly
“S

PRACTICAL GOLF

cocked up when held naturally, while he whose
besetting sin is an undue inclination towards
pulling may find a partial corrective by using
a flat-lying club.

In the matter of weight, no absolutely fixed
rule can be laid down, as so much depends
upon the physical conformation of the
of Ht.d player, a n d the character of his swing.
It may, however, be affirmed that the
weight of the ordinary head should not be less
than six and one- half ounces, or more than
eight and one -half ounces. The happy me-
dium will probably be found best suited to the
general run of men. It will have been observed
that these limitations apply to the ordinary
head, by which is meant the ordinary head as
spliced to the shaft. The socket head, and
especially the last one of this class just re
ferred to, can carry a shade more weight, ow-
ing to the saving effected by the abolition of
the neck.

The disposition of the lead in a head exercises
a very marked influence on the accurate flight
of a ball. If it be massed equally on
“f lm” both sides behind the centre of the face,
“ua”‘ * nen a , Da ^ struck properly in the mid-
dle of the face will assuredly go straight,
while the same ball if hit off the heel or toe
116

C L U B S

will almost surely be sliced or pulled, as the
case may be. Consequently, if the lead be
inserted with the bulk running towards the
heel, a ball hit in the centre of the face will
likely be pulled, while a ball hit in the same
place off a club the lead in which inclines
towards the toe will in all probability be some-
what sliced.

In order to avoid the possibility of any
spin being imparted to the ball, either to the
right or the left, it is advisable to have the
lead put in equidistant laterally behind the
proposed point of impact, which is the centre
of the face.

According, also, as to whether the lead be well
up towards the top or down towards the sole,
so is the trajectory of the ball affected. In the
former case the ball will have a low flight with
but little carry, and considerable run, while
in the latter a high ball with but little run
will result.

The angle which the face of the club presents
to the ball is a very important factor. It
should properly be at right angles to the pro-
posed flight of the ball. If it be hooked and
the ball be truly hit a pull will certainly follow,
while if the natural lie is so laid away as to face
to the right the ball will go in that direction.
117

PRACTICAL GOLF

Some players with a faulty swing or de-
ficient follow -through purposely use a club
slightly hooked to counteract such
“™» d weakness, particularly players who
seem to find it impossible to avoid
slicing. There is no doubt that a hooked
face acts as a corrective of slicing. The
true remedy, however, should be applied to
the swing itself. That is where the trouble
originates and resides. The bulger head owes
its origin to the innate tendency of a ball
being hit off the heel describing a curve to
the right, and one off the toe to the left. To
offset this the face is made with a suggestion
of convexity, hooked, as it were, towards the
heel and laid away towards- the toe, the centre
being practically at right angles to the true
direction. The true type of the bulger head
has fallen into disuse, and now the vast major-
ity are made with practically straight faces.

Some men have difficulty in getting the
ball up, while others seem unable to avoid
Dririo skying their tee shots, irrespective of
High the face being slightly laid back or be-
ing putter-faced, and also without ref-
erence to the height of the tee used. This indi-
cates that there is unquestionably some defect
again in the swing. With a correct swing it
118

C L U B S

follows that when the face of the club is laid
back a higher ball is driven than with a club
having a straight or putter face. The higher
ball is perhaps more effective with the wind, or
where a hazard involving a long carry has to
be negotiated, but against the wind it is a bit
of a handicap.

By means of a comparatively straight-faced
club, however, a high or a low ball may be
driven, according to the height of the tee used.
In this connection it may be remarked, en
passant, that most players tee their balls too
high.

In selecting a head it is well to see that the
grain of the wood runs at right angles to the

The face, or approximately so, and straight
onio or up the neck. This not only contrib-
00 utes in a degree towards greater dis-
tance, but tends also to greater longevity, as
it were, of the head itself by reason of the
lesser liability of flaking or cracking.

Before leaving the maker’s hands the head

is given a rubbing of linseed oil on all parts

excepting the face and the sole, and

oiuac’ ^ ien varnished* m order to keep out

moisture. A few makers even put a

coat of varnish on the sole, and I am not sure

that this isn’t a good idea. It is advisable to

119

PRACTICAL GOLF

occasionally put a touch of linseed oil on all
parts excepting the face. Never keep clubs
in a hot place or a damp one. In a hot at-
mosphere the glue will be affected and loose
heads result, and, moreover, the natural supply
of oil in the cells of the wood will soon dry
out, and cracks will inevitably result. In a
damp situation moisture will be absorbed, and
the heads will lose driving power. A cool, dry
place is the best.

CLUB SHAFTS

HAVING dealt with the head sufficiently in
detail for all practical purposes let us now turn
our attention to the shaft, which is, perhaps, the
most important part of the whole club. A poor
head on a good shaft makes a much better club
than a good head on a poor shaft. It is safe
to say that the majority of shafts as ordinarily
turned out are not by any means first class, and
it is harder to get a good one than a good head.

For one really good one you will find ten
indifferent ones, some of which indeed are
absolutely impossible. The only remedy is
to get your clubs from a reputable maker, or
select the shafts yourself.

On the whole, hickory is the best wood,
and since this seems to be an accepted fact we
will not trouble ourselves to discuss the relative
merits of others which are sometimes used,
with more or less success.

PRACTICAL GOLF

Of the different grades of hickory the clear
white is probably the best. In selecting a shaft

Th- see that the grain runs as straight as
M«tim possible throughout the entire length,
and that the shaft recovers its straight-
ness quickly when subjected to pressure. It is
better, perhaps, to be very stiff, as it can then be
worked down, and unnecessary weight be thus
disposed of without affecting the desired spring
or suppleness, or running any risk of its be-
coming warped. A shaft which stays bent
when pressure is exerted lacks driving power.
If it springs back to its original shape and at
the same time is straight grained, it is pretty
sure to be a good one. Get one that fits both
requirements. The trouble with the major-
ity of shafts which are turned out is that the
wood has not been properly seasoned and
they soon lose their shape. The lighter it is
in weight, combined with stiffness, the better.
We are dealing now, remember, with shafts
in the rough, although all that has been said
applies largely to the finished article. Of
course it is patent, in referring to the weight,
that this has reference to the shaft before it
is fixed to the head. Therefore, we say that
a really good shaft should be light, while
possessing at the same time the other qualities
122

C L U B S HA F T S

mentioned. It is a somewhat singular, and,
at first sight, rather anomalous, fact that a
heavy shaft on, say, a seven-and-a-half-ounce
head will make the club feel lighter than a
lighter shaft on the same head. It is all a
matter of balance.

A wobbly shaft is not recommended for any
player. The really good one has a steely
sort of spring, which is somewhat rare to find.
The spring should be felt throughout the en-
tire length, but in a greater degree towafds
the head. Very frequently one will be ap-
parently dead, without any responsiveness,
when fitted to the head. Such a one may often
be made just right by thinning it off slightly
under the grip.

The man with a very fast swing will find
it more conducive to accuracy to use a some-
what stiffer shaft than the player with less
freedom. With a limber shaft in the hands
of the rapid swinger the hands will arrive at
the ball before the head, and slicing and pull-
ing will probably result. In a matter of this
kind it can only be left to the individual to
work out his own salvation, and ascertain
for himself the degree of suppleness needed,
keeping in mind the general principles referred
to. The balance of the club is largely governed
123

PRACTICAL GOLF

by the length and character of the shaft. It
may safely be said that a seven-and-a-half-
ounce head will feel lighter on a shaft
si skaft forty-three and a half to forty-four and
a half inches long as measured from the
sole of the club if gripped at forty-two or forty-
three inches than the same head will feel on a
shaft forty-two or forty-three inches long when
the latter is gripped at the end. Just what the
length should be must be left to the player’s
own judgment. Some short men play with
long clubs, while others affect very short ones,
and the same is true of tall men, yet the actual
results are approximately the same. From
forty-one to forty-four inches, as measured
from the extreme end to the sole of the club,
appears to be the general range.

What has already been stated regarding
the care of heads applies with equal force to
shafts. They should occasionally be oiled, and
should be kept in a dry, cool place.

THE BRASSEY AND OTHER CLUBS

We now come to the brassey. This is sub-
stantially the same as the driver, excepting
that it is a trifle heavier and more laid back,
and has a brass plate affixed to the sole
124

CLUB SHAFTS

Usually, also, the shaft is a shade stiffer.
There are good reasons for these slight dif-
ferences. On a hole where distance is neces-
sary this is the club usually employed after
the tee shot with the driver, and you are called
upon to play the ball as it lies. If it is practi-
cally teed up the driver is the best club to use.
More frequently, however, it is not teed up,
and often is lying very indifferently. To get
it up the face of the brassey is usually laid
back a little more than the driver, and it is
preferably a trifle heavier than the latter, and
with a somewhat stiffer shaft, so as to cut
through any obstructions after the ball is
hit. To aid in playing the ball out of a cuppy
lie the face is all the better for being smaller
than the driver, and the sole should also be
more or less convex, to suit the taste of the
user. A small head with a convex sole will
fit into a poor lie much better than one with a
longer face and a flat sole.

For all round play a narrower face is better,
assisting, as it does, in getting the ball up bet-
Narrow * er With the ball as it is ordinarily

Face found after the tee shot there is little

danger of getting too much under it,

without sclaffing, and the narrow face comes

in very useful. The deeper the face is the

125

PRACTICAL GOLF

greater is the tendency to drive a low ball. A
certain reasonable depth is all the better in a
driver where the ball is usually played off a
tee, but the conditions are not exactly the same
where a brassey is called into requisition.

The deeper the face of the brassey the more
it requires to be laid back or lofted. Most
brassies are made with the face both too deep
and too long — the unnecessary wealth of wood
being an absolute detriment instead of an as-
sistance.

The brass plate should not be too thick.
The fact that the club is so protected at the
sole is of some sentimental value, and the
player is imbued with the feeling that he can
bang it into the ball freely without any fear
of harming the club, whereas with the driver
he would be somewhat inclined to ease up
on the stroke lest he should perchance strike
some unseen pebble or other underlying ob-
struction.

The screws which hold the plate sometimes
work loose. This trouble may easily be rem-
edied by putting glue in the holes before in-
serting the screws.

The cleek is used where the distance from

the hole is between a full brassey shot and a

full iron, or when the ball is lying badly and

126

C L U B SHAFTS

as great a distance as can be secured is neces-
sary, and when the nature of the lie hardly
cone*™, admits of the brassey being used. The
toe u>* shaft should be fairly stiff, and the head
only moderately laid back for general
purposes. The blade should not be too long,
and it should err on the side of being narrow
in depth rather than otherwise. It is all the
better, as well, to be short in the socket. The
greater amount of weight in the blade should
incline towards the sole.

The mid-iron is usually employed when the
stroke to be played is neither a cleek shot nor
a full mashie. It is also frequently used
Mid-iron Ior running-up approaches instead of
pitching with the mashie. It is more
laid back than the cleek and more heavily
weighted towards the sole, with the result that
the ball is more lofted and has less run. The
face is all the better for being a trifle longer
and deeper than the cleek.

Next in order comes the mashie. This,
I consider, should be fairly heavy — much
heavier, proportionately, than the other
Huhie clubs. The really best way of approach-
ing with this club demands, ordinarily,
that a certain amount of turf should be taken
after the ball is hit. Very frequently, indeed,
127

PRACTICAL GOLF

it happens that a good deal of turf has to be
taken, by reason of a poor lie, with a trifle
sometimes, before the ball is reached. On
this account a fairly heavy head is a desid-
eratum, as a light one would be the more in-
clined to be diverted in its course from con-
tact with the ground. The blade is better
for being deep and short in the face. By
the greater depth more latitude for error is
permitted in playing out of a deep, grassy
He, where inaccurate hitting would result
in getting too much under the ball, while
the short face enables the head to better deal
with a poor lie. The pattern known as the
Taylor model possesses, probably, the best
all-round merits.

The mashie is usually laid back a trifle
more than the iron, and, as a sequence, the
ball is pitched much higher, with relatively
less run. It is not advisable to have too much
loft on the face, as this calls for a more delicate
nicety of hitting. The shaft is not so long as
the iron, which, in turn, is generally a trifle
shorter than the cleek. And it is all the bet-
ter for being stiff. Avoid, above all things, a
whippy shaft on a mashie, or, for that matter,
on any iron club. The only object of a whippy
shaft is to secure a somewhat longer ball.
128

C L U B SHAFTS

There is no excuse for such on a mashie.
If distance is desired use an iron, when the
shot is one that demands a longer ball than
can be comfortably played with the weaker
club.

Touching putters, their name is legion. We
have the wooden putter with a long, straight

face, and putters made of various metals,
putters of all conceivable shapes and sizes and

degrees of loft, some even with an in-
verse loft, that is, with the face hanging in
towards the ball. They all have merit, in
some degree, as is evidenced by the good work
accomplished in the hands of different players.
Sentiment counts for a great deal. Let a man
take a fancy to any one of the various kinds
on the market — that’s the putter for him. It’s
a very good thing to have decided views re-
garding the style of putter you feel will suit
you. Sad and unfortunate, however, will be
the lot of the beginner who does not know
what he wants, and who first leans to a goose-
neck because A uses one, only to be captivated,
although distrustfully, with a straight-faced
club because B has one, to be hesitatingly
rejected in favor of a putting cleek for a similar
reason, and who winds up, generally in sheer
desperation, with some new idea that is sup-
I 129

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

posed to embody all the good qualities of all
three, but which is found after a little while
to perform all sorts of vagaries, due, almost
entirely, to the player’s lack of confidence
in the club — and himself. The better plan,
really, is to take out three or four different
kinds of weapons and ascertain in a practical
way, by experimenting, which accomplishes
the best work. It will simmer down to one 01
two. If one only, so much the better; stick
to that club and don’t change it. If the choice
resolves itself into two, get both, and con-
tinue to use them alternately until you are
satisfied which is the better under all sorts of
conditions. You may possibly find that one
is better adapted for keener greens, while
the other is more suitable for rougher and
slower greens. In such case it is not a bad
plan to make a practice of carrying both, so
that if you should happen to go off with the
one you have the other to fall back upon.
On the whole> however, it is much better to pin
your faith to a single putter and to change
the character of the stroke to suit the varying
conditions of the greens.

As a general principle it may be stated that

a putting-cleek is the more useful on a very

keen green, while the straight-faced putter is

130

. C L U B SHAFTS

perhaps better on a slower one. The more
loft there is on the face the harder may the
ball be hit, in comparison with one which
is straight-faced.

The shaft should be stiff, otherwise the
slightest degree of extra strength applied to
the stroke will cause the ball to go careering
away past the hole. And it is the better for
being comparatively short. The lie of the head,
to adapt itself to a short shaft, should be more
upright.

I have treated severally of the driver,

brassey, cleek, mid-iron, mashie, and putter,

which have been referred to as necessa-

ciub* ry f° r the proper playing of the game.
Quite frequently, however, good players
carry one or two additional clubs as a regular
part of their equipment, so as to bridge over the
shades of difference existing between a brassey
and a cleek, a cleek and an iron, and an iron and
a mashie; thus’ making the playing of such
hybrid strokes more easy of accomplishment.
Very often shots of this kind are met with.
You may be just that distance away from the
hole that a full stroke with a brassey would
carry you beyond, while a full cleek would
be a bit short. Now in order to get the exact
distance desired you have either to let up a
131

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

trifle with the one club or let into it a little more
—press, in short— with the other. The thing
can be done, of course, but there is always
an attendant risk of failure. To meet such
exigencies a spoon is used. This is simply
a brassey with the face laid back more than
usual, and with the shaft a little shorter!

Likewise there is a niche between the iron
and the mashie, especially where you are called
upon to carry a hazard close up to the green
and with some possible trouble beyond. To
negotiate such a shot successfully it is neces-
sary either to put cut on the ball if an iron is
used, or to play a full mashie shot without
sparing it. This is just where the jigger fits
in nicely. The head is a cross between the
iron and the mashie. The blade is not quite so
long as the iron, is narrower, and more laid
back in the face, and is weighted more tow-
ards the sole. The shot off it is principally all
carry.

Excepting the driver, the mashie, and the

putter, I consider that every other club should

be played at about its maximum value,

Three- by means of an easy, full shot, without

“shou an y a ttempt at forcing the stroke on

the one hand or sparing it on the other.

The necessary gradations of distance with each

132

C L U B S HA F T S

particular club, however, may very easily be
controlled by the extent to which it is taken
back — not by seeking to accelerate or diminish
the speed of the stroke. In other words, I be-
lieve in dispensing, so far as possible, with
three – quarter shots or half shots, excepting
with the mashie.

In addition to the several clubs mentioned,
a driving-iron, or driving-mashie, or mashie-
cleek, will be found very useful, especially for
tee shots, or playing through the green against
a strong head wind.

It would hardly be proper to conclude this
chapter without reference to the niblick, al-
though most good players rarely car-
Nibiick ry one, except in an important match,
using a mashie instead. There is no
doubt, however, that for getting out of bunkers
or trouble of any serious kind the niblick is
unquestionably the better club. It should be
heavy and the shaft stiff. The head should
be very small and well weighted towards the
sole, and with a generous amount of loft on
the face.

Apropos of iron clubs generally, it is not a

bad plan, if the shaft shrinks and gets loose

in the hose or socket, or when putting in a new

shaft, to glue it in. You will rarely, then,

133

PRACTICAL GOLF

be troubled with loose heads, and the risk of
breakage will also be minimized.

BALLS

There is not much of value to be said on this
subject, for the simple reason that the large
majority of the various makes on the market
are about on a par, in so far as the gutta-percha
article is concerned. The essential qualities
of a really good ball are that it should possess
resiliency and be sufficiently hard to retain
its shape. The first requisite, that of resiliency,
is best secured by using pure gutta-percha,
while proper seasoning will take care of the
rest.

Generally speaking, if a ball stotts or bounces
well it will fly well, the carry being percepti-
bly longer than with one that is not

Baiii so responsive. If it floats, so much the
better. The three leading patterns of
moulding are the Silvertown, Musselburgh,
and Agrippa. There is practically no differ-
ence in regard to the flight if the markings
are clear cut and well defined; it resolves
itself into a question of personal choice. When
a ball ducks or does not have any well-sus-
tained flight it will usually be found that the
134

CLUB SHAFTS

imprint of the mould is not deep enough or is
too thickly covered with paint. Occasionally,
also, the erratic flight
may be due to the
presence of an air-
bubble inside the ball,
and when such is the
case the ball is very
liable to crack.

After a ball is first
made it should be
stored away in a cool,
dry place to season for FEATHER ball

about six months be-
fore being painted, otherwise it will soon lose
its shape and be very sensitive to rough usage.
If the paint is applied
too soon it interferes
with the oxidization of
the material through
the closing of the
pores, and the surface
will remain compara-
tively soft for some
time. Usually all this

HAND-HAMMERED BALL , , ,, i i ,

has been attended to
in the case of new balls offered, but in having
them remade it is well to bear this in mind.
135

OLD GUTTA-PERCHA BALL

PRACTICAL GOLF

A new ball should be from nine to twelve
months old before being used. After a couple
of years it deteriorates
in resiliency and be-
comes too hard. If
the paint chips off, as
it sometimes does, es-
pecially with a well-
matured ball, it may
be rejuvenated by dip-
ping the ball in fairly
hot water for a little
while, taking care not to allow the gutta to
become too soft. A ball so treated should not
be played with at once.
The large majority
of balls sold are 274
size, with a few 27′s
and fewer 28′s. The
size, like the marking,
is a matter of indi-
vidual preference. I
rather favor the small-
er size, and remade at
modern ball that. If you have a

good ball to start with
it is rather improved in remaking. Less ef-
fort is required to drive the smaller ball, while
136

* b y

C L U B S HA F T S

the only disadvantages which attach to it are
that it is a trifle more easily affected by the
wind, and, some contend, is harder to play out
of a poor lie, as there is not so much availa-
ble hitting surface.

There you are, “you pays your money and
you takes your choice.”

Quite a number of balls will be collected
which are perfectly good, except that the paint
has been knocked off or otherwise af-
inc’eL’ui f ec ted- They need only repainting to
be practically as good as new. First,
it is necessary to let them stand in a bath
made of a solution of caustic potash, or lye, to
remove the old paint. About one-third of the
ordinary can mixed with half a bucketful of
water will suffice for about a couple of dozen
balls. If the paint is obdurate apply a little
more potash or put on a pair of rubber gloves
and take an old brush and thoroughly remove
all traces of the paint from the markings.
Before applying the first coat of new paint see
that the ball is thoroughly dry. Be careful
also to let each coat of paint thoroughly dry
before putting on the next. From three to
four coats are required, each as thin as pos-
sible. The first coat should fill in all the
interstices. The paint may easily be applied
137

P R A C T I C A L GOLF

by rolling the ball well in the palms of the
hands.

Very many substitutes have been tried in
place of gutta-percha, with more or less success,
Vew but the gutta ball more than holds its
Kinds of own so far. There are two substitutes
B recently brought out which possess cer-
tain merits, and are deserving of a few words.
Let us take the “Haskell” first. This con-
sists of a small core of gutta-percha, around
which, while still in a plastic state, is tightly
wound a thread of pure rubber, and is then
encased in a thin shell of gutta about one-six-
teenth of an inch thick, making the size about
that of an ordinary 2j$ ball, and of corre-
spondingly equivalent weight. The essential .
quality of this ball is its extreme resiliency,
ft flies quickly off the club with a soft, put-
ty sort of feel and without the sharp click of
the gutta. The short driver can undoubtedly
obtain greater distance with it, but f do not
find that the long driver gets any additional
length. This anomaly may be accounted for
on the theory that distance is secured and reg-
ulated by the speed at which the club head
is travelling at the moment of impact. With
a gutta the greater the velocity of the head the
longer the ball. The extent to which the ball

138

CLUB SHAFTS

flattens itself against the head is governed by
the speed of the stroke, and distance is there-
by determined. With a very rapid swing the
force or energy stored up in the gutta ball is
greater than in the Haskell. The latter, by
reason of its greater comparative resiliency,
does not remain in contact with the club head
quite so long, and therefore does not receive
the full benefit of the greater velocity of the
stroke in the same proportion as the less resil-
ient gutta. It flies off the face too quickly to
get the full measure of energy imparted by
a very swift stroke. This responsiveness or
resiliency, however, asserts itself in a greater
and more compensating degree in the case of
the shorter driver. It makes up, in his case,
for the lack of speed, and he finds his distance
very sensibly increased.

In approaching and putting its greater
liveliness makes it harder to control than
the ordinary ball. It is almost impossible
to stop it dead, no matter how much cut is
applied, and with a green well guarded the
user will find himself very seriously handi-
capped. Objections also lie against it in
putting, especially on a keen green, as it re-
sponds so readily to the slightest tap, and,
consequently, calls for greater delicacy in
139

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

respect to the stroke. Its cost is about fifty
per cent, more than the ordinary ball, and it
cannot be remade to advantage. *

The “Maponite” is the antithesis of the
“Haskell.” No gutta enters into its compo-
sition, the leading constituents, I understand,
being glycerine and cork. It is subjected to
very great pressure in moulding, and is very
hard, and stands any amount of rough usage
without being materially affected. It is mark-
edly lacking in resiliency. Its carry is not so
great as the gutta, but the run is slightly
longer. The difference in length is some-
what in favor of the latter. It goes off the
club with an unsympathetic sound and feel.
It is not affected much by the wind, nor is it
so easily influenced by a slice or a pull. On
the putting-green it requires to be hit much
harder than the ordinary ball, which is per-
haps a strong point in its favor. Its cost is
less than one -half of that of the ordinary
ball. It cannot be remade at all.

* See additional chapter, page 192.

CADDIES

A GOOD caddie is of material aid to the
player. We have not been playing sufficiently
long in this country to have developed the real
article indigenous to the famous Scottish links,
where the caddie grows up with the player,
very often plays a really good game himself,
and has, by virtue of years of experience, not
only a full knowledge of the game, but also
knows pretty thoroughly the exact limitations
of his employer’s game. And it is doubtful
whether we shall ever be able to raise a crop
of this kind. As golf continues to be played, so
will the standard of our present corps of cad-
dies be raised somewhat. But it is well to re-
member that, as a general rule, the player has
a great deal to do in the making of a good cad-
die, and until players, as a body, apply them-
selves to the proper education of the boys, there
is little hope for any general improvement.
141

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

As between a good caddie and a poor one,
it is better to have none at all. The poor one
is never up with the player, but lags behind
chronically, not realizing that he has the same
number of steps to take anyway; has either

A TYPICAL CADDIE

a much-imposed-upon expression, or else one
of profound indifference to the game or any-
thing relating to it; will insist upon getting
142

C A D D I E S

back of your ball when you are making a
stroke, even going out of his way to do it ;
delights apparently in rattling clubs or some-
thing or other, or in moving or talking when
you are putting; always requires to be told
to remove the flag; never can tell the distance
of any hole, in whole or in part; invariably
hands you the wrong club; never, or very
rarely, pretends to look where your ball goes ;
has a peculiar faculty of never being able to
find a lost ball; never knows how many strokes
you, or your opponent, have played at any
hole; neither knows nor cares whether you
are two up or three down ; will insist on stand-
ing close up to the hole when the ground is
very moist — sometimes, be it said in favor
of the boy, in obedience to the player — and
thereby making the hole akin to pne of those
impossible, in-door, practice -putting holes —
inverted saucers with a hole in — and adding
largely to the profane vocabulary of the most
piously inclined ; keeps the pin in the hole and
allows the ball to strike it and lay dead — always
when your opponent is putting ; runs, actually
runs — of course, the only time he shouldn’t —
on a very soft putting green; loses, or — new
balls from the ball-pocket of your bag; sticks
the point of the hole-marker in the ground
143

PRACTICAL GOLF

on the green; fails to properly set it in the
hole, thereby breaking the sides; talks about
his achievements at baseball or how he is
saving up his money to buy a bicycle or some-
thing; runs off after butterflies or apples;
tells you all about the wonderful shots A
brought off the day before; hasn’t the faint-
est idea of how to make a tee; never takes your
ball out of the hole ; never thinks of cleaning
it — in short, he does every conceivable thing
which he should not do, and leaves undone
everything which he should do.

The majority of boys employed as carriers
of clubs are guilty, more or less unconsciously,
of many of the faults referred to. And, after
all, the boys themselves are not wholly at
fault, as they have never been properly and
systematically educated as to their legitimate
duties. Certainly the individual player cannot
be expected to undertake the job. The best
plan, perhaps, would be for each club to draw
up a summary of the qualifications of a good
caddie and post it up where the boys may read
it — and have the caddie-master or the profes-
sional expound it in detail and read the Riot
Act to known offenders.

THE CONSTRUCTION AND
UPKEEP OF COURSES

There are comparatively few golf-links
in this country, in the true sense of the term,
while there are hundreds of courses. Most
links are situated close to the sea, and the
nearer they are to the level of the sea the bet-
ter they are. The genuine article has a sub-
stratum of sand, or sand and gravel, with an
alluvial deposit of loam on the surface of
varying depths. There are a few inland which
possess these characteristics, but the majority
lack the essential elements of sandy bottoms,
and are more properly described as courses.

On the true and relatively rare links, where
sand enters largely into the composition of the
soil, the grass is naturally of a finer and less lux-
uriant nature than on the richer and more fertile
inland soils, and much better greens are found.

It is, of course, not always practicable to es-
K 145

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

tablish a golf-course on the best ground adapt-
able for the proper playing of the game,
irrespective of the desired quality of the soil,
and many regrettable mistakes have been
made in this direction and a great deal of
expense incurred in the formation of courses
which are but sorry imitations of what they
should be. Many of them combine a max-
imum of mountain-climbing with a minimum
of golf, while more are spoiled through being
improperly laid out in respect to the distances
of the holes or the disposition of the hazards.
Of course this has been largely inevitable
owing to the remarkably rapid spread of the
game, and the lack of knowledge or inex-
perience of players, or those having the matter
in charge. With the growing improvement
in play, however, it is gratifying to observe a
more general desire to bring the courses up to
a better standard in every way. Probably the
some kest courses in this country are Garden
goo """*" County, Newport, Nassau, Apawamis,
Midlothian, and Myopia, while for a nine-hole
course Meadowbrook is easily first, with West-
brook and Oakland good seconds. The eigh-
teen-hole course of the Ekwanok Country Club
of Manchester, Vermont, laid out last season,
146

*

C O U R S E S

also has promise of being a really good one in
time. Apart from soil characteristics, all of the
courses mentioned lend themselves favorably to
beregardedas being pre-eminent by reason of the
contour of the ground, the distances of the holes,
and the matter of hazards, natural and artificial.

A perfectly flat expanse of ground, quite
apart from the varying distances of the holes, is
not nearly so good as one with gentle undula-
tions, affording diversity of play, and present-
ing new and interesting problems at each hole.
On the other hand, a very hilly course is open
to objection on account of the physical fatigue
involved, there being more exercise required
than is commensurate with the mere playing
of the game itself. Mountain-climbing is one
thing and golf is distinctly another. It is
never enduringly satisfactory to attempt to
combine both.

In laying out or making changes in a course
it is highly desirable that the distances should
Layiw De sucn as *° rewara good play and not

0"< put a premium on poor play. Consid-
eration of distance should go hand-in-
hand with the consideration of hazards. * It is
quite possible to have a very good course so
laid out in respect to distances as to be entirely

• See additional chapter on Hazards, page 181.
147

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

free from hazards of any kind, where each shot,
perfectly played, would carry its own reward.
On a single-shot hole the good player would
be on the green in one, while on holes calling
for two or three strokes, properly executed,
to reach the green the distances should be on
the basis of from one hundred and seventy-
five yards to one hundred and ninety yards,
or the multiple thereof, so that no opportunity
would be afforded a player flubbing a stroke
to make it up on the next,

A course, however, laid out on these lines
would be lacking in interest, as all first-class
players occasionally make mistakes, and those
mistakes should carry- a penalty of some kind.
Distance alone is not the essence of the game.
Then, too, the moral effect of a hazard ought
to be considered. It is a very potent element.

As furnishing a really good test of golf, my
idea of distances, based on fairly level
*cou™' stretches and eliminating wind influ-
ences, and with the hazards scientifi-
cally arranged, is somewhat as follows :

Out 340 310 490 I5» 320 360 190 510 300—2970

Par Play ;... 4-4 5 3 4 4 3 5 4—36

In 115 400 350 500 270 330 370 470 315—3120

Par ... . 3 4 4 5 4 4 4 5 4— 37

Total distance, 6090 yards. Par play, 73 strokes.
. I48

n*

C O U R S E S

Now these distances have not been arrived
at in a haphazard way, but have been defi-
nitely determined upon so as to call into req-
uisition during the round every club in the
bag, provided each shot has been well exe-
cuted, and so bring out all the well-rounded
qualities of the first-class player. Let us an-
alyze each hole — play such imaginary- round,
as it should be played, when every shot comes
off ideally right—and see if it comes up to the
proper standard. We will assume that we
can drive from one hundred and seventy-five
to two hundred and ten yards ; brassey, one-
hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety
yards; get from one hundred and fifty to one
hundred and eighty yards with cleek or driving-
mashie ; one hundred and twenty to one hun-
dred and fifty yards with a mid-iron, and
lesser distances with a mashie. There is
nothing extravagant in these distances, with
class players'.

At the first hole (three hundred and forty
yards) we find confronting us a bunker one
hundred and twenty-five yards from the tee,
with hazards beyond on either side to catch
a sliced or pulled ball. We get over the bunker
safely with some fifty or. sixty yards to spare.
Some eighty yards from the green is a sand
¦ 149 '

i b y

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

ditch. A cleek shot will carry this and land
us comfortably on the green, without over-
running into the long grass on the other side.
The regulation two putts and we are down in
a par four.

On the second hole (three hundred and ten
yards) all is plain sailing on the drive, except
for the omnipresent long grass on either side
of the fair green, and which is a feature of
nearly every hole on the course. Some sixty
yards from the green is another wide sand
ditch, with the same rough going the far side
of the green that will be found on nearly every
hole. An ordinary iron shot should easily
enable us to get the green.

Third hole (four hundred and ninety yards).
Some two hundred and fifty yards from the
tee a road has to be carried on the second shot,
otherwise there is no trouble. A drive, brassey
and iron will land us on the green in three
strokes.

Fourth hole (one hundred and fifty yards).
A full iron ought to land us on the green and
escape the bunker one hundred and fifteen
yards from the tee.

Fifth hole (three hundred and twenty yards).

Another drive and iron. The only features

of this hole are long grass one hundred yards

150

*

CO U R S E S

from the tee, and a sand ditch thirty-five yards
or so beyond the hole.

Sixth hole (three hundred and sixty yards).
Another road crosses the line of play two
hundred and eighty yards from the tee. Two
good shots should reach the green.

Seventh hole (one hundred and ninety
yards). There is nothing at all to interfere
with a good drive here, and the long player
will get home without any special effort.

Eighth hole (five hundred and ten yards).
Fifty yards from the green is a wide sand ditch,
which may easily be carried with an iron, or
cleek, if the drive and brassey have not been
particularly long.

Ninth hole (three hundred yards). A road
one hundred and forty-five yards off, with
broken ground intervening, abounding in
poor lies, makes a good drive necessary. No
other hazards.

Tenth hole (one hundred and fifteen yards).
A pond stretches from the foot of the tee some
eighty yards across to the green, which is
fully guarded by wide sand ditches at the back
and sides. A full mashie should land close
up to the hole.

Eleventh hole (four hundred yards). Here

is where the very long player should meet

151

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

with due reward if he gets off two screamers.
The bunker, three hundred and twenty yards
from the tee, ought not to have any terrors for
him or for the ordinary good player.

Twelfth hole (three hundred and fifty yards).
This will be played the same as the first hole,
excepting that the going is free from hazards
— save the long grass beyond the green to
catch an over-play.

Thirteenth hole (five hundred yards). One
hundred and forty yards from the tee a bunker
has to be carried.

Fourteenth hole (two hundred and seventy
yards). From the tee to the fair green, one
hundred and thirty yards away, the grass
has been left uncut. The green is surrounded
with bunkers some thirty yards equidistant
from the hole, necessitating a high lofted ap-
proach with cut to hold the green.

Fifteenth hole (three hundred and thirty
yards). Very sandy soil, with indifferent lies,
marks the going for some one hundred yards
until a slight depression is reached where the
lies are excellent for another one hundred
and twenty yards. Thenceforward, until about
eighty yards from the green (which is in an-
other slight depression) poor lies are the rule.

Sixteenth hole (three hundred and seventy
152

*

C O U R S E S

yards). A brook has to be crossed on the
second shot, some two hundred and ninety
yards from the tee.

Seventeenth hole (four hundred and seventy
yards). Two hundred and forty yards from
the tee is a wide sand ditch. The green is on
a plateau of about forty yards square, dipping
down slightly on all sides.

Eighteenth hole (three hundred and fifteen
yards). One hundred and ten yards away
is a ravine about thirty yards across, with an-
other eighty yards beyond the hole.
. Such is a brief sketch of a course that ought
to bring out all the good golf there is in a man
to do it in a decent score. An endeavor has been
made to arrange the distances and likewise the
hazards so that it is practically impossible to
get off a poor shot and make a recovery on the
next, save by some phenomenal stroke.

The large majority of courses have too many

levelling holes, of from two hundred and twenty

to two hundred and sixty yards, and

Hoi'« e w '*h th e hazards so arranged that a

player may top a drive and yet get the

green on the next shot by simply taking a full

stroke with some club, in the same number of

strokes as the man who has played the hole

perfectly. Or the hole may be from four hun-

153

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PR A C T I C A L GOLF

dred and fifteen to four hundred and thirty
yards, calling for three strokes to get home, the
first or second of which may be topped or sliced
or pulled without any loss, it being compara-
tively easy to reach the green in three, while
the better player, making each stroke per-
fectly, cannot do better than expend the same
number of strokes. The true remedy is to so

apportion the distances as to demand
Di>ti>ac« the playing of one, two, or three perfect

strokes, as the case may be — or when
this is not practicable to so arrange the hazards
as to catch a poorly played stroke. In respect
to distances, a single-stroke hole may be any-
where from one hundred yards up to two hun-
dred — two hundred being the maximum, as
anything beyond that is scarcely within the
compass of any but the extraordinarily long
driver. Coming now to holes of greater length,
it is advisable to proceed upon some proper
basis. Anything between one hundred and
fifty yards and one hundred and ninety yards
may be taken as a fair mean, the lesser dis-
tance being accepted as a fixed minimum.
Thus we have one hundred and fifty yards
or the multiple of three hundred yards for a
two-stroke hole, or four hundred and fifty
yards for a three – stroke hole, on the one
J 54

*

C O U R S £ S

hand, with one hundred and ninety, three
hundred and eighty, or five hundred and sev-
enty yards on the other. Anything within
these limits of from one hundred and fifty to
one hundred and ninety yards, forming the
basis, may be accepted as furnishing little
room for recovery without penalty in case of a
poor stroke, while anything outside of the lim-
its mentioned tends rather to pull the better
player down to the level of the poorer one.
Somewhere between one hundred and fifty
and one hundred and ninety cannot be far
wrong. Take the mean of one hundred and
seventy yards, or the multiple of three hundred
and forty yards, for instance; it is obvious
that the player cannot hope to reach the green
on his second shot when he has failed to get
off a fairly respectable drive. To do so he ¦
must make an exceedingly long second. And
unless he can rise to the occasion by perform-
ing such an exceptionally brilliant stroke it is
only fair and proper that the poor drive should
be meted with some penalty.

It may be contended that a course such as
we have outlined may be suited for first-class
players, but that the large majority of the
players in nearly every club fall short of such
excellence, and that therefore the course should
155

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PR A C T I C A L GOLF

be laid out with reference to the majority, who
otherwise would be spending the greater part
of their time in bunkers. Not at all ; there is
no such need to prostitute the game. Lay out
the course in every way solely with regard to
its being fully up to the highest standard at
Aitanu- *^ e ou tset, and until improvement in
«»¦ play manifests itself construct alterna-
tive tees — two or three, if necessary, for
each hole — so as to make it possible for the
weaker players to better negotiate the hazards.
It doesn’t involve much trouble or expense to
build up tees and provide sand-boxes, etc., for
each, while it means both time and money to
build up a new green. The alternative tees
spoken of may be so arranged as to shorten
the holes from twenty to fifty yards, or what-
ever distances may be desired. All competitions,
however, should be played over the full length
of the course. Endeavor, so far as possible, to
avoid constructing artificial tees. Where it is
necessary to do so try and get them as large
as possible, so as to keep them in good repair
by constantly changing the plates or teeing-
marks. Aim to have all built-up tees sodded.
Anything but turf tees is an abomination.
A tee should have almost as much care as a
green, and should be freely watered in summer,

¦56

»

CO U R S E S

I have already stated that the distances
of the holes referred to have been laid out on
the assumption that the ground is fairly level,
and also without any regard to the wind.
The majority of courses are not level, and on
some the wind is a very potent factor. Con-
sequently, it is essential that these elements
should be carefully considered, according to the
natural contour of the surface and the pre-
vailing winds during the playing season. I
say during the playing season, as very few
courses in this country can be played over
during the whole year.

No bunker on a first-class course should
be so arranged as to trap a good drive, or,
following a good tee shot, to catch a
Bunker* good second with the green yet some
distance away. Bunkers should be
arranged with the primary idea of penalizing
poor play only. Nor should they be made
with perpendicular and precipitous faces so
as to make it almost impossible to get out
in one stroke. Instead of the array of steep
cops with narrow ditches which disfigure so
many courses, aim rather to make the cops
more semicircular in shape, and to have wider
ditches leading up to them. It is better, also,
if possible, to cover the embankments with
157

*

PR A C T I C AL GOLF

sand rather than to have them turfed, and
to likewise fill the ditch with several inches
of sand, so that the hall should be played
where it lies, and thus avoid the necessity
of any local rule providing for the dropping
in the bunker or ditch of a ball lodging in or
on the face of the turfed creations. All arti-
ficial hazards should be made of or liberally
covered with sand.

The width of the fair green should be about
seventy-five yards. Particular attention should

be paid to the places where good shots
c’ounc should go, say from one hundred and

twenty to two hundred and twenty
yards from the tee, and so on correspondingly
with long holes, so that each good shot- should
be rewarded with a good lie. Rather let the
intervening ground go somewhat neglected, as
a player has no business there anyway. On
the sides hazards should be arranged to catch
sliced or pulled balls, where long grass is not
present. Endeavor to so construct the haz-
ards as to* furnish some diversity, rather than
have them all of the same family type.

In laying out a new course or making
changes in an old one, it is highly advisable
to secure expert advice before commencing
work.

*

XIII
PUTTING GREENS

THE climate in this country can hardly be
said to lend itself to the growth or develop-
ment of natural greens of the first rank. The
extreme heat and cold are not favorable allies.
Therefore, all really good greens call for arti-
ficial treatment from their inception to protect
them from adverse climatic conditions and to
insure their being kept well. In the first

place, it is absolutely essential that
ofwatH eac h green should be freely watered

during the summer months, and this
can only be properly done by laying a system
of pipes. Unless this is done the grass be-
comes blistered by the heat and drought, and
the ground gets hard and lumpy.

Nearly all good courses have water laid on
to every green. It is not too much, in fact,
to say, that no first-class green can be main-
tained without such aid, intelligently applied.
159

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PR A C T I C A L GOLF

The best time to do the watering is after
the sun is down, otherwise possible injury
may result to the grass, to say nothing of the
loss from evaporation on a hot, sunny day.
The water should be applied in a fine spray,
not on any account in a solid stream or un-
broken jet, which is liable to make the sur-
face rough by washing out the soil. It should
be kept going sufficiently long to thoroughly
percolate through to the roots of the grass.
It is much better to thus soak a green twice
a week than to simply moisten the surface
nightly. More especially does a new green
demand a liberal supply of water in order to
give the young grass a chance to get well
rooted.

Where the natural conditions are favorable
it is advisable to build up a green from the
old turf. But if coarse grass exists to

New run to resort to sodding. In the event
of good sod not being available, there
is but one thing left to do, and that is to
plough up the surface to a depth of a foot or
so and remove all loose material. Then pro-
ceed to fill in a layer of sand a few inches
in depth, and cover it with good loam about
an inch or so thick; on top of this put a thin
160

*

PUTTING GREENS

crust of well-rotted manure, and then another
layer of loam of two or three inches. At this
stage apply a dressing of bone-dust, with a
touch of slacked lime. Cover this with ‘ a
suggestion of sand, superficially only, and
top off with loam, the surface being raked
and finely pulverized. Sow liberally with a
mixture of recleaned Red Top, Rhode Island
Bent, Creeping Bent, Crested Dog’s Tail, and
Kentucky Blue grass, and level off and roll
with a very light roller. It is of prime impor-
tance that the ground should be abundantly
supplied with moisture to make sure of the
roots becoming firmly established, as it is not
always safe to rely upon Dame Nature to look
after this end of the business. Err on the
side of an apparent excess of moisture rather
than an insufficiency, especially during the
early stages and the first season.

Aim to give diversity to the greens in respect
to the character of the surface, avoiding as
far as possible dead levels. Rather let the
contour be of a gently undulating nature here
and there. This may very easily be done
also in the case of sodded greens.

Where there is a fairly good foundation to
work upon in the shape of average turf that
offers promise with a little nursing, it is better
L 161

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

to accept what the gods give us and make the
best of it. Proceed first by carefully removing
by the roots any weeds or coarse grass; then
gently loosen the surface, particularly on bare
spots, with a rake, and cover with a thin dress-
ing over the entire green of rich loam previous-
ly mixed with bone-dust and, if possible, sheep
manure, with a liberal admixture of the grass
seeds already mentioned. Rake over thor-
oughly with a wooden rake, and lightly
roll and keep freely watered. Well -rotted
manure is a good plant food, in conjunction
with bone-dust, but the paramount objection
to it is that it is apt to contain weed germs,
consequently it cannot be safely recommend-
ed at any time for top-dressing. Pulverized
sheep manure is also excellent, but not so
readily procurable. A slight sprinkling of
wood-ashes will do no harm. Avoid, how-
ever, any over-indulgence in potash fertilizers,
as they provoke a growth of clover, and clover
clover is °’ an 5′ kind has no place on a course.
un the greens, it has a very "draggy"
and retarding effect on the run of a ball, and
is therefore undesirable. It is also objection-
able through the fair green, as it has no sus-
taining power to hold a ball up. The ball
162

^

PUTTING GREENS

sinks through the yielding cluster of leaves
and stems and so embeds itself that it has to
be dug out by the roots as it were. Before
the face of the club can reach the ball in a
patch of clover it has first to come in contact
with the intervening leaves, and the stroke is
thus robbed of a good deal of power.

The ideal putting-green is covered with a
close sward of very fine grass, with a thick
matting of roots. The blades should be fine
and slender, silky and yet tenacious — en-
tirely different from the ordinary first-class
lawn. A coarse, large-bladed grass, the prod-
uct of undue fertility, is not what is wanted
— quite the contrary. Putting, in the true
sense of the word, is impossible on such.
Really good greens are to be found natural-
ly on sandy soils, or rather where the sub-
stratum is of sand with a surface deposit of
loam.

Comparatively few courses are blessed with
such, but much may be done to bring almost
Need of an y S reen U P t° a better level by ap-
impover- proximating the conditions and con-
stituents of these seaside greens by a
liberal use of sand, the free application of
which, during the fall and early spring months,
will work a most beneficial change. Most in-

163

»

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

land greens need impoverishing instead of en-
riching. Sand will do this to a marked ex-
tent, and a finer growth of grass will result.

A close and prolonged study of this question
convinces me that the best treatment for the
Droiinf general run of greens is a liberal ap-

'« plication of sand, seed, bone-dust, lime,
and water. Neither the sand, the bone-
dust, nor the lime, however, should be put on
during the summer months. Commencing in
October, a sprinkling of sand, bone-dust, lime,
and clear, white sea-sand should be applied,
while the greens are still in use. The sand
will quickly work itself into the soil, and as
fast as it does more should be sprinkled on
until it is decided to close them for the winter.
Then a more liberal supply of bone-dust may
be added, and the entire surface of the green
be covered with about half an inch of sand.
The snows and rains of the winter will leave
very little trace by spring. In April or May
— according to the latitude — put on a very thin
coat of fine loam mixed with bone-dust and
plenty of seed. On top of this sprinkle a sug-
gestion of sand, and see that the greens have
plenty of water, if the natural supply is defi-
cient. Run a very light roller over so as to
make an even surface. If any weeds make
164

* b y

J

PUTTING GREENS

their appearance, carefully remove them by the
roots, and fill in with the compost mentioned.
After the warm weather sets in abstain from
sand, and water freely.

The application of sand will not only refine
the quality of the grass itself, but will make
it more impervious to wear. Not only that,
but it will tend to minimize the worm nuisance.
Concerning worms, it may safely be said that
the richer the soil the greater is the wealth
of worms, and, inversely, the poorer the soil
the greater freedom from this curse. As I
have already remarked, the soil on the majority
of greens needs impoverishing. This alone
would beget a better, because poorer, quality
of grass. We are not seeking to raise hay
crops.

There are some worm mixtures on the
market which are excellent but somewhat ex-
pensive. A very good and inexpensive
worm* substitute may be found by boiling
a couple of bars of ordinary yellow
laundry soap, and mixing it with a barrelful
of from thirty to forty gallons of water, apply-
ing the mixture freely through an ordinary
watering-pot. This will bring the worms to
the surface in myriads, when they may easily
be gathered. A few applications during the

165

»

PRACTICAL GOLF

spring and autumn months, when the worms
are most active, will materially abate this
nuisance. Care must be taken not to have
the solution any stronger than recommended,
otherwise the alkali present will injure the
grass. With the proportion suggested, how-
ever, no possible harm will result.

Before cutting or rolling a green where
worm casts are in evidence, they should first
be thoroughly scattered by brushing with
an old house or stable broom. This is very
important. Unless this is done the roller will
plaster them down and kill the grass so cov-
ered, and bare, moth-eaten appearing patches
will assuredly be produced. Apart altogether
from worm casts any green may he improved
by " combing " or lightly brushing before
cutting or rolling.

The holes should be changed frequently.
Do not wait until signs of wear are apparent.
ch>n C e * n cutting new holes, especially during
Hoi™ the summer months, when the ground
is dry and crumbling, the top sides may
the better be kept intact by filling the hole
with water immediately it is cut. And the
same practice applied to the old hole before re-
filling will give the transplanted inset a better
chance to quickly mould itself into and -become
166

*

PUTTING GREENS

an integral, even part of its new home. Many
green-keepers do not cut the holes sufficiently
deep. The upper edge of the tin or cup should
be about half an inch below the surface of
the ground. It frequently happens, especially
during a tournament with a large number
of players, that a circular depression about a
foot from the hole is caused by the heels of
the caddies, particularly when the ground is
soft. This does not by any means assist the
ball in finding the bottom of the hole. This
state of affairs will continue to exist so long
as caddies are allowed to stand close up to
the hole. But it may be remedied by having
a man go around with a tamper, formed by
joining together a couple of pieces of solid
pine each a full inch or so thick and about
eighteen inches square, with a handle in the
centre running through the top plank. A
few gentle taps with this around the neigh-
borhood of the hole will flatten down any
irregularities.

Nothing improves a green so much as be-
ing constantly played upon, provided that the
holes are frequently changed, before they show
any evidence of wear in close proximity to
the hole. The human foot is a great agen-
cy, and wonderfully assists the work of the
167

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

roller. Every green should be rolled daily
with a light roller — whether it apparently
needs it or not It sometimes happens
R ^d* that in anticipation of an important
V™”£ t u m a ment the powers that be elect
to give the greens a rest in order that
they may be in apple-pie condition during
the meeting. The grass is allowed to grow
and the greens are left fallow for a week or
so beforehand, general play in the mean time
being confined to some rough part outside of
the sacred precincts of the regular green.
1*hi s is a grave mistake. When the grass is
cut a day or two before the event, the truncat-
ed portion left is necessarily more or less stub-
faly and rough, and putting, actual putting, is
¦^vellnigh impossible. The ground itself, by
r e^ son °^ the cessation from rolling, naturally
-jir&x-lis up and forms itself into all sorts of
^yUgrfmesses, so that, in order to work it down
-^ f^c comparative smoothness of surface, a very

- e3 vy roller must be employed — to the possible

- -’ury ot the grass later on.

j; am firmly of the opinion that the present
^netJ 10 ^ °* c ^ osm £ and covering up the greens
‘\~,&3n the a PP r °ach of and during the winter
l * f ‘ -on »s unwise. Leaving out of the ques-
t th.
168

_ ^ for the moment the actual playing on

*

P R A C T I C A L GOLF

roller. Every green should be rolled daily

with a light roller — whether it apparently

needs it or not It sometimes happens

¦nd that in anticipation of an important
q™m tournament the powers that be elect
to give the greens a rest in order that
they may be in apple-pie condition during
the meeting. The grass is allowed to grow
and the greens are left fallow for a week or
so beforehand, general play in the mean time
being confined to some rough part outside of
the sacred precincts of the regular green.
This is a grave mistake. When the grass is
cut a day or two before the event, the truncat-
ed portion left is necessarily more or less stub-
bly and rough, and putting, actual putting, is
wellnigh impossible. The ground itself, by
reason of the cessation from rolling, naturally
works up and forms itself into all sorts of
roughnesses, so that, in order to work it down
into comparative smoothness of surface, a very
heavy roller must be employed — to the possible
injury of the grass later on.

I am firmly of the opinion that the present
method of closing and covering up the greens
upon the approach of and during the winter
season is unwise. Leaving out of the ques-
tion for the moment the actual playing on
168

*

PUT TING GREENS

them, it seems to me that the artificial pro-
tection afforded by covering them with manure,
winter s t f & w > or anything else (save a little
pi»y on sand), unfits the grass to withstand
the severities of play, especially during
the summer month: – . This hot -house kind
of pampering care may be adapted for lawns,
but not for putting-greens. When uncov-
ered in the early spring a beautiful green
oasis is disclosed, which quickly vanishes after
a brief spell of cold or hot weather, and the
blades soon wear a shrivelled-up appearance,
Moreover, greens so treated are more suscep-
tible to wear from ordinary play. Except
in the case of a newly seeded green, I ques-
tion the advisability of any winter covering.
On a new green it is of course necessary to
aid the roots as much as possible in getting
well started, more especially if sown in the
fall. But we are now more immediately con-
cerned with greens that have been down for
several seasons, and which have become fairly
well rooted.

It is the common opinion that a green will
be irretrievably ruined by playing on it dur-
ing the winter months. This is a delusion.
Observe carefully, at the beginning of spring,
the actual condition of temporary greens set
169

^

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

apart on many courses for the winter. There
is nothing then — or subsequently— to give the
slightest indication that the roots have been
impaired in the least degree — nor have -they.
Yet play has gone on alike when the ground
has been as hard as adamant from severe
frost and as soft and spongy as a quagmire
from resultant thaws, and when putting can
only be done with a mashie, owing to the
pock-marked state of the surface from heel-
marks and muddy unevennesses. Yet such
greens come out all right and seem rather to
be improved than otherwise. On some courses,
indeed, general play is maintained through-
out the entire year on the regular greens,
without detriment or injury of any kind.

This is doubtless due to the fact that
ro?ud C the roots are, during this period, in

a quiescent state and cannot’ sustain
any harm so long as the greens are kept
rolled when the ground is soft. With a light
roller too much rolling in winter can hardly
be done with any possible injury, thanks
to the upheaving influences of frost, which
prevent any possibility of the ground being
packed so hard as to cause the grass to be-
come root-bound.
From May until October each green should
170

*

PUTTING GREENS

be rolled daily with a light roller, rather than
once or twice a week with a heavy one. A
roller, moreover, should always be pulled,
not pushed. And, except in July and August,
the grass should be kept closely mown and
freely watered when necessary. During the
extremely hot months the cutting-bars of the
mowers should be slightly raised, so as to
allow a somewhat denser growth as a pro-
tection for the roots. The proper care of
greens demands unceasing care and unre-
mittent, intelligent attention. Eternal vigil-
ance is the price of first-class greens.

f b y

XIV
HANDICAPPING

THE essence of handicapping is to put all
the players on a common level — to give the
poorest player an equal chance to win with
the rest of the field. In order to adjust the
handicap fairly it is necessary to work upon
some definite principle. As a general thing
this is comparatively easy, especially if a
record is kept of the scores of the players.
To assist the handicap committee in establish-
ing the status of each member, at least three
consecutive scores, duly attested, should be
handed in by every player, and a detailed
record should be kept for future reference.
Scores made in competition should also be
recorded. Any failure to hand in a
capping competitive score should be visited by
a penalty of a stroke in the delinquent’s
handicap.” With some such system it would
not take long to arrive at a fairly definite idea
172

*

HA N D I C A P P I N G

of the capabilities of each and every player.
As a further aid it is not a bad plan to get
each player to fix the handicaps of all the
other players, particularly in newly formed
clubs, until something is known by the han-
dicappers of the members’ respective abilities.

The handicap committee should consist of
not more than three, who should be in frequent
touch with the active players. After every
competition, revisions, if necessary, should be
made in the official ratings, which should be kept
posted, in alphabetical order, in the club-house.

In establishing the handicaps it is cus-
tomary to work up from the best player in
the club, who is rated at scratch. By far the
better plan, however, is to take as a basis the
par — not the bogey — of the course, which is a
fixed quantity. Par golf, it may be remarked,
is perfect golf, determined according to the dis-
tances of the holes and with two strokes allowed
on each green, while bogey simply represents
the score of a good player who occasionally
makes a mistake, not very glaring, but suffi-
cient to make a difference in the round of four
or five strokes. Bogey is an elastic quantity,
however, so much so, indeed, on some courses,
as to furnish no true criterion of the game of
the player who now and then beats the Colonel.
173

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

If all clubs adopted the practice of handi-
capping from par it would be an easy matter
to fix the standing of every player through-
out the country. As it is, however, a scratch
player at Stumpville may conceivably be en-
titled to a handicap of nine strokes from a
scratch man at Bunkerville. This, of course,
has to be taken into account by the handicap
committee in an open handicap tournament,
and adds materially to the difficulty of placing
all the competitors on an equitable footing.
So far as New York and its immediate vicinity
is concerned the Metropolitan Golf Association
has accomplished a very good work by classify-
ing all the players of the various clubs in the
association up to a limit of seventeen strokes.
The handicaps are fixed at the beginning of
the season, and, necessarily, are based upon
the performances of the preceding season. So
far as it goes this official ranking of the players
has proved of much assistance, but it would
perhaps be of greater value if the list were re-
vised at least once during the season — after
the local championship meeting, for instance.*

* EDITOR’S NOTE.— Since (he foregoing was written it

has been decided by the Metropolitan Golf Association to re-
adjust the handicaps twice each season — at the beginning
of the season, and again tn August.
174

*

HA N D I C A P P I N G

The Metropolitan Golf Association ratings,
in common with the large majority of individual
clubs’ handicap lists throughout the country,
rest upon score play only. Each club, how-
ever, should compile a separate table of
ptajr strokes for match play instead of, as is
H * ndl ” usual, allowing three-fourths of the dif-
ference in handicap allowances, count-
ing a half-stroke, or over, as one. As a gen-
eral thing such difference is applicable to most
players, but, obviously, not all. For example,
A, the scratch player of a club, may average
eighty, while B’s average score is ninety, gen-
erally due to a few poorly played holes. To
average eighty on a good course presupposes
fairly consistent play. Now in match play A
would have to concede B eight strokes on the
latter’s handicap of ten strokes in score com-
petition. Let us take the hypothetical average
cards of each and see what the result would be ;

A’fl score, out :43.45445s 5— 39

A’a score, in :55 454555 3— 41
B’s score, in:6547 4565 4~ 4*

Playing level, A would beat B four up and
three to play. Conceding eight strokes, how-
ever, one each at the second and each alternate
175

*

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

hole up to the sixteenth, it will be seen that
B would beat A three up and two to play.

This is an example of simply an ordinary
case. There are, of course, a few more pro-
nounced, where the difference would be much
greater, both in favor of and against the
scratch man. It is quite possible for a player
to be good at medal play and poor at match
play, and vice versa. A poor score-card may
show remarkable strength at hole play, strong-
er, indeed, than one aggregating half a dozen
strokes less for the round.

In order to gauge the game of a player
as a match player — which, after all, is the
supreme test of golfing ability — it should be
incumbent on the handicappers to carefully
analyze the score for each hole, such analysis
embracing at least three or four typical or
representative cards, before any fair allowance
can be made applicable to hole play, consid-
ered alone. Nor is this the only essential.
Regard must also be had for the known
Strength or weakness of the player at both
score play and match play, as the case may
be. Few men are relatively good at both. No
hard and fast rule can be laid down, as tem-
peraments vary, and sometimes in opposite
directions.

i 7 6

»

HANDICAPPING

Sufficient has been said to indicate the
necessity of fixing separate handicaps for
score play and match play, certainly in some
cases, instead of simply accepting the aggre-
gate medal score as the basis and universally
allowing the regulation three – fourths of the
difference.

The match play allowance in foursomes is
three-eighths of difference between the aggre-
gate handicap allowance oh either side, a
half-stroke, or over, counting as one, smaller
fractions not being considered.

In match play strokes received are usually
taken as shown in table on page 178.

Most clubs, however, may find it advisable
to arrange a schedule of their own, accord-
ing to the special nature and difficulty of the
various holes. Such list should be posted in
the club-house.

Another form of handicapping which is
productive of very interesting matches is to
allow your opponent so many “holes up” at
the start. The usual mathematical propor-
tion is two-thirds of the medal handicap. For
instance, if the handicap allowance is nine
strokes, six holes are conceded by a scratch
player. This principle must, however, be
modified somewhat as the higher handicaps
M 177

*

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

eg ¦+ o … moosoooooc-.!-..

»

HA N D I C A P P I N G

are reached. Such system is not applicable
to a club where members receive such handicaps
as twenty to thirty strokes, as on the latter
basis the scratch player would start twenty
holes down in eighteen, which, of course, is
ridiculous.

Another method, less commonly observed,
is the giving of so many bisques, each repre-
senting a stroke to be taken at the pleasure
of the player receiving them, after the hole
has been played. The use of a bisque at a
halved hole converts a half into a win in favor
of the receiver, or into a half if only one more
stroke has been taken.

Still another plan is to concede all holes as
lost when halved, only those won outright
counting in favor of the giver of such odds.

Generally speaking, the three last men-
tioned methods of adjustment are better adapt-
ed for private matches than for regular com-
petitions, as it is much easier for two players
to arrange their own terms between themselves
so as to place them on a very close level, than
it would be for the handicap committee to ar-
rive at anything like satisfactory results with
a large field. Everything considered, the sys-
tem first referred to is capable of broader ap-
plication, and fairer, generally, when the com-
179

*

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

petition embraces a number of players. The
mutability of the game of the average player
makes it impossible to reduce any system of
handicapping to an exact science — and it is
perhaps just as well that it is so.

*

HAZA RD 5— Additional

It is not impossible to conceive of a course
being laid out wholly and entirely free from
bunkers or hazards of any sort or description,
and yet furnishing good golf, provided always
that the distance of each hole be properly ar-
ranged so as to call for one, two, or three good
shots, as the case may be, to reach the green.
Such a course, however, would lack that de-
gree of interest which can only be supplied
by the negotiation of difficulties, natural or
artificial, which really form an integral part
of the game — as well to reward good play
as to penalize poor play. Thus we find that
all the leading courses in the world are dis-
tinguished by possessing more or less hazards,
according to the nature of the ground, and
determined largely by the character of the
play. Where, generally speaking, the stand-
ard of play is of a high order, it will be found
181

*

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

that the growing development of the players
is coincident with the development of the
course; as the players improve the course
is made more difficult. Especially is this
true of the older links. Experience has shown
where additional hazards are needed to keep
pace with the advancement in the game, and
there is usually a reason, and a good one
too, for their appearance, although their pro-
jectors have had to fight hard for their adoption.

Speaking by and large, our courses here
are not nearly so difficult, in respect of haz-
ards, as those in Great Britain; nor, it may
be added, has the game reached the same
standard ; and until we reach the approximate
level of the one we can hardly hope to do so
of the other.

A really good course, before it can be un-
prejudicially pronounced as such, must abound
in hazards — and good courses develop good
players. Take St. Andrew’s, for instance:
in the absence of many of its hazards it could
hardly be ranked as first class. I am speak-
ing now of the old course. I know it savors
of heresy to express such an opinion, but
the cold fact remains that many of the holes
are wofully weak in respect of distance and
are only redeemed from absolute mediocrity
182

*

HAZARDS

by their attendant bunkers. I can only at-
tribute the defect mentioned to the links having
been originally laid out with reference to the
old feather ball ; likewise the presence of many
bunkers which are now decidedly unfair. ‘
They may have been defensible in bygone
days, before the introduction of the gutta
ball, when certain of the holes which now call
for a drive and a short approach formerly de-
manded two good shots.

So also with the bunkers, particularly on the
fifth and twelfth holes, where a long tee shot
straight for the hole will almost assuredly be
trapped ; and the same is true of a fine second
after a good tee shot on the fourteenth. And
there is absolutely nothing to indicate the
existence even of these bunkers. You simply
have to rely upon your knowledge of the course
or act upon the advice of your caddie and
play to either side. Yet, despite the manifest
unfairness of these particular hazards — and
others of lesser importance — there is a won-
derful fascination in playing to avoid them,
when you become more familiar with the
course. Although not by any means an ideal
links, scores of years of play have so hallowed
the associations of every bunker that the
mere suggestion of removing or changing

i8 3

»

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

any one of them would be regarded as rank
sacrilege by its worshippers — a sentiment that
I can appreciate without wholly concurring
in. It is only proper to add that the new
* course is so laid out as to render it practi-
cally free from any criticism.

On none of the foreign courses — that is, on
none of the sea-side links — has Nature made
it necessary to arrange the hazards of an ar-
tificial character on the same general lines
as those in this country, and which, from
Maine to Oregon, may be said to all bear
the same family resemblance as to suggest
a common origin. This is due partly to the
physical configuration of the ground being
somewhat different, partaking more of flat,
unbroken stretches and a general freedom
from dunes, and partly to an imperfect ap-
preciation of the real needs of hazards and
their refinements and artistic application in
other than the regular stereotyped patterns,
which tend largely to disfigure so many of
our courses. They are coexistent with the
era of terraced putting-greens and built-up
trees. Usually they are represented by huge
embankments thrown up transversely the full
width of the course, resembling rifle-pits, of
uniform height throughout — hideous excres-
184

*

H A Z A R D S

cences on the fair face of Nature. There is
a line of these fortifications confronting you
from nearly every tee, ranging in distance
from 80 to 130 yards, and another line for
the second shot, and so on, with little or no
diversification throughout the round.

How much better and how infinitely more
interesting it would make the game to vary
these artificial creations at each hole, and
how easy it would be to make them more pict-
uresque and in keeping with the surround-
ings, and to have them so arranged as to
make each hole present a new problem in-
stead of possessing the same dreary uniformity
now so characteristic. Let one hole be dis-
tinguished by a certain hazard for a sliced
tee shot, another hazard for a pulled ball,
and still another for a long second shot.
Make the feature of another hole be a long
carry from the tee, with a hazard guarding
the green, so as to make imperative a well-
executed approach with cut. Have another
demand a fine second shot, and so on. In
brief, so dispose the difficulties as to compel a
player to extract the full value from each and
every club in his bag during the round, and
on one or two of the holes to play certain test-
ing shots with such nicety and keen judg-
185

i b y

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

merit as to make even the best player pause
before attempting their execution.

Every hole should not be on parallel lines.
It is a pleasing change to have a few laid out
at obtuse angles, boomerang fashion, some-
thing like this:

One of the prime requisites of a hole of
this nature is that it should be of such a length
as to call for one or two good shots to reach
the green. In the particular case under notice,
the long, straight driver will perhaps essay
to cut the corner on the left slightly, so as
to make the second shot easier, particularly
as a pot bunker or trap lies somewhat to the
right of the direction to the hole, some forty
yards from the green. The man who can
control a pull will also reap an advantage.
Both these shots, however, are fraught with
more or less danger, which does not attach
to the play of the straight driver, irrespective
of length.

Other holes may be laid out with the elbow
186

*

HAZARDS

reversed. Single – shot holes, slightly around
the corner to the left, or right, also call for
excellent golf, and put a slight premium on
scientific pulling or slicing, as the case may
be. Very frequently the nature of the ground
lends itself favorably to holes of this kind.
But even if such is not the case, some of the
regular holes on nearly every course can
easily be so transposed by simply letting the
grass grow on one side and correspondingly
cutting it on the other.

Too much importance is attached to the
putting in of bunkers across the entire width
of the course, too often at just that distance
that will catch a moderately played shot. This
is not exactly right, in that it puts too great
a premium on the game of the long — but of-
ten erratic — player and unduly punishes the
shorter but more accurate player. Most haz-
ards should be arranged so as to compel a
man to drive both far and sure, and yet to give
the weaker player a chance to avoid being
bunkered provided he can place his ball wisely.
There is no great penalty — if any, at times —
inflicted on the swiper in the mere carrying
of the regulation bunker, although he may
have pulled or sliced the shot. Once over,
the fair green is so wide and so free from side

is?

»

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

traps that he has little to fear, while the shorter
player is compelled to play short, and thereby
further handicap himself, or else run the al-
most certain chance of being bunkered. The
better way would be to first have the distance
of the hole right — that is, laid out with reference
to its being reached in one, two, or three first-
class shots, and then to so arrange the hazards
as to catch the pulls and slices of the long
player, with a long carry for the second shot.
Don’t trouble to put in so many traps for the
short player; he has sufficient troubles of
his own, and, with no mistake on either side,
cannot possibly reach the green in the same
number of strokes as the class man. The
bunker previously noticed for the second shot
will be so far away that he cannot get into
it on his second, but will nevertheless have
to negotiate it in some way on his third shot.
Generally speaking, while we have not
nearly enough bunkers, there is too much
of what we do have. The material is there,
but it is not scientifically applied. Let me
endeavor to exemplify my meaning. Take,
for instance, the regulation bunker for the
tee shot. This almost invariably stretches
across the entire width of the green. Instead
of this I should put in one, irregularly outlined,
188

*

HAZARDS

of about one-third the width across, leaving
clear spaces on either side for the shorter play-
er who cannot comfortably carry it, and from
twenty to forty yards farther on — according
to the distance of the first bunker from the
tee — hazards of nearly equal size on either
side of the course to catch a pulled or sliced
ball, as the case may be, something after the
following fashion :

O

Kgo

a

Figi

Fig. I represents the bunker to be carried;
Fig. 2 a trap for a sliced shot, or one off the
proper line, and Fig. 3 a hazard for a pulled
ball. A denotes the fair green between the
side lines, and B the latter, representing long
grass or other difficulties.

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

Again, in the case of a hole say from 300
to 360 yards, let there be two small bunkers,
arranged thus :

(£) Green

Pig 6

O

Fig }

\> — -^y^

Fig*

The player carrying the first hunker (Fig. 4)
would have the advantage of practically a
clear and unobstructed approach to the green
(Fig. 6); while the more timorously inclined,
or shorter player, could play safely to the side,
only, however, to be forced to negotiate the sec-
ond bunker (Fig. 5) on his next shot.

Hazards arranged somewhat upon the lines
190

*

HA Z A R D S

indicated, rather than slavishly following the
system adopted on the great majority of our
courses, would, I think, make the game vastly
more interesting, and more provocative of bet-
ter golf all around.

*

XVI
THE “HASKELL” BALL

THE Haskell ball has recently been brought
into such prominence that it is proper to make
some further reference to it in its new char-
acter.

In the first edition the remark was made
that this ball could not be remade to advan-
tage. At that time this was popularly sup-
posed to be the case, on account of its peculiar
construction and heterogeneousness. It was
purely by accident the discovery was sub-
sequently made that not only could it be re-
made, but that it was materially improved
by the process. One of these balls was mixed
up with a lot of old gutties to be remade, with-
out being noticed, and after going through
the same treatment as the rest it at once at-
tracted attention from its different behavior
in play, and its identity was soon disclosed.

It happened to be remade in an Agrippa,
192

*

THE “HASKELL” BALL

or bramble, mould, and its true and well-sus-
tained flight, in contradistinction to that of
the original Haskell ball, proved also of im-
portance in demonstrating that the erratic
flight of the latter was not due to any inher-
ent defects in the ball itself, but was solely
attributable to the marking, or, rather, to the
painting. When first introduced, the grooves
(rather shallow) were so filled with paint as
to practically destroy the usefulness of any
marking at all. It was simply a case of his-
tory repeating itself, when the guttie ball was
first introduced entirely free from any mark-
ing. It “dooked” badly, of course. But after
being played with for some time, arid receiv-
ing a number of tops and resultant gashes,
it was found to fly much better, which led to
the practice of “hammering” — i.e., nicking
the smooth surface with a series of small in-
dentations.. This process was afterwards aban-
doned and the ball marked in moulding.

The original Haskell ball was moulded in
the orthodox manner, but the paint was ap-
plied too thickly for the comparatively shal-
low groovings ; thus its flight was erratic, and
it had a marked tendency to duck.

In their efforts to remedy this defect the
makers went to the other extreme and turned
n 193

*

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

Out a ball with much deeper markings — so
deep, in fact, as to diminish the flight in a
measure, due to the increased resistance of-
fered by the air.

They have now reverted to the original
marking, with a thinner coating of paint,
and no trouble is now met with. To suit the
taste of those who prefer the Agrippa, or
bramble, pattern, the ball is also made in this
mould.

It seems to be an accepted fact that a re-
moulded Haskell ball will fly slightly farther
than a new one. I find this borne out in my
own experience. There must be some good
reason for this, and I think it can only be ac-
counted for on the assumption that the re-
made hall is more cohesive, the preparatory
softening of the entire ball enabling the gutta
to more thoroughly integrate itself with thie
rubber when compressed, thus unifying and
making more homogeneous, as it were, the
whole. In other words, the remade ball is
more solid throughout. When the hot gutta
is first rolled on the new ball the heat causes
the rubber filaments forming the core to ex-
pand, and the gutta, cooling more quickly
than the rubber, leaves a slight vacuum be-
tween. In remaking, the ball is soaked in hot
194

i b y

THE “HASKELL” BALL

water, and the gutta is softened just enough to
take the impression of the mould; if the heat
is allowed to extend beyond the outside shell
of gutta in too great a degree, the remade ball
will probably crack during the process or in
play. This is the only explanation I can
offer. If there is anything in this theory
there would appear to be no good reason
why, by the adoption of this simple process,
the new ball cannot be made, at the outset,
as good as the remoulded one.

One of the principal objections to the ball
as at present made is its great liability to
crack. This seems to me to be due to the
fact that the outside shell of the gutta is too
thin. When struck, the backing of rubber
yields to a greater extent than the shell of
gutta, by reason of the greater resiliency of
the former in direct ratio to the force employed.
The more vigorous the blow the more the
rubber detaches itself from the gutta, and the
greater is the liability of the gutta being un-
able to withstand the strain on account of its
brittleness, and lacking, as it does, support
from the rear. In these circumstances a
fracture is inevitable. The remedy would ap-
pear to lie in making the outer shell of some
composition that would enable it to withstand
195

*

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

the shocks to which it is subjected, preserving,
at the same time, so far as possible, all re-
silient qualities. The latter point, however,
is not of such very vital importance, inasmuch
as by far the greater degree of resiliency re-
sides in the rubber core. That is what dif-
ferentiates it from the ordinary ball — it is
the very soul and essence of the Haskell.

While it is, unfortunately, true that a certain
proportion of new balls crack — and a larger
percentage of remades, doubtless incidental
to the shell of the latter being made somewhat
thinner in the remoulding process, or to lack
of proper care in remaking — yet a great many
do not. Free from this defect, the life of the
ball is much longer than that of a guttie, as
it preserves its shape, while the guttie gets
knocked out of rotundity. I have frequently
played with a Haskell continuously for sev-
eral days, until almost entirely denuded of
paint; outside of which it was almost as good
as new. On this account, although costing
originally nearly double the price, it is in the
long run as cheap, perhaps, as the guttie.
Even when cracked it seems to make but lit-
tle difference — unless severely fractured — as
the crack, of course, is in the gutta itself,
and extends only to the rubber core, and it
196

*

THE ‘•HASKELL” BALL

is the latter which supplies the “go” to the
ball.

Another weakness occasionally met with
is the lack of uniformity in the thickness of
the shell, some parts being thinner than others,
thereby inducing a tendency to crack more
easily, and also, in a measure, to prejudicially
affect the flight. I have not found so much
trouble in this respect with the new ball as
with the remade. This, I opine, is attributable
to a lack of care in remoulding.

So far, the honors appear to rest slightly
with the guttie. There is, however, a quality
possessed by the Haskell which, in my opinion,
more than offsets any such advantage — its
greater resiliency. This feature enables the
ordinary player to gain much greater dis-
tance than with the guttie. The poorer the
player, in respect of distance, the greater the
gain, and, in inverse ratio, the less the actual
gain for the long driver. As a result of per-
sonal experience and close, general observation,
I should say that the player who averages
150 yards with a guttie can get 165 yards
with a Haskell, and so on in a descending
scale. There practically ceases to be any
appreciable advantage when we come to the
190 or 200 yard mark with the player using
197

*

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

a guttie — excepting with the wind. These,
be it understood, are general approximations.
There are, singularly enough, isolated ex-
ceptions, working both ways. For instance,
I find that against a strong wind I can get
several yards farther with a guttie; with no
wind gain from 5 to 10 yards with a Haskell,
and, with a following wind, from 10 to 20 yards
on the average. Yet, curiously, other players,
of equal driving strength with a guttie, can
get farther against the wind with the rubber-
filled ball than with a guttie, while the other
distances remain approximately the same. The
harder a guttie is hit the greater is the gain
in distance. This is not so, to the same extent,
with the Haskell. To all but extraordinarily
long drivers it can, however, be driven some-
what farther, the increase in distance depend-
ing largely on the character of the swing.

Coming now to iron play, it is here that the
gain is greater, proportionately, than off wood,
the ball itself being endued with a greater
measure of resiliency than the guttie, and
therefore being capable of easier and longer
propulsion. Owing, also, to this quality, it
can be played more easily out of a poor lie;
and there is not, moreover, any jar or shock
if it be half-topped or hit off the heel or toe.
198

^Gopgle

THE “HASKELL” BALL

In approaching, if the ordinary stroke be
employed, it will run somewhat farther than
the guttie after alighting, noticeably so on
hard ground, and allowance requires to be
made accordingly. But under ordinary con-
ditions, and especially when the ground is
soft, it will pull up very quickly with the ap-
plication of decided cut. I am not sure, in-
deed, but that the tendency to run after
pitching cannot be more effectually checked,
under favorable conditions, than with the
guttie.

As a putting ball I consider it pre-eminent;
and I make this assertion in full knowledge
of the fact that the general run of opinion is
dead against me. It is true that it is livelier,
and responds more readily to the slightest
tap, than the guttie, and therefore calls for
greater delicacy of touch; but this very fact,
generallj’ regarded as a defect, is precisely
what so strongly commends it to me. I think
one can “feel” the ball better, and its very
liveliness induces a tendency to putt it — to
go through with the stroke — rather than to
hit a less responsive ball. And in this smooth
and delicate performance of putting, and let-
ting the club gently and harmoniously follow
through, the mind is never disturbed with the
199

*

P RA C T I C A L GOLF

thought that one may strike the ball twice —
it leaves the club too quickly for that

One thing may, however, be urged against
it : it has a trick of jumping the hole if going
a trifle fast, or of swerving around the cup
and remaining on the outside unless it strikes
plumb against the centre of the back. The
guttie will do these things, too, but not quite
so badly.

On the other hand, these defects in one re-
spect become virtues in another, as I do not
think it is so easily diverted from the line by
irregularities of surface or coarse grass; it
seems to skim over them, and does not hug
the ground so closely as the guttie.

*

ALUMINUM CLUBS

Aluminum clubs seem to be growing in
favor. Their, increasing popularity is not
merely a fad; it rests upon something more
substantial than passing fancy or caprice
— a recognition of the fact that they possess
certain inherent qualities of superiority over
the iron clubs now in use.

The first of these clubs that attracted at-
tention was the Mills putter — a reproduction
of an old Philp wooden putter. Its success
was instantaneous. It may be said to com-
bine all the merits of the wooden putter with-
out any of its demerits. Being made of metal,
it is not affected by weather conditions; it is
impervious to rain or heat, and therefore the
face never becomes spongy or cracks; there
is no horn, and no lead to get out of place
and affect the balance — and it is practically
indestructible.

201

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

The chief objections which lie against the
wooden putter may be summarized as follows:
it imparts too much run to the ball commensu-
rate with the force employed, and is therefore
objectionable on a keen green, except to the
naturally good putter; it is a very difficult
matter to get the lead put in exactly right;
the face is not homogeneous, by reason of the
inset of horn on the sole, and it gets more or
less spongy in wet weather, and wet also pro-
vokes cracks; and it does not last so long as
its metal brethren.

The more salient countervailing advan-
tages of its aluminum prototype have already
been mentioned. To these may be added
the fact that, being homogeneous throughout,
it is much easier to get the centre of gravity
positively fixed and determinate with absolute
uniformity in each and every model; and
this centre of gravity being right in the middle
of the club, no long apprenticeship has to be
served, as in the case of the wooden putter
— and also to some extent with all iron clubs
— to ascertain the particular point with which
the ball should be struck to cause it to run
straight. Then, again, the ball does not
jump off the face, or run quite so far, as with
the wooden weapon. Its shape, moreover,
ZQ2

*

ALVMINUM CLUBS

encourages a disposition to go through the
ball with the stroke rather than hit it; and,
having a wider sole than any iron putter, it
finds, automatically, the natural and correct
angle. In this respect it possesses a marked
advantage over irons.

Copying the wooden putter having proved
such a practical success, it was a natural
and easy step to take up the manufacture
of the old-time spoons, in aluminum. This
reversion to first principles is somewhat in-
teresting.

The limited longevity of the wooden spoons
and the greater range of work of which irons
— virtually indestructible — were capable in the
hands of first-class players, notably young
‘ Tommy Morris, gradually led to the almost
universal employment of the latter. There
was not the care bestowed on courses then
as at present, and poor lies were more fre-
quently encountered. With the narrow sole of
an iron it was easier to nip the ball out of a
bad lie — as it is now, even with any kind of
aluminum club, plentiful though the various
models are. Nowadays, however, the lies on
most courses are so generally good through
the green, and spoons are so much easier to
play with than Irons — even out of long grass,

20.J

*

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

if one should get off the course, as who does
not? — that they are bound to come into favor
again, slowly, perhaps, but surely. But they
will not be made wholly of wood, as of yore.

Aluminum clubs may now be obtained to
cover the entire set. Personally, I do not find
any advantage in the driver or brassey, but
for the rest I think there are certain points
of merit. In the first place, as already re-
marked, the centre of gravity — unlike most
irons — resides in the centre of the head, ir-
respective of the model; consequently there
is less liability of slicing or pulling. Then,
again, the broader sole admits of more margin
for error and does not demand the same degree
of accuracy, for if the ground be struck be-
hind the ball the stroke is not robbed of any
material power; the broader sole prevents the
club sinking into the ground to far less extent
than with an iron; it skids more along the
surface, and does not dig up anything like the
same amount of turf to come between the
club head and the ball that an iron does in
like circumstances.

Out of long grass an aluminum club is

much better than an iron, both for distance

and accuracy. With most irons — depending

largely on the length of the socket or hose

204

*

ALUMINUM CLUBS

— the actual centre of gravity lies more towards
the heel; consequently the resistance offered
by the grass before the ball is reached does
not act uniformly on either side of the centre
of the face. The toe is slightly pulled in
and the ball does not rise so quickly, and is
also more or less hooked. With aluminums
it is different; the centre of gravity is right
in the centre of the head ; pressure is thereby
exerted evenly, and there is not the same chance
of a twist creeping in.

Another good feature of these clubs is that
the degree of angle of the face, or the lie, may
very easily be changed to suit individual
tastes by the simple use of a file; or lead may
be added to increase the weight, if desired.

Still another point that may perhaps be
worthy of notice is that aluminums never rust,
and, consequently, never require cleaning.

*

»

THE RULES OF GOLF

AS APPROVED BY

THE ROYAL AND ANCIENT GOLF CLUB

OF ST. ANDREWS

in 1899

With Rulings and Interpretations by the
Executive Committee of

THE UNITED STATES GOLF ASSOCIATION

IN 1900

*

PREFACE

THE United States Golf Association, in making
these Rulings and Interpretations, has made no
change in the wording, nor in the import, of the
Rules of Golf, as adopted by the Royal and An-
cient Golf Club of St. Andrews, but has only add-
ed such definitions and explanations as appeared
to be called for, or suggested by custom and de-
cisions of competent experts.

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RULES OF GOLF

I. DEFINITIONS: — (a) The Game of Golf is played by
sides, each playing its own ball. A side consists either
of one or of two players. If one player play against another,
the match is called “a single.’ If two play against two,
it is called ” a foursome.* A single player may play against
two, when the match is called “a threesome,” or three players
may play against each other, each playing his own ball,
when the match is called ” a three-ball match.”

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

“Match Play” is decided by the number of
holes won.

” Medal Play ” is decided by the aggregate
number of strokes.

“Colonel Bogey” is an imaginary opponent,
against whose arbitrary score each competitor
plays by holes ; otherwise bogey competitions are
governed by the Special Rules for Stroke Com- ¦
petitions, except that a competitor loses the hole :

When his ball is lost.

When his ball is not played where it lies, except
as otherwise provided for in the Rules.

(b) The game consists in each side playing a ball from a

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teeing- ground into a hole by successive strokes, and the hole
is won by the aide which holes its ball in fewer strokes than
the opposite side, except as otherwise provided for in the

Rules. If the sides hole put in the same number of strokes,
the hole is halved.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

In Competitions :

In Match Play, when two competitors have
halved their match, they shall continue playing
hole by hole till one or the other shall have won
a hole, which shall determine the winner of the
match.

Should the match play competition be a handi-
cap, the competitors must decide the tie by playing
either one hole, three or five more holes, according
to the manner in which the handicap ceded falls
upon certain holes so as to make the extra holes
a fairly proportionate representation of the round,

In Medal Play, when two or more competitors
are tied, the winner shall be determined by an-
other round of the course ; except that By-laws
15 and 19 of the United States Golf Association
provide that, in case of ties for the sixteenth place
in the Amateur Championship medal rounds, or
the eighth place in the Women’s Championship
medal rounds, respectively, the contestants so
tied shall continue to play until one or the other
shall have gained a lead by strokes, the hole or
holes to be played out.

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(c) The teeing-ground shall be indicated by two marks
placed in a line, as nearly as possible at right angles to the

The holes shall be four and one-quarter inches in diameter,
and at least four inches deep.

(d) The term ” putting-green ” shall mean all ground
within twenty yards of the hole, except hazards.

(e) A ” hazard ” shall be any bunker, water (except casual
water), sand, path, road, railway, whin, bush, rushes, rab-
bit scrape, fence, or ditch. Sand blown on to the grass, or
sprinkled on the course for its preservation, bare patches,
snow and ice are not hazards. Permanent grass within a
hazard shall not be considered part of the hazard

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Any permanent obstruction of the course shall
be a hazard.

(/) The term ” through the green ” shall mean all parts of
the course except ” hazards ” and the putting-green which
is being played to.

lg) The term ” out of bounds ” shall mean any place out-
side the defined or recognized boundaries of the course.

(h) ” Casual water * shall mean any temporary accumula-
tion of water (whether caused by rainfall or otherwise) which
is not oneof the ordinary and recognized hazards of the
course.

(t) A ball shall be ” in play “as soon as the player has made
a stroke at the teeing-ground in each hole, and shall remain
in play until holed out, except when lifted in accordance with
the Rules.

(;> A ball shall be considered to have ” moved ” only if it
leave its original position in the least degree, and stop in
another; but if it merely oscillate, without finally leaving

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its original position, it shall not be considered to have

(k) A ball shall be considered ” lost ” if it be not found with-
in five minutes alter the search for it is begun.

(I) A * match ” shall consist of one round of the links,
unless it be otherwise agreed.

A match is won by the side which is leading by a number
of holes greater than the number of holes remaining to be
played. If each side win the same number of holes, the
match is halved.

(m) A ” stroke ” shall be any movement of the ball caused
by the player, except as provided for in Rule 4, or any down-
ward movement of the club made with the intention of strik-
ing the ball.

(n) A * penalty stroke ” is a stroke added to the score of a
side under certain rules, and shall not affect the rotation of
play.

(o) The privilege of playing first from a teeing-ground is
called ” the honor.”

(p) ‘ Addressing the ball ” shall mean that a player has
taken up his position and grounded his club, or, if in a hazard,
that he has taken up his position preparatory to striking the
ball.

[q) The reckoning of the strokes is kept by the terms —
"the odd," "two more," "three more," etc., and "one off three,"
"one off two," "the like." The reckoning of holes is kept
by the terms — so many "holes up," or "all even," and so
many "to play."

2. A match begins by each side playing a ball from the
first teeing-ground.

The player who shall play first on each side shall be named
by his own side.

The option of taking the honor at the first teeing-ground
shall be decided, if necessary, by lot.

A ball played from in front of, or outside of, or more than

two club-lengths behind the two marks indicating the teeing-

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ground, or played by a player when his opponent should
have had the honor, may be at once recalled by the opposite
side, and may be re-teed.

The side which wins a hole shall have the honor at the next
teeing- ground. If a hole has been halved the side which
had the honor at the last teeing-ground shall again have the

On beginning a new match the winner of the long match
in the previous round shall have the honor, or if the previous
match was halved the side which last won a hole shall have
the honor.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty for playing ball outside of the limits of

teeing-ground :

In Match Play, the ball may be at once recalled
by the opponent, no stroke being counted for
the mi splay.

In Medal Play, disqualification.

Penalty for leading off the tee out of turn :

In Match Play, the ball may be at once recalled

by the opponent, no stroke being counted for the

mi splay.
In Medal Play, no penalty — but it is customary

in Medal Play to observe the honor.

3. A player shall not play while his ball is moving, under
the penalty of the loss of the hole. But if the ball begin to
move while the player is making his upward or downward
awing, he shall incur no penalty, except as provided lor in

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Rules 10, 18, and 27, and a stroke lost under Rule 27 shall
not in these circumstances be counted as a stroke of the
player.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty for playing a moving ball [except at the tee] :

In Match Play, loss of the hole,

In Medal Play, two strokes.

But if the ball move while the player is making
his upward or downward swing a penalty is only
incurred if the player is deemed to have caused it
to move, under Rules 10 and 18, by moving or
touching any loose impediment, or under Rule
27, by grounding his club, or in a hazard, by tak-
ing his stand to play it, in which cases the pen-
alty shall be :

In Match Play, one stroke.

In Medal Play, one stroke.

4. If the ball fall or be knocked off the tee in addressing it,
no penalty shall be incurred, and it may be replaced, and if
struck when moving no penalty shall be incurred.

5. In a threesome or foursome the partners shall strike ofl
alternately from the teeing- grounds, and shall strike alter-
nately during the play of the hole.

If a player play when his partner should have done so.
his side shall lose the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.

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6. When the balls are in play, the ball farthest from the
hole which the players are approaching shall be played
first, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. If a
player play when his opponent should have done so, the
opponent may at once recall the stroke. A ball so recalled
shall be dropped as near as -possible to the place where
it lay without penalty.

Ruling op the U. S. G. A.

” Otherwise provided for ” in Rule 32, and Medal
Rule 11.
Penalty for playing out of turn :

In Match Play, ball may be at once recalled by
the opponent, no stroke being counted for the
misplay.

In Medal Play, no penalty — the ball may not
be recalled.

7. The ball must be fairly struck at, not pushed, scraped,
nor spooned, under penalty of the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the tj. S. G. A.

Penalty ;
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.

8. A ball must be played wherever it lies or the hole bo
given up, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A

“Otherwise provided for” in Rules 9, 11, I3<
15, 17, 22, 23, 28, 31, 32, 34-
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Penalty :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, two strokes, except otherwise
provided for in Medal Rules 6, 8, 9, 10, II.

9. Unless with the opponent's consent, a hall in play shall
not be moved, nor touched before the hole is played out, under

penalty of one stroke, except as otherwise provided for in the
Rules. But the player may touch his ball with his club in
the act of addressing it without penalty.

If the player's ball move the opponent's ball through the
green, the opponent, if he choose, may drop a ball (without
penalty) as near as possible to the place where it lay, but
this must be done before another stroke is played.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

"Otherwise provided for" in Rules 11, 13, 15,
17, 22, 23, 28, 31, 32, 34, and Medal Rules 6, 8,
9, 10, II.

Penalty:

In Match Play, for moving or touching, one
stroke.

In Medal Play, one stroke.

If a competitor's hall he displaced by another
competitor's ball it must be replaced, or its owner
shall be disqualified.

10. Any loose impediment (not being in or touching a
hazard) which is within a club-length of the ball may be
removed. If the player's ball move after any such loose
impediment has been touched by the player, his partner, or
either of their caddies, the penalty shall be one stroke. If

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RULES OF GOLF

any loose impediment (not being on the putting-green) which
is more than a club- length from the ball be removed, the
penalty shall be the loss of the hole

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty for ball moved (not in hazard) after re-
moving loose impediment toitkin club -length of
the ball :

In Match Play, one stroke.
In Medal Play, one stroke.

Through the green, for removing loose impediment
more than a club-length from the ball ;
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.

II. Any vessel, wheelbarrow, tool, roller, grass-cutter, box,
or similar obstruction may be removed. If a ball be moved
in so doing, it may be replaced without penalty. A ball ly-
ing on or touching such obstruction, or on clothes, nets, or
ground under repair or covered up or opened for the purpose
of the upkeep of the links, may be lifted and dropped without
penalty, as near as possible to the place where it lay, but not
nearer the hole. A ball lifted in a hazard, under such circum-
stances, shall be dropped in the hazard.

A ball lying in a golf-hole or flag-hole, or in a hole made by
the green-keeper, may be lifted and dropped without penalty
as near as possible to the place where it lay, but not nearer the

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

"As near as possible" shall mean within a
club-length,

^

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

If a ball lie on or within a club-length of a drain-
cover, water-pipe, or hydrant, it may be lifted and
dropped without penalty as near as possible to
the place where it lay, but not nearer the hole.

12. Before striking at a ball in play, the player shall not
move, bend, nor break anything fixed or growing near the
ball, except in the act of placing his feet on the ground for
the purpose of addressing the ball, in soling his club to ad-
dress the ball, and in his upward or downward swing, under
penalty of the loss of the hole, except as otherwise provided ¦
for in the Rules.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
"Otherwise provided for" in Rules n, 13, 30.
Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.

13. When a ball lies in or touches a hazard, nothing shall
be done to improve its lie ; the club shall not touch the ground,
nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player
strikes at the ball, subject to the following exceptions : —
(1) The player may place his feet firmly on the ground for
the purpose of addressing the ball ; (2) In addressing the ball,
or in the upward or downward swing, any grass, bent, whin,
or other growing substance, or the side of a bunker, wall,
paling, or other immovable obstacle may be touched ; (3)
Steps or planks placed in a hazard by the Green Committee
for access to or egress from such hazard may be removed,
and if a ball be moved in so doing, it may be replaced without
penalty; (4) Any loose impediments may be removed from
the putting-green; (5) The player shall be entitled to find

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RULES OF GOLF

his ball as provided for by Rule 30. The penalty for a breach
of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.

14. A player or caddie shall not press down nor remove

any irregularities of surface near a ball in play. Dung,
worm-casts, or mole-hills may be removed (but not pressed
down) without penalty. The penalty for a breach of this
Rule shall be the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the TJ, S. G. A.
Penalty :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, two strokes.

Pressing down the surface behind the ball by
prolonged or forcible grounding of the club shall
be deemed a breach of this Rule.

15. If a ball lie or be lost in water, the player may drop a
ball, under penalty of one stroke. But if a ball lie or be lost
(l) in casual water through the green, a ball may be dropped
without penalty ; (2) in water in a hazard, or in casual water
in a hazard, a ball may be dropped behind the hazard, under
penalty of one stroke ; (3) in casual water on a putting-green, a
ball may be placed by hand behind the water, without penalty.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, one stroke.
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PRACTICAL GOLF

In Medal Play, one stroke.

A ball lifted from a recognized water hazard
may be dropped under a penalty of one stroke,
even if the hazard be dry at the time.

If the water in a recognized water hazard over-
flow its usual boundaries the overflowed portion
of the course shall be considered as part of the
hazard, and not as casual water,

If a ball lie or be lost in casual water in a hazard,
a ball may be dropped without penalty, behind the
water, but in the hazard, keeping the spot, where
it entered the water, in line to the hole.

16. When a ball has to be dropped, the player himself
shall drop it. He shall face the hole, stand erect behind the
hazard or casual water, keep the spot from which the ball
was lifted (or in the case of water or casual water, the spot
at which it entered) in a line between himself and the hole,
and drop the ball behind him from his head, standing as far
behind the hazard or casual water as he may please. If it
be impossible to drop the ball behind the hazard or casual
water, it shall be dropped as near as possible to the place
where it lay, but not nearer the hole. II the ball so dropped
touch the player dropping it, there shall be no further penalty,
and if the ball roll into a hazard, it may be re-dropped without
further penalty.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty for a ball not dropping in accordance with
this Rule:

In Match Play, the opponent may call for the
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RULES OF GOLF

player to drop again; if the request be not com-
plied with, the player shall lose the hole.

In Medal Play, the ball must be dropped again
or the competitor disqualified.

lj. When the balls lie within six inches of each other on a
putting-green, or within a club- length of each other through
the green or in a hazard (the distance to be measured from
their nearest points), the ball nearer the hole may, at the option
of either the player or the opponent, be lifted until the other is
played, and shall then be replaced as near as possible to the
place where it lay. If the ball farther from the hole be moved
in so doing, or in measuring the distance, it shall be replaced
without penalty. If the lie of the lifted ball be altered by the
player in playing, the ball may be placed in a lie as nearly as
possible similar to that from which it was lifted, but not nearer
the hole.

18. Any loose impediments may be removed from the putt-
ing-green, irrespective of the position of the player's ball.
The opponent's ball may not be moved except as provided
for by the immediately preceding Rule. If the player's ball
move after any loose impediment lying within six inches
of it has been touched by the player, his partner, or either of
their caddies, the penalty shall he one stroke.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty :

In Match Play, one stroke.
In Medal Play, one stroke.

19. When the ball is on the putting-green the player or his
caddie may remove (but not press down) sand, earth, dung,
worm-casts, mole-hills, snow, or ice lying round the hole
or in the line of his putt. This shall be done by brushing

?.2\.

a,

PRACTICAL GOLF

lightly with the hand only across the putt and not along it.
Dung may be removed by a club, but the club must not be
laid with more than its own weight upon the ground. The
line of the putt must not be touched, except with the club
immediately in front of the ball, in the act of addressing it,
or as above authorized. The penalty for a breach of this
Rule is the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, two strokes.

The "line of the putt" does not extend beyond
the hole.

The "player or his caddie" shall include his
partner or his partner's caddie.

20. When the ball is on the putting-green, no mark shall
be placed, nor line drawn as a guide. The line of the putt
may be pointed out by the player's caddie, his partner, or
his partner's caddie, but the person doing so must not touch
the ground.

The player's caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie,
may stand at the bole, but no player nor caddie shall endeavor,
by moving or otherwise, to influence the action of the wind
upon the ball.

The penalty for a breach of this Rule is the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.
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21. When on the putting-green, a player shall not play
until the opponent's ball is at rest, under penalty of one

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :

In Match Play, one stroke.
In Medal Play, one stroke.

22. Either side is entitled to have a flag-stick removed
when approaching the hole. If the ball rest against the
flag-stick when in the hole, the player shall be entitled to
remove the stick, and, if the ball fall in, it shall be deemed as
having been holed out at the last stroke. If the player's
ball knock in the opponent's ball, the latter shall be deemed
as having been holed out at the last stroke. If the player's
ball move the opponent's ball, the opponent, if he choose,
may replace it, but this must be done before another stroke
is played. If the player's ball stop on the spot formerly
occupied by the opponent's bail, and the opponent declare
his intention to replace, the player shall first play another
stroke, after which the opponent shall replace and play his
ball. If the opponent's ball lie on the edge of the hole, the
player, after holing out, may knock it away, claiming the
hole if holing at the like, and the half if holing at the odd,
provided that the player's ball does not strike the opponent's
ball and set it in motion. If after the player's ball is in
the hole, the player neglect to knock away the opponent's
ball, and it fall in also, the opponent shall be deemed to have
holed out at his last stroke,

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty — If player's ball knock in the other ball:
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PRACTICAL GOLF

, In Match Play, the latter shall be counted as
holed out in the last stroke.

lri Medal Play, the latter must be replaced or
its owner disqualified.

— If player's ball displace the other ball ;

In Match Play, the other ball may be replaced
at its owner's option, but this must be done before
another stroke is played.

In Medal Play, the other ball must be replaced
or its owner disqualified.

23. If a ball in motion he stopped or deflected by any
agency outside the match, 01 by the forecaddie, the ball must
be played from where it lies, and the occurrence submitted
to as a " rub of the green." If a ball lodge in anything mov-
ing, a ball shall be dropped as near as possible to the place
where the object was when the ball lodged in it, without
penalty. If a ball at rest be displaced by any agency outside
the match, excepting wind, the player shall drop a ball as near
as possible to the place where it lay, without penalty. On
the putting-green the ball shall be replaced by hand, without
penalty.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Ball at rest displaced :

In Match Play, must be dropped, or, if on putting-
green, replaced, as near as possible to where it lay,
or the hole shall be lost.

In Medal Play, must be replaced as near as
possible to where it lay, or its owner must be dis-
qualified.

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24. If the player's ball strike, or be moved by an opponent or
an opponent's caddie ot clubs, the opponent shall lose the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty incurred :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, no penalty.

If the player's ball strike the other competitor, or his
caddie or clubs, it is a "rub of the green" and the ball
shall be played from where it lies. If a player's ball
at rest be moved by the other competitor or his caddie,
the ball must be replaced or the player disqualified,

25. If the player's ball strike, or be stopped by, himself,
or his partner, or either of their caddies or clubs, bis side
shall lose the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, one stroke.

26. If the player, when making a stroke, strike the ball
twice, the penalty shall be one stroke.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty :
In Match Play, one stroke,
In Medal Play, one stroke.

27. If the player, when not intending to make a stroke,
or his partner, or either of their caddies, move his or their
ball, or by touching anything cause it to move, when it is
in play, the penalty shall be one stroke. If a ball in play

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PRACTICAL G O LB

Taove, after the player has grounded his club in the act of
addressing it, or, when in a hazard, if he has taken up his
stand to play it, he shall be deemed to have caused it to be
moved, and shalt lose a stroke, which shall be countedas a
stroke of the player, except as provided in Rule 3.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Penalty for moving the ball or causing it to be moved,
as under Rules 10 and 18 ;
In Match Play, one stroke.
In Medal Play, one stroke.

28. If a player play the opponent '5 ball, his side shall lose the
hole, unless (1) the opponent then play the player's ball, where-
by the penally is cancelled, and the hole must be played out with
the balls th us exchan ged, or (2) th e mis take occur through wrong
information given by the opponent or his caddie, in which case
there shall be no penalty, but the mistake, if discovered before
the opponent has played, must be rectified by placing a ball
as near as possible to the place where the opponent's ball lay.

If it be discovered before either side has struck off from
the next teeing-ground (or, after playing the last hole in the
match, before any of the players have left the green) that one
side has played out the hole with the ball of a party not en-
gaged in the match, that side shall lose the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty for breach of this Rule :

1st. Playing the opponent's ball with excep-
tions (1) and (2) above noted in the Rule :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, no penalty. The ball must be
replaced.

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RULES OF GOLF

2d. Playing out with the ball of a party not
engaged in the match :

In Match Play, if discovered before the next
tee stroke, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, the player must go back and
play his own ball, or, not rinding it, return as near
as possible to the spot where it was last struck,
tee another ball, and lose a stroke (Rule 6, Medal
Play) or else be disqualified.

29. If a ball be lost, except as otherwise provided for in
the Rules, the player's side shall lose the hole, but if both
balls be lost, the hole shall be considered halved.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

"Otherwise provided for" in Rules 15, 31.
Penalty for lost ball :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.

In Medal Play, the competitor must return as
near as possible to the spot from which the lost
ball was struck, tee a ball, and lose a stroke.

30. If a ball be lost in fog, bent, whins, long grass, or the
like, only so much thereof shall be touched as will enable the
player to find his hall. The penalty for a breach of this
Rule shall be the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, two strokes.
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PRACTICAL GOLF

31 . If a ball be driven out of bounds, a ball shall be dropped
at the spot from which the stroke was played, under penalty
of loss of the distance.

Penalty :
In Match Play, loss of the distance.
In Medal Play, loss of the distance.

32. In a three-ball match, if a player consider that an
opponent's ball on the putting-green might interfere with
his stroke, he may require the opponent either to lift or hole
out his ball at the opponent's discretion.

If an opponent consider (1) that his own ball, if left, might
be of assistance to the player, he is entitled to lift it, or
hole out at his discretion; or (2) that the ball of the other
opponent might be of such assistance, he may require that
it be either lifted or holed out at the other opponent's dis-
cretion.

33. A player shall not ask for advice from any one except
his own caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie, nor shall
he willingly be otherwise advised in any way whatever,
under penalty of the loss of the hole.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty :

In Match Play, loss of the hole.
In Medal Play, disqualification.

34. If a ball split into separate pieces, another ball may
be put down wbere the largest portion lies, or if two pieces
are apparently of equal size, it may be put where either
piece lies, at the option of the player. If a ball crack or
become unfit for play, the player may change it, on intima-

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RULES OF GOLF

ting to his opponent his intention to do so. Mud adher-
ing to a ball shall not be considered as making it unfit for
play.

35. If a dispute arise on any point, the players have the
right of determining the party or parties to whom it shall
be referred, but should they not agree, either side may refer
it to the Rules of Golf Committee, whose decision shall be
final. If the point in dispute be not covered by the Rules of
Golf, the arbiters must decide it by equity.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Such decisions may be finally referred to the
Executive Committee of the United States Golf
Association.

SPECIAL RULES FOR STROKE
COMPETITIONS

1. In stroke competitions, the competitor who holes the
stipulated course in fewest strokes shall be the winner.

2. If the lowest scores be made by two or more competitors,
the tie or ties shall be decided by another round, to be played
on the same day. But if the Green Committee determine
that to be inexpedient or impossible, they shall then appoint
the following or some subsequent day whereon the tie or
ties shall be decided.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Except that By-laws 15 and 19 of the United

States Golf Association provide that, in case of

229

*

PRACTICAL GOLF

ties for the sixteenth place in the Amateur Cham-
pionship medal rounds, or for the eighth place in
the Women's Championship medal rounds, re-
spectively, the contestants so tied shall continue
to play until one or the other shall have gained a
lead by strokes, the hole or holes to be played out.

3. New boles shall be made for Stroke Competitions, and
thereafter no competitor, before starting, shall play any
stroke on a putting-green, under penalty of disqualification.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Competitors must always assume that new holes
have been made. Practice strokes may be played
through the green, and in hazards.

In Match Play competitions, other than bogey
competitions, practice strokes may be played on
the putting-greens.

4. The scores shall be kept by a special marker, or by the
competitors noting each other's scores. The scores marked
shall be checked after each hole. On completion of the round,
the score of the competitor shall be signed by the marker,
countersigned by tie competitor, and handed to the secretary
or his deputy, after which, unless it be found that a card re-
turned shows a score below that actually played (in which
case the competitor shall be disqualified), no correction or
alteration can be made.

5. If a competitor play from outside the limits of the teeing-
ground, the penalty shall be disqualification.

6. II a ball be lost (except as otherwise provided for in the
Rules of Golf), the competitor shall return as near as possible

230

a,

RULES OF GOLF

to the spot from which the lost ball was struck, tee a ball, and

lose a stroke. The lost ball shall continue in play, if it be
found before the player has struck another ball.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Penalty for breach of this Rule shall be disqualifica-
tion:
"Otherwise provided for" in Rules 15, 31.

7. If a competitor's ball strike himself, his clubs or caddie,
the penalty shall be one stroke.

8. If a competitor's ball strike another competitor, or
his clubs or caddie, it is a "rub of the green," and the ball
shall be played from where it lies. If a competitor's ball,
which isatrest.be moved by another competitor or his caddie,
or his club, or his ball, or by any outside agency excepting
wind, it shall be replaced as near as possible to the place
where it lay, without penalty.

9. A competitor shall hole out with his own ball at every
hole, under penalty of disqualification But if it be dis-
covered, before he has struck off from the nest teeing-ground,
or, if the mistake occur at the last hole, before he has handed
his card to the secretary or his deputy, that he has not holed
out with his own ball, he shall be at liberty to return and
hole out with his own ball without penalty.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

If he fail to find his own ball he shall return as
near as possible to the spot from which he last
struck it, tee a ball, and lose a stroke. (Medal
Rule 6.)

10. A ball may be lifted out of a difficulty of any de-

231

*

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

scription, and teed, if possible, behind it, under penalty of
two strokes. If it be impossible to tee the ball behind the
difficulty, it shall be teed as near as possible to the place
where it lay, but not nearer the hole.

11. All balls shall be holed out. under penalty of dis-
qualification. When a competitor's ball is within twenty
yards of a hole, the competitor shall not play until the flag
has been removed, under penalty of one stroke. If the
ball nearer the hole might either interfere with the competitor's
stroke, or in any way assist the competitor, such ball must
be holed out or lifted, at the owner's option. Through
the green a competitor may have any other competitor's
ball lifted, if he find that it interferes with his stroke.

12. A competitor, unless specially authorized by the Green
Committee, shall not play with a professional, and he may
not willingly receive advice from any one but his caddie,
in any way whatever, under penalty of disqualification.

A forecaddie may be employed.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.
Each competitor may have a forecaddie.

13. Competitors shall not discontinue play on account of
bad weather, under penalty of disqualification.

14. Where, in the "Rules of Golf," the penalty for the
breach of any rule is the loss of the hole, in the Stroke Com-
petitions the penalty shall be the loss of two strokes, ex-
cept where otherwise provided for in these Special Rules.

15. Any dispute regarding the play shall be determined
by the Rules of Golf Committee.

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

Such decision may be finally referred to the
232

^

R U L E S OF GOLF

Executive Committee of the United States Golf
Association.

16. The Rules of Golf, so far as they are not at variance
with these Special Rules, shall apply to Stroke Competitions.

ETIQUETTE OF GOLF

1. A single player has no standing, and must always
give way to a properly constituted match.

2. No player, caddie, or onlooker should move or talk
during a stroke.

3. No player should play from the tee until the party in
front have played their second strokes and are out of range,
nor play up to the putting-green till the party in front have
holed out and moved away.

4. The player who has the honor should be allowed to
play before his opponent tees his ball .

5. Players who have holed out should not try their putts
over again when other players are following them.

6. Players looking for a lost ball must allow other matches
coming up to pass them.

7. On request being made, a three-ball match must allow a
single, threesome, or foursome to pass. Any match playing
a whole round may claim the right to pass a match playing
a shorter round.

8. If a match fail to keep its place on the green, and lose
in distance more than one clear hole on those in front, it
may be passed, on request being made.

9. Turf cut or displaced by a stroke should be at once
replaced.

10. A player should carefully fill up all holes made by
himself in a bunker.

233

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PR A C TIC A L GOLF

II. .It is the duty of an umpire or referee to take cognizance
of any breach of rule that he may observe, whether he be
appealed to on the point or not

Ruling of the U. S. G. A.

The "Etiquette of Golf" shall be as binding
upon players as the other Rules of the game.

*

INDEX TO RULES

The Italics refer to the Rules for Stroke Competitions.

Addressing, ball touched in. 9

" ball moved in act of 27

" the ball 12, 13

Advice, asking for 33

" competitor receiving 12

Bad weather 13

Ball, action of wind on 20

altered lie of 17

addressing the 9. [p]

anything fixed or growing near 12

assisting competitor II

at rest, displaced by outside agency 23

displaced by wind 23

moved 8

replaced by hand on putting-green 23

cracked t . 34

dropping a 6, 9, II, 15, 16, 23, 31

fairly struck at 7

falling off tee 4

into hole. 22

liow dropped 16

in ca.sual water 15

in motion, slcipfied by outside agency 23

in or touching a hazard 13

in ploy, definition 6, [i]

interfering with stroke IJ

235

»

PR A C T / C A L GOLF

I. in three-ball match 32

u» wat« 15

in whins, bent, (og. etc 30

knocking away opponent's 22

lie altered 17

lifted. 11, 17, 32

in hazard II

out 0/ difficulty . . I©

lifting opponent's 17. 32

or holing-out in three-ball match 32

lodged in anything moving 23

lost 29. 30. [k]

lost 6. |kj

lying in golf-hole or Bag-hole II

moved. 9, II, 17, |j1

by outside agency 8

" in act of addressing 27

" in hazard 27

when no strike intended, 27

moving . 3, 4

after loose impediment touched 10, 18

opponent's 9. 17, 18. 22

mud adhering to . . 34

not in match, playing 28

on clothes, net, etc II

opponent's, at rest on putting-green . 21

falling into hole 22

out of bounds 3*

playing out o( turn 2, 6

" outside teeing-ground 2

outside teeing-ground ......... 5

wherever it lies 8

" opponent's 28

replaced 4, 11, 17, 22, 23

resting against flag-stick. 24

re-Iced 2

split into pieces 32

sinking another competitor 8

linking competitor, etc 7

236

*

INDEX TO RULES

Ball, striking or moved by opponent, his caddie, or clubs 24
" striking or stopped by player, his partner, caddie,

or clubs 24, 25

" struck twice 26

" touched in addressing . . .9, [pi

" unfit for play 34

Balls exchanged 28

" holed out II

" within club-length of each other 17

" within six inches of each other on putting-green. . 17

Bounds, ball out of 31

" " " "definition [g]

Breach of Rules, penalty for 14

Caddie, ball striking or stopped by 24, 25

" may stand at hole 20

Casual water, ball in IS

" definition [hj

" " in hazard 15

" " not in hazard [e]

Clothes, net, etc., ball on 11

Club, when grounded 27, [p]

Competitor receiving advice 12

holing out 9

" playing before fiag removed II

" discontinuing play on account of bad weather 13

" playing unth professional 12

Correction of score-card 4

Definitions of addressing ball [p]

" ball in play [i]

" " casual water [hj

" " foursome la]

" " the game [b]

" halved hole s [b]

" " a hazard [c]

" " the honor [o]

" lostbaJl [kj

" a match [1]

237

^

PRACTICAL GOLF

Definitions of moved [jj

" " out of bounds [g]

" " penalty stroke [n]

" " puiti tie- green [dj

" a side [a]

" a single [a]

" " a stroke [mj

" " reckoning of strokes [qj

" " reckoning of holes [qj

" " teeing-grounds [c]

" " a threesome [a]

" " through the green [f]

Difficulty, lifting out of '. 10

Disputes, deciding 35

" determined by Rules of Golf Committee 15

" referring to Rules of Golf Committee 35

Distance, loss of 31

Dung, removal of 14

" on putting-green, removal of 19

Flag, removing n

Flag-hole, ball lying in II

Flag-stick, removing 22

" " ball resting against 22

Forecaddie, ball in motion, stopped by 23

may be employed 12

Foursome S, [a]

" playing out of turn in 5

Golf-hole, ball lying in 11

Grass, whin, etc 13, [e]

Ground under repair, etc., ball on 11

Halved hole, definition [bj

Hazard, ball lifted in 11

ball lying in or touching 13

" ball in water in 15

" ball removed in 27, [p]

" casual water in 15

^

IN D EX TO RULES

Hazard, definition [e]

" permanent grass in [ej

" sand blown on grass, not a [e]

Hole, dimension of [c]

" partner or caddie may stand at 20

Holing out 9, ii

" " mistake in 9

Holes, reckoning of I, [oj

" new, for stroke competition 3

Honor, the 2, [s]

Impediment, loose, removal of 10, 13, 18

" more than club-length from ball 10

" touched, ball removing after 18

Irregularities of surface 14

Lie of ball altered 17

Line drawn on putting-green 20

" of putt pointed out 20

" " " touching 19

Match, beginning of, described 2

" definition I, [1]

Mole-hills 14, 19

Nets, etc., ball on 11

Obstacles, immovable 13

Obstructions, ball lying on or touching II

Opponent, etc., ball striking or moved by 24

Opponent's ball displaced 22

" " at rest on putting-green 21

" " knocking away, knocking in, etc 22

" " moving 9, 17, 18, 22

" " player playing 28

Out of bounds, ball driven 31

" " definition of I, [g]

Outside agency 23

" " ball named by 8

Partner may stand at hole 20

239

^

PRACTICAL GOLF

Penalty stroke, definition I, [n]

" for breach of rules 14

" counted stroke of player 27

" under Rule 27, not counted stroke of player 3

PENALTY (i) LOSS OF HOLE

Penalty for playing a wrong ball except at tee 3

" " playing out of turn 5

" " unfair stroke 7

" " removing loose impediment wrongfully. .... 10

" " moving, etc., anything fixed or growing. ... 12

" " improving lie, or touching anything in hazard 13

" " pressing down or removing irregularities. ... 14

" " touching line of putt, etc 19

" " marking line of putt, etc 2o

" " ball striking or removed by opponent, etc. .. . 24

" " ball striking or stopped by player, etc 25

" " playing opponent's ball (under exceptions). . 28

" " playing ball not in match 28

" lost ball 29

" " breach of rule as to touching, fog, bent,

whins, etc 30

" " asking for advice wrongfully 33

(2) LOSS OP ONE STROKE

Penalty for moving or touching without consent 9

" dropping ball, lying or lost in water 15

" playing on putting-green before opponent's

ball at rest 21

" striking ball twice 26

" ball moved, when no stroke intended 27

" " moved in hazard 27

" " lost 6

" " striking competitor, etc 7

" playing before flag removed II

(3) LOSS OF TWO STROKES

Penalty for lifting a ball out of difficulty 10

240

*

INDEX TO RULES ,

Penalty when, in the rule of Golf, the penalty for the breach
of any rule is the loss of the hole {except as other-
wise provided in Special Rules) 14

(4) DISQUALIFICATION

Penalty for playing on putting-green before starting 3

" " returning score below that actually made 4

" " playing from outside teeing-ground 5

" " competitor not holing out with his own ball.. 9

" " ball not holed out II

" " receiving advice wrongfully 12

" " discontinuing play on account of bad weather. 13

Player, etc., ball striking 25

" striking ball twice 26

Playing ball not in match 28

" opponent's ball 28

" out of turn 5, 6

" outside teeing-ground 2, [c]

" outside teeing-ground 5

" playing with professional competitor 12

Putt, pointing out line of 20

" touching line of 19

Putting- g teen, ball in casual water on 15

" " balls within six inches of each other on. . 17

" " competitor playing stroke before starting on 3

" " definition I, [d]

" " loose impediments on 13, 18

" " no mark placed on . . . 20

" " opponent's ball at rest on 21

" " removing sand, earth, dung, etc., on 19

" " removing snow or ice on 19

Re-teeing ball 2

" Rub of the green " 23

Rub of the green 8

Rules of Golf when not at variance with Special Rules. . 16

Sand blown on grass or sprinkled on course I, [e]

Score-card, mistake in 4

241

a,

PRACTICAL GOLF

Scores, how kept 4

Side, definition I. [a]

Single, definition I, [a]

Snow and ice not hazards i, [ej

" on putting-green, removing 19

Soling club 12

Split ball 34

Striking ball twice 2S

Stroke, definition I, |ru]

penalty counted as stroke of player 27

" penalty, definition I, [m]

" competition deciding ties in 2

" " new holes made for 3

Strokes, reckoning of I, [q]

Surface, irregularities of 14

Tee, ball falling off 4

Teeing-ground, definition r , [c]

" " ball played outside 2

" " ball played outside 5

Three-ball match, definition 1, [a]

" " lifting or holing out in 32

Threesome 1, 5, [a]

Through the green, definition 1, [fj

Ties, deciding 2

Two strokes, penalty of 14

Vessel, etc., on course n

Water in hazard I, [e]

" ballin I 5

" casual, definition 1, [h]

" casual, not a hazard 1, [ e ]

Weather, discontinuing play on account of 13

Wheelbarrow, etc., on course n

Whins, long grass, etc., ball in 30

Wind, action of, on ball 20

ball at rest, displaced by 23

" ball at rest, displaced by g

242

*

INDEX TO RULES

Worm-casts, mole-hills, etc 14

" " on putting-green, removing 19

Wrong ball 28

" information by opponent, etc 28

Etiquette of Golf 207

*

GLOSSARY

TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN CONNECTION WITH
THE GAME OF GOLF

Addressing the Ball — The act of the player placing himself
in position to strike the ball.

Approaching — Playing a ball on to the putting-green.

Back Spin— See Undercut.

Bafjy-spoon or Baffy — A wooden club with a short shaft and
very much lofted in the face, formerly used for approaching.

Bogey, Colonel — See page 183.

Bone or Fibre — A piece of horn or wood fibre, or other
material, inserted in the sole of wooden clubs, to prevent
the face from being injured at the bottom.

Borrow — When a putt requires to be played across sloping
ground, the player must borrow, or play the ball a little
up the slope to counteract the effect of its falling off down
hill while rolling towards the hole.

Brassey — A wooden club with a brass plate on the sole.
Vide page 124.

Bulger — A club with a convex face. Vide page 118.

Bunker — A generic term ordinarily used to comprehend
all hazards of an artificial nature.

Bye — A hole or holes which remain to be played after
the match is finished.

Bye-bye — A hole or holes which remain to be played after
the bye is finished.

Caddie — The person who carries the golfer's clubs.

Carry — The distance from where a ball is driven to where
it alights. f

244

a,

GLOSSARY

Cleek — A club with an iron head. Vide page 12(5.

Club — The implement with which the ball is struck.

Cop— The top or face of a bunker.

Course — The ground upon which golf is played.

Cup — A small hole in the course, of varying depth, usually
made by the stroke of some previous player. Sometimes
used also to indicate the hole in the putting-green into which
the ball is played.

Dead — When a ball alights without rolling it is said to fall
" dead." A ball is also said to be" dead " when it is so near the
hole that the player is certain to hole it on the next stroke.

limit — The piece of turf displaced by a player when mak-
ing a stroke.

Dormy — A player is * dormy " when he is as many holes
ahead of his opponent as there remain holes to be played.

Driver — The wooden club with which tee shots are usually

Driving — Used in two senses ; first, playing tee shots ;
and, second, playing any full strokes.

Driving-iron } Iron clubs for playing tee shots. Vide

Driving Mashie f page 133.

Even — See Square.

Face — That part of the club head which strikes the ball,

Flat — A club has a " flat * lie when the head is at a very
obtuse angle to the shaft.

Flub— Vide Foozle.

Fluke — Bringing off a shot successfully which was not
played for or contemplated.

Fog — Moss; also thick, rank grass.

Foliowhthrough — The continuation of the stroke after the
ball has been struck.

Foo2ie — A badly played stroke.

Fore — A corruption of " Before.* The warning cry which
a golfer gives to any person liable to be struck by the ball
which he has driven or is about to drive.

Foreeaddie — A person employed to go ahead of the players
to watch where their balls go.

Foursome — A match in which four persons take part —
two, playing alternately, playing against the other two,
likewise playing alternately.

*45

»

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Gobble— A putt played with such force that, although
it goes into the hole, would otherwise have gone some dis-
tance beyond.

Green — First, the whole links or course ; second, the putt-
ing-green within twenty yards of a hole, exclusivcof hazards.

Grip — First, the part of the club - shaft grasped by the
player : second, the grasp itself.

Hall — First, a stroke allowed on every alternate hole ;
second, the term usually applied when a hole has been made
by each player in the same number of strokes.

Half Shot — A stroke midway between a full and a quar-
ter shot.

Halved — A hole is ' halved * when each side takes the
same number of strokes. A match is halved when both
sides have won the same number of holes.

Hanging Lie — A ball which lies on ground sloping down-
ward in the direction of play.

Hazard — A comprehensive term for bunkers, water, sand,
loose earth, paths, roads or railways, bushes, fences,
ditches, or anything outside of the fair-green.

Head— That part of the club unattached to the shaft.

Heel — First, that part of the head between the face and
the neck ; second, to hit the ball off the heel.

Hole — First, the hole in the putting-green ; second, the
act of playing the ball thereinto; third, the whole space
between the teeing-ground and the putting-green.

Honor — The privilege of playing off first from the tee.

Hook — See Pull. Hook on a club refers to the face, when
the head is placed flat on the ground, lying in to the ball.
Also used to describe a ball played to the left of the line of
play.

Horn — See Bone.

Hose — The socket of irons into which the shaft is fitted.

Iron — A club with an iron head.

Jerk — First, when a stroke is played with * jerk * the
club head, after striking the ball, digs into the ground;
second, additional force exerted spasmodically before striking
the ball.

.Jigger— An iron club between a mid-iron and a mashie.

Lie — First, the lie of a club refers to the angle of the hear]
246

3y

GLOSSARY

to the shaft ; second, with reference to the position of the
ball in relation to its immediate surroundings, a good lie
signifying that the ball lies clear of all obstructions, and a
bad lie signifying that it lies in a hole or in heavy grass, etc.
Lift — To lift a ball is to take it out of a hazard or elsewhere
and drop or tee it in accordance with the Rules. Used also
to indicate when a player lifts his ball after playing several
more strokes than his opponent, and thereby conceding the
hole as lost.

Like — The like is the stroke which equalizes the number
played by the other side. Thus, after the tee-shots have
been played, the player farthest from the hole plays the
" odd," and, if he places the ball nearer the hole than his
opponent, his opponent then plays the * like," and the players
are said to be* like as they lie."

Like as We Lie — When both players have played the
same number of strokes. See Like.

Links — The ground on which golf is played. See Course.

Loft — First, to send the ball into the air ; second, the degree
of angle to which the face of a club is laid back.

Lofter—A lofting-iron.

Lofting-iron—A club with an iron head with more or less
toft in the face; used to pitch the ball in the air.

Long Game — Driving and playing full shots through
the green.

Mashie— An iron club, with a deep, short blade, more or
less lofted.

Match — First, the sides playing against each other ; second,
the game itself.

Match Play— Golf played by holes onl y.

Medal Play— Golf played by strokes only.

Mid-iron — An iron-headed club with more loft on the
face than a cleek.

JVect— The bent part of the head of the club where it is
connected with the shaft.

Niblick — An iron club with a small, heavy head, well
lofted, used to play the ball out of bunkers, hazards, and
bad lies.

Nose— See Toe. The pointed part of the club farthest
away from the player.

247

»

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Odd — To play the " odd " is to play one stroke more tha n
one's opponent.

One off Too, One off Three, etc. — When your opponent has
played three strokes more, your next stroke is "one off three";
when he has played " two more,* your next stroke is " one
off two," and so on.

Play
Press — To strive to hit the ball harder than usual, in order
to get greater distance.

Pull— See Hook.

Putt — To play a stroke on the putting-green.

Putter — A club used tor putting.

Quarter Shot—A stroke less than a half shot.

Rub of the Green — Whatever happens to a ball in motion,
such as its being deflected or stopped by any agency outside
the match, or by the lorecaddie, is a rub of the green, and
the ball must be played from where it lies.

Run — First, to play the ball along the ground instead of
lofting it ; second, the run of a drive is the distance the ball
runs after alighting.

Scare— The part of the club where the head and shaft
are spliced together.

Setoff — To hit the ground before striking the ball, thus
robbing the stroke of a good deal of its strength.

Scratch Player — One who does not receive any handicap

allowance.

Screamei — A very long stroke, so called from the whistling
noise made by the ball.

Shaft— The handle of the club.

Short Game — Approaching and putting.

Slice — First, to draw the face of the club across the ball
from right to left in the act of hitting it ; second, the flight
described by the ball so struck.

Socket — The part of the head of iron clubs into which the
shaft is fitted.

Socket Clubs — Clubs which have the shaft running down
into the neck.

Sole — The flat bottom part of the club head which rests
on the ground.

Spoons — Clubs with wooden heads, more or less lofted,

248

»

GLOSSARY

Spring — The degree of suppleness of the shaft.

Square — Said of a game when it stands level, neither
aide being any holes ahead.

Stance — The position of the player's feet when he ad-
dresses the ball.

Sisal — To hole a long, unlikely putt so that it just drops
into the hole.

Stroke — Any movement of the club which is intended to
strike the ball.

Stymie — When the balls, near the hole, are directly in
the line of play and more than six inches away from each
other. Sometimes applied also to a tree or other obstruction
in the direct line of play.

Swing — The manner in which the club is swung when
in the act of hitting the ball.

Tee — The elevation, usually a small pinch of sand, on
which the ball is placed for the first stroke to each hole.

Teeing-ground — The space marked out within the limits
of which the ball must be teed.

Third — A handicap of one stroke allowed at every third
hole.

Three-quarter Stroke — A stroke of less distance than a
full stroke, but more than a half stroke.

Toe— See JVwe.

Top— To hit the ball above its centre.

Two More — To play two strokes more than one's opponent,

Undercut— To hit the ball beneath the centre, so that it
rises high in the air and runs comparatively little alter
alighting.

Upright— See Lie.

Whipping— The twine with which the club head and shaft
are bound together.

Wrist Shot—See Quarter Shot.

*

»

Approaching, 42

Balance, 6—8

Balls, 134-140, 192

Brassey, 36, 124

Bulger, 118

Bunker, 157

Cleek, 127

Clubs, 108, 131, 201

Cut, 49

Driver, 108, I24

Driutng, 7, 22, 118

Drtoiwg-iroH, 133

Feel or Balance, 7

Follow-through, 24, 32

General Remarks, 97— 107

Glossary of Technical Terms,

218
Greens, 159-171
Gri£ 0/ eiud, ir, 72
Hoi/ sAots, 132
Handicapping, 172
Hanging He, 40
Hazards, 87, l8l
Heeling, 49
Hole, 153. 154, 166
Jfonor, 207
Hooking, 118
Irons, 127
Renting, 21, 46
Learning goi/, 1—4
Leather faces, W2
Length of drives, 22
Length of holes, 35
Ltnfcs, 145

Lofting, 55, 56, 80

Long gome, 22, 30

Ntashie, 45, 127

Mulch (rfay, 106, 177

Medal play, 104, 105

Niblick, 133

Oui 0/ /orm, IM>

Physical strength, 22

Play through the green, 42

Position of ball, 27

Promising, 97, 102, 103

Pressing, 21

Pulitng, 14, 27, 35

PuWers and putting, 63, 76, 120

Rufaa of golf, 181

Sclaffing, 21, 39

Shafts, 1 21-124

Slicing, 11-14, ^7. 99

Spoons, 132

Stance, 4, 71

Sfymt&s, 83

Swing, 15, 20

Technteai (erms, 218

Teeing-grownds, I56

Tees, 156

Three-quarter strokes, 132

Topping, 1 01

7″ournamenI f>iay, 103

Training, 104

Undercut, 53

Upkeep of links, 145

fKalen’ng greens, 159

IPind, 54

Wrist work, 17

251

»

»

By van T. SUTPHEN

THE CARDINAL’S ROSE. Illustrated. $1 jo.

A striking novel of today’s society.

THE NINETEENTH HOLE. Illustrated. Si 15
net.
A collection of short stories lull of humor and mainly about

golf.

THE GOLFER’S ALPHABET. Pictures by A.
B. FROST. 4to, Illuminated Boards, $1 50.

Characteristic illustrations by A. B. Frost add a pictorial
humor to the little volume which should make it welcome to
the enthusiast, whether a novice or a master of the game. —
Nation, N. Y.

Art lovers, fun lovers, golf lovers, and, in short, everybody
will enjoy this most humorous and artistic book. — Saturday
Evening Gazette, Boston.

THE GOLFICIDE, and Other Tales of the Fair
Green. i6mo. Half Cloth, $1 00.

Contents :— The Golfic.de; The Hong-Kong Medal; The
Obsession of Robinson Brown; Tbe Peripatetic Hazard; The
Lost Ball ; The Prime Great Secret.

All have golf tor their inspiration, and each is amusingly
and ingeniously conceived. — Hartford Post.

The humor is not strained, and there is about the volume

that air of distinction which comports well with the place

which the game holds in the world of sport. — Brooklyn Eagle,

Posing/ Extra on Ntl Books.

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

tW”Any of the above works will be sent by mail. Postage pre-
paid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on
receipt of the price.

a,

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Gobble — A putt played with such force that, although
it goes into the hole, would otherwise have gone some dis-
tance beyond.

Green — First, the whole links or course ; second, the putt-
ing-green within twenty yards of a hole, exclusive of hazards.
. Grip — First, the part of the club -shaft grasped by the
player ; second, the grasp itself.

Half — First, a stroke allowed on every alternate hole ;
second, the term usually applied when a hole has been made
by each player in the same number of strokes.

Half Shot — A stroke midway between a full and a quar-
ter shot.

Halted — A hole is ‘ halved ” when each side takes the
same number of strokes. A match is halved when both
sides have won the same number of holes.

Hanging Lie — A ball which lies on ground sloping down-
ward in the direction of play.

Haiard — A comprehensive term for bunkers, water, sand,
loose earth, paths, roads or railways, bushes, fences,
ditches, or anything outside of the fair-green.

Head— That part of the club unattached to the shaft.

Heel — First, that part of the head between the face and
the neck ; second, to hit the ball off the heel.

Hole — First, the hole in the putting-green;- second, the
act of playing the ball thereinto ; third, the whole space
between the teeing-ground and the putting-green.

Honor — The privilege of playing off first from the tee.

Hook — See Pull. Hook on a club refers to the face, when
the head is placed flat on the ground, lying in to the ball.
Also used to describe a ball played to the left of the line of
play.

Horn— See Bone.

Hose — The socket of irons into which the shaft is fitted.

Iron — A club with an iron head.

Jerk— First, when a stroke is played with * jerk ” the
club head, after striking the ball, digs into the ground ;
second, additional force exerted spasmodically before striking
the ball.

Jig&r — An iron club between a mid-iron and a mashie,

Lie— First, the lie of a club refers to the angle of the head
246

3y

G L O S S A R V

to the shaft ; second, with reference to the position of the
ball in relation to its immediate surroundings, a good lie
signifying that the ball lies clear of all obstructions, and a
bad lie signifying that it lies in a hole or in heavy grass, etc.

Lift — To lift a ball is to take it out of a hazard or elsewhere
and drop or tee it in accordance with the Rules. Used also
to indicate when a player lifts his ball after playing several
more strokes than his opponent, and thereby conceding the
hole as tost.

Like— The like is the stroke which equalizes the number
played by the other side. Thus, after the tee-shots have
been played, the player farthest from the hole plays the
* odd,” and, if he places the ball nearer the hole than his
opponent, his opponent then plays the ‘ like,” and the players
are said to be ” like as they lie.”

Like as We Lie — When both players have played the
same number of strokes. See Like.

Links — The ground on which golf is played. See Course.

Loft — First, to send the ball into the air ; second, the degree
of angle to which the face of a club is laid back.

Lofter — A lofting-iron.

Lofting-iron — A club with an iron head with more or less
loft in the face ; used to pitch the ball in the air.

Long Game — Driving and playing full shots through
the green.

Mashie — An iron club, with a deep, short blade, more or
less lofted.

Match — First, the sides playing against each other ; second,
the game itself.

Match Ptay—Gott played by holes only.

Medal Play — Golf played by strokes only.

Mid-iron — An iron-headed club with more loft on the
face than a cleek.

Neck— The bent part of the head of the club where it is
connected with the shaft.

Wt&ltcfc— An iron club with a small, heavy head, well
lofted, used to play the ball out of bunkers, hazards, and
bad lies.

Nose— See Toe. The pointed part of the club farthest
away from the player.

247

»

P R A C T I C A L GOLF

Gabble — A putt played with such force that, although
it goes into the hole, would otherwise have gone some dis-
tance beyond.

Green — First, the whole links or course ; second, the putt-
ing-green within twenty yards of a hole, exclusive of hazards.

Grip — First, the part of the club-shaft grasped by the
player ; second, the grasp itself.

Half — First, a stroke allowed on every alternate hole;
second, the term usually applied when a hole has been made
by each player in the same number of strokes.

Ha!) Shot — A stroke midway between a full and a quar-
ter shot.

Haired — A hole is ” halved ” when each side takes the
same number of strokes. A match is halved when both
sides have won the same number of holes.

Hanging Lie — A ball which lies on ground sloping down-
ward in the direction of play.

Hazard — A comprehensive term for bunkers, water, sand,
loose earth, paths, roads or railways, bushes, fences,
ditches, or anything outside of the fair-green.

Head — That part of the club unattached to the shaft.

Heel — First, that part of the head between the face and
the neck; second, to hit the ball off the heel.

Hale — First, the hole in the putting-green ; second, the
act of playing the ball thereinto; third, the whole space
between the teeing-ground and the putting-green.

Honor — The privilege of playing off first from the tee.

Hook — See Pull. Hook on a club refers to the face, when
the head is placed flat on the ground, lying in to the ball.
Also used to describe a ball played to the left of the line of
play.

Horn — See Bone.

Hose— The socket of irons into which the shaft is fitted.

I rim — A club with an iron head.

Jerk — First, when a stroke is played with ” jerk ” the
club head, after striking the ball, digs into the ground ;
second, additional force exerted spasmodically before striking
the ball.

.Jigger — An iron club between a mid-iron and a mashie.

Lie — First, the lie of a club refers to the angle of the head
246

3y

GLOSSARY

to the shaft; second, with reference to the position of the
ball in relation to its immediate surroundings, a good lie
signifying that the ball lies clear of all obstructions, and a
bad lie signifying that it lies in a hole or in heavy grass, etc.

Lift — To lift a bait is to take it out of a hazard or elsewhere
and drop or tee it in accordance with the Rules. Used also
to indicate when a player lifts his ball after playing several
more strokes than his opponent, and thereby conceding the
hole as lost.

hike— The like is the stroke which equalizes the number
played by the other side. Thus, after the tee-shots have
been played, the player farthest from the hole plays the
¦ odd,” and, if he places the ball nearer the hole than his
opponent, his opponent then plays the ” like, “and the players
are said to be ‘ like as they lie.”

Like as We Lie — When both players have played the
same number of strokes. See Like.

Links — The ground on which golf is played. See Course.

Loft — First, to send the ball into the air ; second, the degree
of angle to which the face of a club is laid back.

Lofter — A lof ting-iron.

Lofting-iron — A club with an iron head with more or less
loft in the face ; used to pitch the ball in the air.

Long Game — Driving and playing full shots through
the green.

Mashie — An iron club, with a deep, short blade, more or
less lofted.

Match — First, the sides playing against each other ; second,
the game itself.

Match Play— Golf played by holes only.

Medal Play — Golf played by strokes only.

Mid-iron — An iron-headed club with more loft on the
face than a cleek.

Neck — The bent part of the head of the club where it is
connected with the shaft.

Niblick — An iron club with a small, heavy head, well
lofted, used to play the ball out of bunkers, hazards, and
bad lies.

Nose — See Toe. The pointed part of the dub farthest
away from the player.

«47

»

PR A C T I C A L GOLF

Gobble— A putt played with such force that, although
it goes inlo the hole, would otherwise have gone some dis-
tance beyond.

Green — First, the whole links or course ; second, the putt-
ing-green within twenty yards of a hole, exclusive of hazards.

Grip — First, the part of the club-shaft grasped by the
player ; second, the grasp itself.

Hall — First, a stroke allowed on every alternate hole;
second, the term usually applied when a hole has been made
by each player in the same number of strokes.

Hal} Shot — A stroke midway between a full and a quar-
ter shot.

Haired — A hole is * halved ” when each side takes the
same number of strokes. A match is halved when both
sides have won the same number of holes.

Hanging Lie — A ball which lies on ground sloping down-
ward in the direction of play.

Hazard — A comprehensive term for bunkers, water, sand,
loose earth, paths, roads or railways, bushes, fences,
ditches, or anything outside of the fair-green.

Head— That part of the club unattached to the shaft.

Heel— First, that part of the head between the face and
the neck ; second, to hit the ball off the heel.

Hole — First, the hole in the putting-green; second, the
act of playing the ball thereinto; third, the whole space
between the teeing-ground and the putting-green.

Honor — The privilege of playing off first from the tee.

Hook — See PuU. Hook on a club refers to the face, when
the head is placed flat on the ground, lying in to the ball.
Also used to describe a ball played to the left of the line of
play.

Horn — See Bone.

Hose— The socket of irons into which the shaft is fitted.

Iron — A club with an iron head.

Jerk — First when a stroke is played with ” jerk ” the
club head, after striking the ball, digs into the ground ;
second, additional force exerted spasmodically before striking
the ball.

.Ttgger — An iron club between a mid-iron and a mashie.

Lie— First, the lie of a club refers to the angle of the head
246

3y

GLOSSARY

to the shaft ; second, with reference to the position of (he
ball in relation to its immediate surroundings, a good lie
signifying that the ball lies clear of all obstructions, and a
bad lie signifying that it lies in a hole or in heavy grass, etc.
Lift — To lift a ball is to take it out of a hazard or elsewhere
and drop or tee it in accordance with the Rules. Used also
to indicate when a player lifts his ball after playing several
more strokes than his opponent, and thereby conceding the
hole as lost.

Like— The like is the stroke which equalizes the number
played by the other side. Thus, after the tee-shots have
been played, the player farthest from the hole plays the
* odd,” and, if he places the ball nearer the hole than his
opponent, his opponent then plays the” like,” and the players
are said to be * like as they lie.”

Like as We Lie — When both players have played the
same number of strokes. See Like.

Links — The ground on which golf is played. See Course.

Loft — First, to send the ball into the air ; second, the degree
of angle to which the face of a club is laid back.

Lofter — A lof ting-iron.

Lofting-iron — A club with an iron head with more or less
loft in the face ; used to pitch the ball in the air.

Long Game — Driving and playing full shots through
the green.

Mashie — An iron club, with a deep, short blade, more or
less lofted.

Match — First, the sides playing against each other ; second,
the game itself.

Match Play— Golf played by holes only*.

Medal Play — Golf played by strokes only.

Mid-iron — An iron-headed club with more loft on the
face than a cleek.

Neck— The bent part of the head of the club where it is
connected with the shaft.

Niblick — An iron club with a small, heavy head, well
lofted, used to play the ball out of bunkers, hazards, and
bad lies.

Nose— See Toe. The pointed part of tfie club farthest
away from the player.

Humor Seminar: Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich- Stephen Leacock

coolhq — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:10:11 +0000

Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich

By

Stephen Leacock, 1869-1944

CONTENTS

I A Little Dinner with Mr. Lucullus Fyshe
II The Wizard of Finance
III The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson
IV The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
V The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins
VI The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph
VII The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing
VIII The Great Fight for Clean Government

CHAPTER ONE: A Little Dinner with Mr. Lucullus Fyshe

The Mausoleum Club stands on the quietest corner of the best
residential street in the City. It is a Grecian building of white
stone. About it are great elm trees with birds–the most expensive kind
of birds–singing in the branches.

The street in the softer hours of the morning has an almost reverential
quiet. Great motors move drowsily along it, with solitary chauffeurs
returning at 10.30 after conveying the earlier of the millionaires to
their downtown offices. The sunlight flickers through the elm trees,
illuminating expensive nurse-maids wheeling valuable children in little
perambulators. Some of the children are worth millions and millions. In
Europe, no doubt, you may see in the Unter den Linden avenue or the
Champs Elysees a little prince or princess go past with a clattering
military guard of honour. But that is nothing. It is not half so
impressive, in the real sense, as what you may observe every morning on
Plutoria Avenue beside the Mausoleum Club in the quietest part of the
city. Here you may see a little toddling princess in a rabbit suit who
owns fifty distilleries in her own right. There, in a lacquered
perambulator, sails past a little hooded head that controls from its
cradle an entire New Jersey corporation. The United States
attorney-general is suing her as she sits, in a vain attempt to make
her dissolve herself into constituent companies. Near by is a child of
four, in a khaki suit, who represents the merger of two trunk-line
railways. You may meet in the flickered sunlight any number of little
princes and princesses far more real than the poor survivals of Europe.
Incalculable infants wave their fifty-dollar ivory rattles in an
inarticulate greeting to one another. A million dollars of preferred
stock laughs merrily in recognition of a majority control going past in
a go-cart drawn by an imported nurse. And through it all the sunlight
falls through the elm trees, and the birds sing and the motors hum, so
that the whole world as seen from the boulevard of Plutoria Avenue is
the very pleasantest place imaginable.

Just below Plutoria Avenue, and parallel with it, the trees die out and
the brick and stone of the City begins in earnest. Even from the Avenue
you see the tops of the sky-scraping buildings in the big commercial
streets, and can hear or almost hear the roar of the elevated railway,
earning dividends. And beyond that again the City sinks lower, and is
choked and crowded with the tangled streets and little houses of the
slums.

In fact, if you were to mount to the roof of the Mausoleum Club itself
on Plutoria Avenue you could almost see the slums from there. But why
should you? And on the other hand, if you never went up on the roof,
but only dined inside among the palm trees, you would never know that
the slums existed which is much better.

There are broad steps leading up to the club, so broad and so agreeably
covered with matting that the physical exertion of lifting oneself from
one’s motor to the door of the club is reduced to the smallest compass.
The richer members are not ashamed to take the steps one at a time,
first one foot and then the other; and at tight money periods, when
there is a black cloud hanging over the Stock Exchange, you may see
each and every one of the members of the Mausoleum Club dragging
himself up the steps after this fashion, his restless eyes filled with
the dumb pathos of a man wondering where he can put his hand on half a
million dollars.

But at gayer times, when there are gala receptions at the club, its
steps are all buried under expensive carpet, soft as moss and covered
over with a long pavilion of red and white awning to catch the
snowflakes; and beautiful ladies are poured into the club by the
motorful. Then, indeed, it is turned into a veritable Arcadia; and for
a beautiful pastoral scene, such as would have gladdened the heart of a
poet who understood the cost of things, commend me to the Mausoleum
Club on just such an evening. Its broad corridors and deep recesses are
filled with shepherdesses such as you never saw, dressed in beautiful
shimmering gowns, and wearing feathers in their hair that droop off
sideways at every angle known to trigonometry. And there are shepherds,
too, with broad white waistcoats and little patent leather shoes and
heavy faces and congested cheeks. And there is dancing and conversation
among the shepherds and shepherdesses, with such brilliant flashes of
wit and repartee about the rise in Wabash and the fall in Cement that
the soul of Louis Quatorze would leap to hear it. And later there is
supper at little tables, when the shepherds and shepherdesses consume
preferred stocks and gold-interest bonds in the shape of chilled
champagne and iced asparagus, and great platefuls of dividends and
special quarterly bonuses are carried to and fro in silver dishes by
Chinese philosophers dressed up to look like waiters.

But on ordinary days there are no ladies in the club, but only the
shepherds. You may see them sitting about in little groups of two and
three under the palm trees drinking whiskey and soda; though of course
the more temperate among them drink nothing but whiskey and Lithia
water, and those who have important business to do in the afternoon
limit themselves to whiskey and Radnor, or whiskey and Magi water.
There are as many kinds of bubbling, gurgling, mineral waters in the
caverns of the Mausoleum Club as ever sparkled from the rocks of
Homeric Greece. And when you have once grown used to them, it is as
impossible to go back to plain water as it is to live again in the
forgotten house in a side street that you inhabited long before you
became a member.

Thus the members sit and talk in undertones that float to the ear
through the haze of Havana smoke. You may hear the older men explaining
that the country is going to absolute ruin, and the younger ones
explaining that the country is forging ahead as it never did before;
but chiefly they love to talk of great national questions, such as the
protective tariff and the need of raising it, the sad decline of the
morality of the working man, the spread of syndicalism and the lack of
Christianity in the labour class, and the awful growth of selfishness
among the mass of the people.

So they talk, except for two or three that drop off to directors’
meetings; till the afternoon fades and darkens into evening, and the
noiseless Chinese philosophers turn on soft lights here and there among
the palm trees. Presently they dine at white tables glittering with cut
glass and green and yellow Rhine wines; and after dinner they sit again
among the palm-trees, half-hidden in the blue smoke, still talking of
the tariff and the labour class and trying to wash away the memory and
the sadness of it in floods of mineral waters. So the evening passes
into night, and one by one the great motors come throbbing to the door,
and the Mausoleum Club empties and darkens till the last member is
borne away and the Arcadian day ends in well-earned repose.

* * * * *

“I want you to give me your opinion very, very frankly,” said Mr.
Lucullus Fyshe on one side of the luncheon table to the Rev. Fareforth
Furlong on the other.

“By all means,” said Mr. Furlong.

Mr. Fyshe poured out a wineglassful of soda and handed it to the rector
to drink.

“Now tell me very truthfully,” he said, “is there too much carbon in
it?”

“By no means,” said Mr. Furlong.

“And–quite frankly–not too much hydrogen?”

“Oh, decidedly not.”

“And you would not say that the percentage of sodium bicarbonate was
too great for the ordinary taste?”

“I certainly should not,” said Mr. Furlong, and in this he spoke the
truth.

“Very good then,” said Mr. Fyshe, “I shall use it for the Duke of
Dulham this afternoon.”

He uttered the name of the Duke with that quiet, democratic
carelessness which meant that he didn’t care whether half a dozen other
members lunching at the club could hear or not. After all, what was a
duke to a man who was president of the People’s Traction and Suburban
Co., and the Republican Soda and Siphon Co-operative, and chief
director of the People’s District Loan and Savings? If a man with a
broad basis of popular support like that was proposing to entertain a
duke, surely there could be no doubt about his motives? None at all.

Naturally, too, if a man manufactures soda himself, he gets a little
over-sensitive about the possibility of his guests noticing the
existence of too much carbon in it.

In fact, ever so many of the members of the Mausoleum Club manufacture
things, or cause them to be manufactured, or–what is the same
thing–merge them when they are manufactured. This gives them their
peculiar chemical attitude towards their food. One often sees a member
suddenly call the head waiter at breakfast to tell him that there is
too much ammonia in the bacon; and another one protest at the amount of
glucose in the olive oil; and another that there is too high a
percentage of nitrogen in the anchovy. A man of distorted imagination
might think this tasting of chemicals in the food a sort of nemesis of
fate upon the members. But that would be very foolish, for in every
case the head waiter, who is the chief of the Chinese philosophers
mentioned above, says that he’ll see to it immediately and have the
percentage removed. And as for the members themselves, they are about
as much ashamed of manufacturing and merging things as the Marquis of
Salisbury is ashamed of the founders of the Cecil family.

What more natural, therefore, than that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, before
serving the soda to the Duke, should try it on somebody else? And what
better person could be found for this than Mr. Furlong, the saintly
young rector of St. Asaph’s, who had enjoyed the kind of expensive
college education calculated to develop all the faculties. Moreover, a
rector of the Anglican Church who has been in the foreign mission field
is the kind of person from whom one can find out, more or less
incidentally, how one should address and converse with a duke, and
whether you call him, “Your Grace,” or “His Grace,” or just “Grace,” or
“Duke,” or what. All of which things would seem to a director of the
People’s Bank and the president of the Republican Soda Co. so trivial
in importance that he would scorn to ask about them.

So that was why Mr. Fyshe had asked Mr. Furlong to lunch with him, and
to dine with him later on in the same day at the Mausoleum Club to meet
the Duke of Dulham. And Mr. Furlong, realizing that a clergyman must be
all things to all men and not avoid a man merely because he is a duke,
had accepted the invitation to lunch, and had promised to come to
dinner, even though it meant postponing the Willing Workers’ Tango
Class of St. Asaph’s until the following Friday.

Thus it had come about that Mr. Fyshe was seated at lunch, consuming a
cutlet and a pint of Moselle in the plain downright fashion of a man so
democratic that he is practically a revolutionary socialist, and
doesn’t mind saying so; and the young rector of St. Asaph’s was sitting
opposite to him in a religious ecstasy over a _salmi_ of duck.

“The Duke arrived this morning, did he not?” said Mr. Furlong.

“From New York,” said Mr. Fyshe. “He is staying at the Grand Palaver. I
sent a telegram through one of our New York directors of the Traction,
and his Grace has very kindly promised to come over here to dine.”

“Is he here for pleasure?” asked the rector.

“I understand he is–” Mr. Fyshe was going to say “about to invest a
large part of his fortune in American securities,” but he thought
better of it. Even with the clergy it is well to be careful. So he
substituted “is very much interested in studying American conditions.”

“Does he stay long?” asked Mr. Furlong.

Had Mr. Lucullus Fyshe replied quite truthfully, he would have said,
“Not if I can get his money out of him quickly,” but he merely
answered, “That I don’t know.”

“He will find much to interest him,” went on the rector in a musing
tone. “The position of the Anglican Church in America should afford him
an object of much consideration. I understand,” he added, feeling his
way, “that his Grace is a man of deep piety.”

“Very deep,” said Mr. Fyshe.

“And of great philanthropy?”

“Very great.”

“And I presume,” said the rector, taking a devout sip of the unfinished
soda, “that he is a man of immense wealth?”

“I suppose so,” answered Mr. Fyshe quite carelessly. “All these fellows
are.” (Mr. Fyshe generally referred to the British aristocracy as
“these fellows.”) “Land, you know, feudal estates; sheer robbery, I
call it. How the working-class, the proletariat, stand for such tyranny
is more than I can see. Mark my words, Furlong, some day they’ll rise
and the whole thing will come to a sudden end.”

Mr. Fyshe was here launched upon his favourite topic; but he
interrupted himself, just for a moment, to speak to the waiter.

“What the devil do you mean,” he said, “by serving asparagus half-cold?”

“Very sorry, sir,” said the waiter, “shall I take it out?”

“Take it out? Of course take it out, and see that you don’t serve me
stuff of that sort again, or I’ll report you.”

“Very sorry, sir,” said the waiter.

Mr. Fyshe looked at the vanishing waiter with contempt upon his
features. “These pampered fellows are getting unbearable.” he said. “By
Gad, if I had my way I’d fire the whole lot of them: lock ‘em out, put
‘em on the street. That would teach ‘em. Yes, Furlong, you’ll live to
see it that the whole working-class will one day rise against the
tyranny of the upper classes, and society will be overwhelmed.”

But if Mr. Fyshe had realized that at that moment, in the kitchen of
the Mausoleum Club, in those sacred precincts themselves, there was a
walking delegate of the Waiters’ International Union leaning against a
sideboard, with his bowler hat over one corner of his eye, and talking
to a little group of the Chinese philosophers, he would have known that
perhaps the social catastrophe was a little nearer than even he
suspected.

* * * * *

“Are you inviting anyone else tonight?” asked Mr. Furlong.

“I should have liked to ask your father,” said Mr. Fyshe, “but
unfortunately he is out of town.”

What Mr. Fyshe really meant was, “I am extremely glad not to have to
ask your father, whom I would not introduce to the Duke on any account.”

Indeed, Mr. Furlong, senior, the father of the rector of St. Asaph’s,
who was President of the New Amalgamated Hymnal Corporation, and
Director of the Hosanna Pipe and Steam Organ, Limited, was entirely the
wrong man for Mr. Fyshe’s present purpose. In fact, he was reputed to
be as smart a man as ever sold a Bible. At this moment he was out of
town, busied in New York with the preparation of the plates of his new
Hindu Testament (copyright); but had he learned that a duke with
several millions to invest was about to visit the city, he would not
have left it for the whole of Hindustan.

“I suppose you are asking Mr. Boulder,” said the rector.

“No,” answered Mr. Fyshe very decidedly, dismissing the name absolutely.

Indeed, there was even better reason not to introduce Mr. Boulder to
the Duke. Mr. Fyshe had made that sort of mistake once, and never
intended to make it again. It was only a year ago, on the occasion of
the visit of young Viscount FitzThistle to the Mausoleum Club, that Mr.
Fyshe had introduced Mr. Boulder to the Viscount and had suffered
grievously thereby. For Mr. Boulder had no sooner met the Viscount than
he invited him up to his hunting-lodge in Wisconsin, and that was the
last thing known of the investment of the FitzThistle fortune.

This Mr. Boulder of whom Mr. Fyshe spoke might indeed have been seen at
that moment at a further table of the lunch room eating a solitary
meal, an oldish man with a great frame suggesting broken strength, with
a white beard and with falling under-eyelids that made him look as if
he were just about to cry. His eyes were blue and far away, and his
still, mournful face and his great bent shoulders seemed to suggest all
the power and mystery of high finance.

Gloom indeed hung over him. For, when one heard him talk of listed
stocks and cumulative dividends, there was as deep a tone in his quiet
voice as if he spoke of eternal punishment and the wages of sin.

Under his great hands a chattering viscount, or a sturdy duke, or a
popinjay Italian marquis was as nothing.

Mr. Boulder’s methods with titled visitors investing money in America
were deep. He never spoke to them of money, not a word. He merely
talked of the great American forest–he had been born sixty-five years
back, in a lumber state–and, when he spoke of primeval trees and the
howl of the wolf at night among the pines, there was the stamp of
reality about it that held the visitor spellbound; and when he fell to
talking of his hunting-lodge far away in the Wisconsin timber, duke,
earl, or baron that had ever handled a double-barrelled express rifle
listened and was lost.

“I have a little place,” Mr. Boulder would say in his deep tones that
seemed almost like a sob, “a sort of shooting box, I think you’d call
it, up in Wisconsin; just a plain place”–he would add, almost
crying–”made of logs.”

“Oh, really,” the visitor would interject, “made of logs. By Jove, how
interesting!”

All titled people are fascinated at once with logs, and Mr. Boulder
knew it–at least subconsciously.

“Yes, logs,” he would continue, still in deep sorrow; “just the plain
cedar, not squared, you know, the old original timber; I had them cut
right out of the forest.”

By this time the visitor’s excitement was obvious. “And is there game
there?” he would ask.

“We have the timber-wolf,” said Mr. Boulder, his voice half choking at
the sadness of the thing, “and of course the jack wolf and the lynx.”

“And are they ferocious?”

“Oh, extremely so–quite uncontrollable.”

On which the titled visitor was all excitement to start for Wisconsin
at once, even before Mr. Boulder’s invitation was put in words.

And when he returned a week later, all tanned and wearing
bush-whackers’ boots, and covered with wolf bites, his whole available
fortune was so completely invested in Mr. Boulder’s securities that you
couldn’t have shaken twenty-five cents out of him upside down.

Yet the whole thing had been done merely incidentally round a big fire
under the Wisconsin timber, with a dead wolf or two lying in the snow.

So no wonder that Mr. Fyshe did not propose to invite Mr. Boulder to
his little dinner. No, indeed. In fact, his one aim was to keep Mr.
Boulder and his log house hidden from the Duke.

And equally no wonder that as soon as Mr. Boulder read of the Duke’s
arrival in New York, and saw by the _Commercial Echo and Financial
Undertone_ that he might come to the City looking for investments, he
telephoned at once to his little place in Wisconsin–which had, of
course, a primeval telephone wire running to it–and told his steward
to have the place well aired and good fires lighted; and he especially
enjoined him to see if any of the shanty men thereabouts could catch a
wolf or two, as he might need them.

* * * * *

“Is no one else coming then?” asked the rector.

“Oh yes. President Boomer of the University. We shall be a party of
four. I thought the Duke might be interested in meeting Boomer. He may
care to hear something of the archaeological remains of the continent.”

If the Duke did so care, he certainly had a splendid chance in meeting
the gigantic Dr. Boomer, the president of Plutoria University.

If he wanted to know anything of the exact distinction between the
Mexican Pueblo and the Navajo tribal house, he had his opportunity
right now. If he was eager to hear a short talk–say half an hour–on
the relative antiquity of the Neanderthal skull and the gravel deposits
of the Missouri, his chance had come. He could learn as much about the
stone age and the bronze age, in America, from President Boomer, as he
could about the gold age and the age of paper securities from Mr. Fyshe
and Mr. Boulder.

So what better man to meet a duke than an archaeological president?

And if the Duke should feel inclined, as a result of his American visit
(for Dr. Boomer, who knew everything, understood what the Duke had come
for), inclined, let us say, to endow a chair in Primitive Anthropology,
or do any useful little thing of the sort, that was only fair business
all round; or if he even was willing to give a moderate sum towards the
general fund of Plutoria University–enough, let us say, to enable the
president to dismiss an old professor and hire a new one-that surely
was reasonable enough.

The president, therefore, had said yes to Mr. Fyshe’s invitation with
alacrity, and had taken a look through the list of his more incompetent
professors to refresh his memory.

* * * * *

The Duke of Dulham had landed in New York five days before and had
looked round eagerly for a field of turnips, but hadn’t seen any. He
had been driven up Fifth Avenue and had kept his eyes open for
potatoes, but there were none. Nor had he seen any shorthorns in
Central Park, nor any Southdowns on Broadway. For the Duke, of course,
like all dukes, was agricultural from his Norfolk jacket to his
hobnailed boots.

At his restaurant he had cut a potato in two and sent half of it to the
head waiter to know if it was Bermudian. It had all the look of an
early Bermudian, but the Duke feared from the shading of it that it
might be only a late Trinidad. And the head waiter sent it to the chef,
mistaking it for a complaint, and the chef sent it back to the Duke
with a message that it was not a Bermudian but a Prince Edward Island.
And the Duke sent his compliments to the chef, and the chef sent his
compliments to the Duke. And the Duke was so pleased at learning this
that he had a similar potato wrapped up for him to take away, and
tipped the head waiter twenty-five cents, feeling that in an
extravagant country the only thing to do is to go the people one
better. So the Duke carried the potato round for five days in New York
and showed it to everybody. But beyond this he got no sign of
agriculture out of the place at all. No one who entertained him seemed
to know what the beef that they gave him had been fed on; no one, even
in what seemed the best society, could talk rationally about preparing
a hog for the breakfast table. People seemed to eat cauliflower without
distinguishing the Denmark variety from the Oldenburg, and few, if any,
knew Silesian bacon even when they tasted it. And when they took the
Duke out twenty-five miles into what was called the country, there were
still no turnips, but only real estate, and railway embankments, and
advertising signs; so that altogether the obvious and visible decline
of American agriculture in what should have been its leading centre
saddened the Duke’s heart. Thus the Duke passed four gloomy days.
Agriculture vexed him, and still more, of course, the money concerns
which had brought him to America.

Money is a troublesome thing. But it has got to be thought about even
by those who were not brought up to it. If, on account of money
matters, one has been driven to come over to America in the hope of
borrowing money, the awkwardness of how to go about it naturally makes
one gloomy and preoccupied. Had there been broad fields of turnips to
walk in and Holstein cattle to punch in the ribs, one might have
managed to borrow it in the course of gentlemanly intercourse, as from
one cattle-man to another. But in New York, amid piles of masonry and
roaring street-traffic and glittering lunches and palatial residences
one simply couldn’t do it.

Herein lay the truth about the Duke of Dulham’s visit and the error of
Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. Mr. Fyshe was thinking that the Duke had come to
_lend_ money. In reality he had come to _borrow_ it. In fact, the Duke
was reckoning that by putting a second mortgage on Dulham Towers for
twenty thousand sterling, and by selling his Scotch shooting and
leasing his Irish grazing and sub-letting his Welsh coal rent he could
raise altogether a hundred thousand pounds. This for a duke, is an
enormous sum. If he once had it he would be able to pay off the first
mortgage on Dulham Towers, buy in the rights of the present tenant of
the Scotch shooting and the claim of the present mortgagee of the Irish
grazing, and in fact be just where he started. This is ducal finance,
which moves always in a circle.

In other words the Duke was really a poor man–not poor in the American
sense, where poverty comes as a sudden blighting stringency, taking the
form of an inability to get hold of a quarter of a million dollars, no
matter how badly one needs it, and where it passes like a storm-cloud
and is gone, but poor in that permanent and distressing sense known
only to the British aristocracy. The Duke’s case, of course, was
notorious, and Mr. Fyshe ought to have known of it. The Duke was so
poor that the Duchess was compelled to spend three or four months every
year at a fashionable hotel on the Riviera simply to save money, and
his eldest son, the young Marquis of Beldoodle, had to put in most of
his time shooting big game in Uganda, with only twenty or twenty-five
beaters, and with so few carriers and couriers and such a dearth of
elephant men and hyena boys that the thing was a perfect scandal. The
Duke indeed was so poor that a younger son, simply to add his efforts
to those of the rest, was compelled to pass his days in mountain
climbing in the Himalayas, and the Duke’s daughter was obliged to pay
long visits to minor German princesses, putting up with all sorts of
hardship. And while the ducal family wandered about in this
way–climbing mountains, and shooting hyenas, and saving money, the
Duke’s place or seat, Dulham Towers, was practically shut up, with no
one in it but servants and housekeepers and gamekeepers and tourists;
and the picture galleries, except for artists and visitors and
villagers, were closed; and the town house, except for the presence of
servants and tradesmen and secretaries, was absolutely shut. But the
Duke knew that rigid parsimony of this sort, if kept up for a
generation or two, will work wonders, and this sustained him; and the
Duchess knew it, and it sustained her; in fact, all the ducal family,
knowing that it was only a matter of a generation or two, took their
misfortune very cheerfully.

The only thing that bothered the Duke was borrowing money. This was
necessary from time to time when loans or mortgages fell in, but he
hated it. It was beneath him. His ancestors had often taken money, but
had never borrowed it, and the Duke chafed under the necessity. There
was something about the process that went against the grain. To sit
down in pleasant converse with a man, perhaps almost a gentleman, and
then lead up to the subject and take his money from him, seemed to the
Duke’s mind essentially low. He could have understood knocking a man
over the head with a fire shovel and taking his money, but not
borrowing it.

So the Duke had come to America, where borrowing is notoriously easy.
Any member of the Mausoleum Club, for instance, would borrow fifty
cents to buy a cigar, or fifty thousand dollars to buy a house, or five
millions to buy a railroad with complete indifference, and pay it back,
too, if he could, and think nothing of it. In fact, ever so many of the
Duke’s friends were known to have borrowed money in America with
magical ease, pledging for it their seats or their pictures, or one of
their daughters–anything.

So the Duke knew it must be easy. And yet, incredible as it may seem,
he had spent four days in New York, entertained everywhere, and made
much of, and hadn’t borrowed a cent. He had been asked to lunch in a
Riverside palace, and, fool that he was, had come away without so much
as a dollar to show for it. He had been asked to a country house on the
Hudson, and, like an idiot–he admitted it himself–hadn’t asked his
host for as much as his train fare. He had been driven twice round
Central Park in a motor and had been taken tamely back to his hotel not
a dollar the richer. The thing was childish, and he knew it. But to
save his life the Duke didn’t know how to begin. None of the things
that he was able to talk about seemed to have the remotest connection
with the subject of money. The Duke was able to converse reasonably
well over such topics as the approaching downfall of England (they had
talked of it at Dulham Towers for sixty years), or over the duty of
England towards China, or the duty of England to Persia, or its duty to
aid the Young Turk Movement, and its duty to check the Old Servia
agitation. The Duke became so interested in these topics and in
explaining that while he had never been a Little Englander he had
always been a Big Turk, and that he stood for a Small Bulgaria and a
Restricted Austria, that he got further and further away from the topic
of money, which was what he really wanted to come to; and the Duke rose
from his conversations with a look of such obvious distress on his face
that everybody realized that his anxiety about England was killing him.

And then suddenly light had come. It was on his fourth day in New York
that he unexpectedly ran into the Viscount Belstairs (they had been
together as young men in Nigeria, and as middle-aged men in St.
Petersburg), and Belstairs, who was in abundant spirits and who was
returning to England on the _Gloritania_ at noon the next day,
explained to the Duke that he had just borrowed fifty thousand pounds,
on security that wouldn’t be worth a halfpenny in England.

And the Duke said with a sigh, “How the deuce do you do it. Belstairs?”

“Do what?”

“Borrow it,” said the Duke. “How do you manage to get people to talk
about it? Here I am wanting to borrow a hundred thousand, and I’m
hanged if I can even find an opening.”

At which the Viscount had said, “Pooh, pooh! you don’t need any
opening. Just borrow it straight out–ask for it across a dinner table,
just as you’d ask for a match; they think nothing of it here.”

“Across the dinner table?” repeated the Duke, who was a literal man.

“Certainly,” said the Viscount. “Not too soon, you know–say after a
second glass of wine. I assure you it’s absolutely nothing.”

And it was just at that moment that a telegram was handed to the Duke
from Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, praying him, as he was reported to be visiting
the next day the City where the Mausoleum Club stands, to make
acquaintance with him by dining at that institution.

And the Duke, being as I say a literal man, decided that just as soon
as Mr. Fyshe should give him a second glass of wine, that second glass
should cost Mr. Fyshe a hundred thousand pounds sterling.

And oddly enough, at about the same moment, Mr. Fyshe was calculating
that provided he could make the Duke drink a second glass of the
Mausoleum champagne, that glass would cost the Duke about five million
dollars.

* * * * *

So the very morning after that the Duke had arrived on the New York
express in the City; and being an ordinary, democratic, commercial sort
of place, absorbed in its own affairs, it made no fuss over him
whatever. The morning edition of the _Plutopian Citizen_ simply said,
“We understand that the Duke of Dulham arrives at the Grand Palaver
this morning,” after which it traced the Duke’s pedigree back to Jock
of Ealing in the twelfth century and let the matter go at that; and the
noon edition of the _People’s Advocate_ merely wrote, “We learn that
Duke Dulham is in town. He is a relation of Jack Ealing.” But the
_Commercial Echo and Financial Undertone_, appearing at four o’clock,
printed in its stock-market columns the announcement: “We understand
that the Duke of Dulham, who arrives in town today, is proposing to
invest a large sum of money in American Industrials.”

And, of course, that announcement reached every member of the Mausoleum
Club within twenty minutes.

* * * * *

The Duke of Dulham entered the Mausoleum Club that evening at exactly
seven of the clock. He was a short, thick man with a shaven face, red
as a brick, and grizzled hair, and from the look of him he could have
got a job at sight in any lumber camp in Wisconsin. He wore a dinner
jacket, just like an ordinary person, but even without his Norfolk coat
and his hobnailed boots there was something in the way in which he
walked up the long main hall of the Mausoleum Club that every imported
waiter in the place recognized in an instant.

The Duke cast his eye about the club and approved of it. It seemed to
him a modest, quiet place, very different from the staring ostentation
that one sees too often in a German hof or an Italian palazzo. He liked
it.

Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Furlong were standing in a deep alcove or bay where
there was a fire and india-rubber trees and pictures with shaded lights
and a whiskey-and-soda table. There the Duke joined them. Mr. Fyshe he
had met already that afternoon at the Palaver, and he called him
“Fyshe” as if he had known him forever; and indeed, after a few minutes
he called the rector of St. Asaph’s simply “Furlong,” for he had been
familiar with the Anglican clergy in so many parts of the world that he
knew that to attribute any peculiar godliness to them, socially, was
the worst possible taste.

“By Jove,” said the Duke, turning to tap the leaf of a rubber tree with
his finger, “that fellow’s a Nigerian, isn’t he?”

“I hardly know,” said Mr. Fyshe, “I imagine so”; and he added, “You’ve
been in Nigeria, Duke?”

“Oh, some years ago,” said the Duke, “after big game, you know–fine
place for it.”

“Did you get any?” asked Mr. Fyshe.

“Not much,” said the Duke; “a hippo or two.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Fyshe.

“And, of course, now and then a giro,” the Duke went on, and added, “My
sister was luckier, though; she potted a rhino one day, straight out of
a doolie; I call that rather good.”

Mr. Fyshe called it that too.

“Ah, now here’s a good thing,” the Duke went on, looking at a picture.
He carried in his waistcoat pocket an eyeglass that he used for
pictures and for Tamworth hogs, and he put it to his eye with one hand,
keeping the other in the left pocket of his jacket; “and this–this is
a very good thing.”

“I believe so,” said Mr. Fyshe.

“You really have some awfully good things here,” continued the Duke. He
had seen far too many pictures in too many places ever to speak of
“values” or “compositions” or anything of that sort. The Duke merely
looked at a picture and said, “Now here’s a good thing,” or “Ah! here
now is a very good thing,” or, “I say, here’s a really good thing.”

No one could get past this sort of criticism. The Duke had long since
found it bullet-proof.

“They showed me some rather good things in New York,” he went on, “but
really the things you have here seem to be awfully good things.”

Indeed, the Duke was truly pleased with the pictures, for something in
their composition, or else in the soft, expensive light that shone on
them, enabled him to see in the distant background of each a hundred
thousand sterling. And that is a very beautiful picture indeed.

“When you come to our side of the water, Fyshe,” said the Duke, “I must
show you my Botticelli.”

Had Mr. Fyshe, who knew nothing of art, expressed his real thought, he
would have said, “Show me your which?” But he only answered, “I shall
be delighted to see it.”

In any case there was no time to say more, for at this moment the
portly figure and the great face of Dr. Boomer, president of Plutoria
University, loomed upon them. And with him came a great burst of
conversation that blew all previous topics into fragments. He was
introduced to the Duke, and shook hands with Mr. Furlong, and talked to
both of them, and named the kind of cocktail that he wanted, all in one
breath, and in the very next he was asking the Duke about the
Babylonian hieroglyphic bricks that his grandfather, the thirteenth
Duke, had brought home from the Euphrates, and which every
archaeologist knew were preserved in the Duke’s library at Dulham
Towers. And though the Duke hadn’t known about the bricks himself, he
assured Dr. Boomer that his grandfather had collected some really good
things, quite remarkable.

And the Duke, having met a man who knew about his grandfather, felt in
his own element. In fact, he was so delighted with Dr. Boomer and the
Nigerian rubber tree and the shaded pictures and the charm of the whole
place and the certainty that half a million dollars was easily findable
in it, that he put his eyeglass back in his pocket and said.

“A charming club you have here, really most charming.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Fyshe, in a casual tone, “a comfortable place, we like
to think.”

But if he could have seen what was happening below in the kitchens of
the Mausoleum Club, Mr. Fyshe would have realized that just then it was
turning into a most uncomfortable place.

For the walking delegate with his hat on sideways, who had haunted it
all day, was busy now among the assembled Chinese philosophers, writing
down names and distributing strikers’ cards of the International Union
and assuring them that the “boys” of the Grand Palaver had all walked
out at seven, and that all the “boys” of the Commercial and the Union
and of every restaurant in town were out an hour ago.

And the philosophers were taking their cards and hanging up their
waiters’ coats and putting on shabby jackets and bowler hats, worn
sideways, and changing themselves by a wonderful transformation from
respectable Chinese to slouching loafers of the lowest type.

But Mr. Fyshe, being in an alcove and not in the kitchens, saw nothing
of these things. Not even when the head waiter, shaking with
apprehension, appeared with cocktails made by himself, in glasses that
he himself had had to wipe, did Mr. Fyshe, absorbed in the easy
urbanity of the Duke, notice that anything was amiss.

Neither did his guests. For Dr. Boomer, having discovered that the Duke
had visited Nigeria, was asking him his opinion of the famous Bimbaweh
remains of the lower Niger. The Duke confessed that he really hadn’t
noticed them, and the Doctor assured him that Strabo had indubitably
mentioned them (he would show the Duke the very passage), and that they
apparently lay, if his memory served him, about halfway between Oohat
and Ohat; whether above Oohat and below Ohat or above Ohat and below
Oohat he would not care to say for a certainty; for that the Duke must
wait till the president had time to consult his library.

And the Duke was fascinated forthwith with the president’s knowledge of
Nigerian geography, and explained that he had once actually descended
from below Timbuctoo to Oohat in a doolie manned only by four swats.

So presently, having drunk the cocktails, the party moved solemnly in a
body from the alcove towards the private dining-room upstairs, still
busily talking of the Bimbaweh remains, and the swats, and whether the
doolie was, or was not, the original goatskin boat of the book of
Genesis.

And when they entered the private dining-room with its snow-white table
and cut glass and flowers (as arranged by a retreating philosopher now
heading towards the Gaiety Theatre with his hat over his eyes), the
Duke again exclaimed,

“Really, you have a most comfortable club–delightful.”

So they sat down to dinner, over which Mr. Furlong offered up a grace
as short as any that are known even to the Anglican clergy. And the
head waiter, now in deep distress–for he had been sending out
telephone messages in vain to the Grand Palaver and the Continental,
like the captain of a sinking ship–served oysters that he had opened
himself and poured Rhine wine with a trembling hand. For he knew that
unless by magic a new chef and a waiter or two could be got from the
Palaver, all hope was lost.

But the guests still knew nothing of his fears. Dr. Boomer was eating
his oysters as a Nigerian hippo might eat up the crew of a doolie, in
great mouthfuls, and commenting as he did so upon the luxuriousness of
modern life.

And in the pause that followed the oysters he illustrated for the Duke
with two pieces of bread the essential difference in structure between
the Mexican _pueblo_ and the tribal house of the Navajos, and lest the
Duke should confound either or both of them with the adobe hut of the
Bimbaweh tribes he showed the difference at once with a couple of
olives.

By this time, of course, the delay in the service was getting
noticeable. Mr. Fyshe was directing angry glances towards the door,
looking for the reappearance of the waiter, and growling an apology to
his guests. But the president waved the apology aside.

“In my college days,” he said, “I should have considered a plate of
oysters an ample meal. I should have asked for nothing more. We eat,”
he said, “too much.”

This, of course, started Mr. Fyshe on his favourite topic. “Luxury!” he
exclaimed, “I should think so! It is the curse of the age. The
appalling growth of luxury, the piling up of money, the ease with which
huge fortunes are made” (Good! thought the Duke, here we are coming to
it), “these are the things that are going to ruin us. Mark my words,
the whole thing is bound to end in a tremendous crash. I don’t mind
telling you, Duke-my friends here, I am sure, know it already–that I
am more or less a revolutionary socialist. I am absolutely convinced,
sir, that our modern civilization will end in a great social
catastrophe. Mark what I say”–and here Mr. Fyshe became exceedingly
impressive–”a great social catastrophe. Some of us may not live to see
it, perhaps; but you, for instance, Furlong, are a younger man; you
certainly will.”

But here Mr. Fyshe was understating the case. They were all going to
live to see it, right on the spot.

For it was just at this moment, when Mr. Fyshe was talking of the
social catastrophe and explaining with flashing eyes that it was bound
to come, that it came; and when it came it lit, of all places in the
world, right there in the private dining-room of the Mausoleum Club.

For the gloomy head waiter re-entered and leaned over the back of Mr.
Fyshe’s chair and whispered to him.

“Eh? what?” said Mr. Fyshe.

The head waiter, his features stricken with inward agony, whispered
again.

“The infernal, damn scoundrels!” said Mr. Fyshe, starting back in his
chair. “On strike: in this club! It’s an outrage!”

“I’m very sorry sir. I didn’t like to tell you, sir. I’d hoped I might
have got help from the outside, but it seems, sir, the hotels are all
the same way.”

“Do you mean to say,” said Mr. Fyshe, speaking very slowly, “that there
is no dinner?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” moaned the waiter. “It appears the chef hadn’t even
cooked it. Beyond what’s on the table, sir, there’s nothing.”

The social catastrophe had come.

Mr. Fyshe sat silent with his fist clenched. Dr. Boomer, with his great
face transfixed, stared at the empty oyster-shells, thinking perhaps of
his college days. The Duke, with his hundred thousand dashed from his
lips in the second cup of champagne that was never served, thought of
his politeness first and murmured something about taking them to his
hotel.

But there is no need to follow the unhappy details of the unended
dinner. Mr. Fyshe’s one idea was to be gone: he was too true an artist
to think that finance could be carried on over the table-cloth of a
second-rate restaurant, or on an empty stomach in a deserted club. The
thing must be done over again; he must wait his time and begin anew.

And so it came about that the little dinner party of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe
dissolved itself into its constituent elements, like broken pieces of
society in the great cataclysm portrayed by Mr. Fyshe himself.

The Duke was bowled home in a snorting motor to the brilliant rotunda
of the Grand Palaver, itself waiterless and supperless.

The rector of St. Asaph’s wandered off home to his rectory, musing upon
the contents of its pantry.

And Mr. Fyshe and the gigantic Doctor walked side by side homewards
along Plutoria Avenue, beneath the elm trees. Nor had they gone any
great distance before Dr. Boomer fell to talking of the Duke.

“A charming man,” he said, “delightful. I feel extremely sorry for him.”

“No worse off, I presume, than any of the rest of us,” growled Mr.
Fyshe, who was feeling in the sourest of democratic moods; “a man
doesn’t need to be a duke to have a stomach.”

“Oh, pooh, pooh!” said the president, waving the topic aside with his
hand in the air; “I don’t refer to that. Oh, not at all. I was thinking
of his financial position–an ancient family like the Dulhams; it seems
too bad altogether.”

For, of course, to an archaeologist like Dr. Boomer an intimate
acquaintance with the pedigree and fortunes of the greater ducal
families from Jock of Ealing downwards was nothing. It went without
saying. As beside the Neanderthal skull and the Bimbaweh ruins it
didn’t count.

Mr. Fyshe stopped absolutely still in his tracks. “His financial
position?” he questioned, quick as a lynx.

“Certainly,” said Dr. Boomer; “I had taken it for granted that you
knew. The Dulham family are practically ruined. The Duke, I imagine, is
under the necessity of mortgaging his estates; indeed, I should suppose
he is here in America to raise money.”

Mr. Fyshe was a man of lightning action. Any man accustomed to the
Stock Exchange learns to think quickly.

“One moment!” he cried; “I see we are right at your door. May I just
run in and use your telephone? I want to call up Boulder for a moment.”

Two minutes later Mr. Fyshe was saying into the telephone, “Oh, is that
you, Boulder? I was looking for you in vain today–wanted you to meet
the Duke of Dulham, who came in quite unexpectedly from New York; felt
sure you’d like to meet him. Wanted you at the club for dinner, and now
it turns out that the club’s all upset–waiters’ strike or some such
rascality–and the Palaver, so I hear, is in the same fix. Could you
possibly–”

Here Mr. Fyshe paused, listening a moment, and then went on, “Yes, yes;
an excellent idea–most kind of you. Pray do send your motor to the
hotel and give the Duke a bite of dinner. No, I wouldn’t join you,
thanks. Most kind. Good night–”

And within a few minutes more the motor of Mr. Boulder was rolling down
from Plutoria Avenue to the Grand Palaver Hotel.

What passed between Mr. Boulder and the Duke that evening is not known.
That they must have proved congenial company to one another there is no
doubt. In fact, it would seem that, dissimilar as they were in many
ways, they found a common bond of interest in sport. And it is quite
likely that Mr. Boulder may have mentioned that he had a
hunting-lodge–what the Duke would call a shooting-box–in Wisconsin
woods, and that it was made of logs, rough cedar logs not squared, and
that the timber wolves and others which surrounded it were of a
ferocity without parallel.

Those who know the Duke best could measure the effect of that upon his
temperament.

At any rate, it is certain that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe at his
breakfast-table next morning chuckled with suppressed joy to read in
the _Plutopian Citizen_ the item:

“We learn that the Duke of Dulham, who has been paying a brief visit to
the City, leaves this morning with Mr. Asmodeus Boulder for the
Wisconsin woods. We understand that Mr. Boulder intends to show his
guest, who is an ardent sportsman, something of the American wolf.”

* * * * *

And so the Duke went whirling westwards and northwards with Mr. Boulder
in the drawing-room end of a Pullman car, that was all littered up with
double-barrelled express rifles and leather game bags and lynx catchers
and wolf traps and Heaven knows what. And the Duke had on his very
roughest sporting-suit, made, apparently, of alligator hide; and as he
sat there with a rifle across his knees, while the train swept onwards
through open fields and broken woods, the real country at last, towards
the Wisconsin forest, there was such a light of genial happiness in his
face that had not been seen there since he had been marooned in the mud
jungles of Upper Burmah.

And opposite, Mr. Boulder looked at him with fixed silent eyes, and
murmured from time to time some renewed information of the ferocity of
the timber-wolf.

But of wolves other than the timber-wolf, and fiercer still into whose
hands the Duke might fall in America, he spoke never a word.

Nor is it known in the record what happened in Wisconsin, and to the
Mausoleum Club the Duke and his visit remained only as a passing and a
pleasant memory.

CHAPTER TWO: The Wizard of Finance

Down in the City itself, just below the residential street where the
Mausoleum Club is situated, there stands overlooking Central Square the
Grand Palaver Hotel. It is, in truth, at no great distance from the
club, not half a minute in one’s motor. In fact, one could almost walk
it.

But in Central Square the quiet of Plutoria Avenue is exchanged for
another atmosphere. There are fountains that splash unendingly and
mingle their music with the sound of the motor-horns and the clatter of
the cabs. There are real trees and little green benches, with people
reading yesterday’s newspaper, and grass cut into plots among the
asphalt. There is at one end a statue of the first governor of the
state, life-size, cut in stone; and at the other a statue of the last,
ever so much larger than life, cast in bronze. And all the people who
pass by pause and look at this statue and point at it with
walking-sticks, because it is of extraordinary interest; in fact, it is
an example of the new electro-chemical process of casting by which you
can cast a state governor any size you like, no matter what you start
from. Those who know about such things explain what an interesting
contrast the two statues are; for in the case of the governor of a
hundred years ago one had to start from plain, rough material and work
patiently for years to get the effect, whereas now the material doesn’t
matter at all, and with any sort of scrap, treated in the gas furnace
under tremendous pressure, one may make a figure of colossal size like
the one in Central Square.

So naturally Central Square with its trees and its fountains and its
statues is one of the places of chief interest in the City. But
especially because there stands along one side of it the vast pile of
the Grand Palaver Hotel. It rises fifteen stories high and fills all
one side of the square. It has, overlooking the trees in the square,
twelve hundred rooms with three thousand windows, and it would have
held all George Washington’s army. Even people in other cities who have
never seen it know it well from its advertising; “the most homelike
hotel in America,” so it is labelled in all the magazines, the
expensive ones, on the continent. In fact, the aim of the company that
owns the Grand Palaver–and they do not attempt to conceal it–is to
make the place as much a home as possible. Therein lies its charm. It
is a home. You realize that when you look up at the Grand Palaver from
the square at night when the twelve hundred guests have turned on the
lights of the three thousand windows. You realize it at theatre time
when the great string of motors come sweeping to the doors of the
Palaver, to carry the twelve hundred guests to twelve hundred seats in
the theatres at four dollars a seat. But most of all do you appreciate
the character of the Grand Palaver when you step into its rotunda.
Aladdin’s enchanted palace was nothing to it. It has a vast ceiling
with a hundred glittering lights, and within it night and day is a
surging crowd that is never still and a babel of voices that is never
hushed, and over all there hangs an enchanted cloud of thin blue
tobacco smoke such as might enshroud the conjured vision of a magician
of Baghdad or Damascus.

In and through the rotunda there are palm trees to rest the eye and
rubber trees in boxes to soothe the mind, and there are great leather
lounges and deep armchairs, and here and there huge brass ash-bowls as
big as Etruscan tear-jugs. Along one side is a counter with grated
wickets like a bank, and behind it are five clerks with flattened hair
and tall collars, dressed in long black frock-coats all day like
members of a legislature. They have great books in front of them in
which they study unceasingly, and at their lightest thought they strike
a bell with the open palm of their hand, and at the sound of it a page
boy in a monkey suit, with G.P. stamped all over him in brass, bounds
to the desk and off again, shouting a call into the unheeding crowd
vociferously. The sound of it fills for a moment the great space of the
rotunda; it echoes down the corridors to the side; it floats, softly
melodious, through the palm trees of the ladies’ palm room; it is
heard, fainter and fainter, in the distant grill; and in the depths of
the barber shop below the level of the street the barber arrests a
moment-the drowsy hum of his shampoo brushes to catch the sound–as
might a miner in the sunken galleries of a coastal mine cease in his
toil a moment to hear the distant murmur of the sea.

And the clerks call for the pages, the pages call for the guests, and
the guests call for the porters, the bells clang, the elevators rattle,
till home itself was never half so homelike.

* * * * *

“A call for Mr. Tomlinson! A call for Mr. Tomlinson!”

So went the sound, echoing through the rotunda.

And as the page boy found him and handed him on a salver a telegram to
read, the eyes of the crowd about him turned for a moment to look upon
the figure of Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance.

There he stood in his wide-awake hat and his long black coat, his
shoulders slightly bent with his fifty-eight years. Anyone who had
known him in the olden days on his bush farm beside Tomlinson’s Creek
in the country of the Great Lakes would have recognized him in a
moment. There was still on his face that strange, puzzled look that it
habitually wore, only now, of course, the financial papers were calling
it “unfathomable.” There was a certain way in which his eye roved to
and fro inquiringly that might have looked like perplexity, were it not
that the _Financial Undertone_ had recognized it as the “searching look
of a captain of industry.” One might have thought that for all the
goodness in it there was something simple in his face, were it not that
the _Commercial and Pictorial Review_ had called the face
“inscrutable,” and had proved it so with an illustration that left no
doubt of the matter. Indeed, the face of Tomlinson of Tomlinson’s
Creek, now Tomlinson the Wizard of Finance, was not commonly spoken of
as a _face_ by the paragraphers of the Saturday magazine sections, but
was more usually referred to as a mask; and it would appear that
Napoleon the First had had one also. The Saturday editors were never
tired of describing the strange, impressive personality of Tomlinson,
the great dominating character of the newest and highest finance. From
the moment when the interim prospectus of the Erie Auriferous
Consolidated had broken like a tidal wave over Stock Exchange circles,
the picture of Tomlinson, the sleeping shareholder of uncomputed
millions, had filled the imagination of every dreamer in a nation of
poets.

They all described him. And when each had finished he began again.

“The face,” so wrote the editor of the “Our Own Men” section of
_Ourselves Monthly_, “is that of a typical American captain of finance,
hard, yet with a certain softness, broad but with a certain length,
ductile but not without its own firmness.”

“The mouth,” so wrote the editor of the “Success” column of _Brains_,
“is strong but pliable, the jaw firm and yet movable, while there is
something in the set of the ear that suggests the swift, eager mind of
the born leader of men.”

So from state to state ran the portrait of Tomlinson of Tomlinson’s
Creek, drawn by people who had never seen him; so did it reach out and
cross the ocean, till the French journals inserted a picture which they
used for such occasions, and called it _Monsieur Tomlinson, nouveau
capitaine de la haute finance en Amerique_; and the German weeklies,
inserting also a suitable picture from their stock, marked it _Herr
Tomlinson, Amerikanischer Industrie und Finanzcapitan_. Thus did
Tomlinson float from Tomlinson’s Creek beside Lake Erie to the very
banks of the Danube and the Drave.

Some writers grew lyric about him. What visions, they asked, could one
but read them, must lie behind the quiet, dreaming eyes of that
inscrutable face?

They might have read them easily enough, had they but had the key.
Anyone who looked upon Tomlinson as he stood there in the roar and
clatter of the great rotunda of the Grand Palaver with the telegram in
his hand, fumbling at the wrong end to open it, might have read the
visions of the master-mind had he but known their nature. They were
simple enough. For the visions in the mind of Tomlinson, Wizard of
Finance, were for the most part those of a wind-swept hillside farm
beside Lake Erie, where Tomlinson’s Creek runs down to the low edge of
the lake, and where the off-shore wind ripples the rushes of the
shallow water: that, and the vision of a frame house, and the snake
fences of the fourth concession road where it falls to the lakeside.
And if the eyes of the man are dreamy and abstracted, it is because
there lies over the vision of this vanished farm an infinite regret,
greater in its compass than all the shares the Erie Auriferous
Consolidated has ever thrown upon the market.

* * * * *

When Tomlinson had opened the telegram he stood with it for a moment in
his hand, looking the boy full in the face. His look had in it that
peculiar far-away quality that the newspapers were calling “Napoleonic
abstraction.” In reality he was wondering whether to give the boy
twenty-five cents or fifty.

The message that he had just read was worded, “Morning quotations show
preferred A. G. falling rapidly recommend instant sale no confidence
send instructions.”

The Wizard of Finance took from his pocket a pencil (it was a
carpenter’s pencil) and wrote across the face of the message: “Buy me
quite a bit more of the same yours truly.”

This he gave to the boy. “Take it over to him,” he said, pointing to
the telegraph corner of the rotunda. Then after another pause he
mumbled, “Here, sonny,” and gave the boy a dollar.

With that he turned to walk towards the elevator, and all the people
about him who had watched the signing of the message knew that some big
financial deal was going through–a _coup_, in fact, they called it.

The elevator took the Wizard to the second floor. As he went up he felt
in his pocket and gripped a quarter, then changed his mind and felt for
a fifty-cent piece, and finally gave them both to the elevator boy,
after which he walked along the corridor till he reached the corner
suite of rooms, a palace in itself, for which he was paying a thousand
dollars a month ever since the Erie Auriferous Consolidated Company had
begun tearing up the bed of Tomlinson’s Creek in Cahoga County with its
hydraulic dredges.

“Well, mother,” he said as he entered.

There was a woman seated near the window, a woman with a plain, homely
face such as they wear in the farm kitchens of Cahoga County, and a set
of fashionable clothes upon her such as they sell to the ladies of
Plutoria Avenue.

This was “mother,” the wife of the Wizard of Finance and eight years
younger than himself. And she, too, was in the papers and the public
eye; and whatsoever the shops had fresh from Paris, at fabulous prices,
that they sold to mother. They had put a Balkan hat upon her with an
upright feather, and they had hung gold chains on her, and everything
that was most expensive they had hung and tied on mother. You might see
her emerging any morning from the Grand Palaver in her beetle-back
jacket and her Balkan hat, a figure of infinite pathos. And whatever
she wore, the lady editors of _Spring Notes_ and _Causerie du Boudoir_
wrote it out in French, and one paper had called her a _belle
chatelaine_, and another had spoken of her as a grande dame, which the
Tomlinsons thought must be a misprint.

But in any case, for Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance, it was a great
relief to have as his wife a woman like mother, because he knew that
she had taught school in Cahoga County and could hold her own in the
city with any of them.

So mother spent her time sitting in her beetle jacket in the
thousand-dollar suite, reading new novels in brilliant paper covers.
And the Wizard on his trips up and down to the rotunda brought her the
very best, the ones that cost a dollar fifty, because he knew that out
home she had only been able to read books like Nathaniel Hawthorne and
Walter Scott, that were only worth ten cents.

* * * * *

“How’s Fred?” said the Wizard, laying aside his hat, and looking
towards the closed door of an inner room. “Is he better?”

“Some,” said mother. “He’s dressed, but he’s lying down.”

Fred was the son of the Wizard and mother. In the inner room he lay on
a sofa, a great hulking boy of seventeen in a flowered dressing-gown,
fancying himself ill. There was a packet of cigarettes and a box of
chocolates on a chair beside him, and he had the blind drawn and his
eyes half-closed to impress himself.

Yet this was the same boy that less than a year ago on Tomlinson’s
Creek had worn a rough store suit and set his sturdy shoulders to the
buck-saw. At present Fortune was busy taking from him the golden gifts
which the fairies of Cahoga County, Lake Erie, had laid in his cradle
seventeen years ago.

The Wizard tip-toed into the inner room, and from the open door his
listening wife could hear the voice of the boy saying, in a tone as of
one distraught with suffering.

“Is there any more of that jelly?”

“Could he have any, do you suppose?” asked Tomlinson coming back.

“It’s all right,” said mother, “if it will sit on his stomach.” For
this, in the dietetics of Cahoga County, is the sole test. All those
things can be eaten which will sit on the stomach. Anything that won’t
sit there is not eatable.

“Do you suppose I could get them to get any?” questioned Tomlinson.
“Would it be all right to telephone down to the office, or do you think
it would be better to ring?”

“Perhaps,” said his wife, “it would be better to look out into the hall
and see if there isn’t someone round that would tell them.”

This was the kind of problem with which Tomlinson and his wife, in
their thousand-dollar suite in the Grand Palaver, grappled all day. And
when presently a tall waiter in dress-clothes appeared, and said,
“Jelly? Yes, sir, immediately, sir; would you like, sir, Maraschino,
sir, or Portovino, sir?” Tomlinson gazed at him gloomily, wondering if
he would take five dollars.

“What does the doctor say is wrong with Fred?” asked Tomlinson, when
the waiter had gone.

“He don’t just say,” said mother; “he said he must keep very quiet. He
looked in this morning for a minute or two, and he said he’d look in
later in the day again. But he said to keep Fred very quiet.”

Exactly! In other words Fred had pretty much the same complaint as the
rest of Dr. Slyder’s patients on Plutoria Avenue, and was to be treated
in the same way. Dr. Slyder, who was the most fashionable practitioner
in the City, spent his entire time moving to and fro in an almost
noiseless motor earnestly advising people to keep quiet. “You must keep
very quiet for a little while,” he would say with a sigh, as he sat
beside a sick-bed. As he drew on his gloves in the hall below he would
shake his head very impressively and say, “You must keep him very
quiet,” and so pass out, quite soundlessly. By this means Dr. Slyder
often succeeded in keeping people quiet for weeks. It was all the
medicine that he knew. But it was enough. And as his patients always
got well–there being nothing wrong with them–his reputation was
immense.

Very naturally the Wizard and his wife were impressed with him. They
had never seen such therapeutics in Cahoga County, where the practice
of medicine is carried on with forceps, pumps, squirts, splints, and
other instruments of violence.

The waiter had hardly gone when a boy appeared at the door. This time
he presented to Tomlinson not one telegram but a little bundle of them.

The Wizard read them with a lengthening face. The first ran something
like this, “Congratulate you on your daring market turned instantly”;
and the next, “Your opinion justified market rose have sold at 20
points profit”; and a third, “Your forecast entirely correct C. P. rose
at once send further instructions.”

These and similar messages were from brokers’ offices, and all of them
were in the same tone; one told him that C. P. was up, and another T.
G. P. had passed 129, and another that T. C. R. R. had risen ten–all
of which things were imputed to the wonderful sagacity of Tomlinson.
Whereas if they had told him that X. Y. Z. had risen to the moon he
would have been just as wise as to what it meant.

“Well,” said the wife of the Wizard as her husband finished looking
through the reports, “how are things this morning? Are they any better?”

“No,” said Tomlinson, and he sighed as he said it; “this is the worst
day yet. It’s just been a shower of telegrams, and mostly all the same.
I can’t do the figuring of it like you can, but I reckon I must have
made another hundred thousand dollars since yesterday.”

“You don’t say so!” said mother, and they looked at one another
gloomily.

“And half a million last week, wasn’t it?” said Tomlinson as he sank
into a chair. “I’m afraid, mother,” he continued, “it’s no good. We
don’t know how. We weren’t brought up to it.”

All of which meant that if the editor of the _Monetary Afternoon_ or
_Financial Sunday_ had been able to know what was happening with the
two wizards, he could have written up a news story calculated to
electrify all America.

For the truth was that Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance, was attempting
to carry out a _coup_ greater than any as yet attributed to him by the
Press. He was trying to lose his money. That, in the sickness of his
soul, crushed by the Grand Palaver, overwhelmed with the burden of high
finance, had become his aim, to be done with it, to get rid of his
whole fortune.

But if you own a fortune that is computed anywhere from fifty millions
up, with no limit at the top, if you own one-half of all the preferred
stock of an Erie Auriferous Consolidated that is digging gold in
hydraulic bucketfuls from a quarter of a mile of river bed, the task of
losing it is no easy matter.

There are men, no doubt, versed in finance, who might succeed in doing
it. But they have a training that Tomlinson lacked. Invest it as he
would in the worst securities that offered, the most rickety of stock,
the most fraudulent bonds, back it came to him. When he threw a handful
away, back came two in its place. And at every new coup the crowd
applauded the incomparable daring, the unparalleled prescience of the
Wizard.

Like the touch of Midas, his hand turned everything to gold.

“Mother,” he repeated, “it’s no use. It’s like this here Destiny, as
the books call it.”

* * * * *

The great fortune that Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance, was trying his
best to lose had come to him with wonderful suddenness. As yet it was
hardly six months old. As to how it had originated, there were all
sorts of stories afloat in the weekly illustrated press. They agreed
mostly on the general basis that Tomlinson had made his vast fortune by
his own indomitable pluck and dogged industry. Some said that he had
been at one time a mere farm hand who, by sheer doggedness, had fought
his way from the hay-mow to the control of the produce market of
seventeen states. Others had it that he had been a lumberjack who, by
sheer doggedness, had got possession of the whole lumber forest of the
Lake district. Others said that he had been a miner in a Lake Superior
copper mine who had, by the doggedness of his character, got a
practical monopoly of the copper supply. These Saturday articles, at
any rate, made the Saturday reader rigid with sympathetic doggedness
himself, which was all that the editor (who was doggedly trying to make
the paper pay) wanted to effect.

But in reality the making of Tomlinson’s fortune was very simple. The
recipe for it is open to anyone. It is only necessary to own a hillside
farm beside Lake Erie where the uncleared bush and the broken fields go
straggling down to the lake, and to have running through it a creek,
such as that called Tomlinson’s, brawling among the stones and willows,
and to discover in the bed of a creek–a gold mine.

That is all.

Nor is it necessary in these well-ordered days to discover the gold for
one’s self. One might have lived a lifetime on the farm, as Tomlinson’s
father had, and never discover it for one’s self. For that indeed the
best medium of destiny is a geologist, let us say the senior professor
of geology at Plutoria University. That was how it happened.

The senior professor, so it chanced, was spending his vacation near by
on the shores of the lake, and his time was mostly passed–for how
better can a man spend a month of pleasure?–in looking for
outcroppings of Devonian rock of the post-tertiary period. For which
purpose he carried a vacation hammer in his pocket, and made from time
to time a note or two as he went along, or filled his pockets with the
chippings of vacation rocks.

So it chanced that he came to Tomlinson’s Creek at the very point where
a great slab of Devonian rock bursts through the clay of the bank. When
the senior professor of geology saw it and noticed a stripe like a mark
on a tiger’s back–a fault he called it–that ran over the face of the
block, he was at it in an instant, beating off fragments with his
little hammer.

Tomlinson and his boy Fred were logging in the underbrush near by with
a long chain and yoke of oxen, but the geologist was so excited that he
did not see them till the sound of his eager hammer had brought them to
his side. They took him up to the frame house in the clearing, where
the chatelaine was hoeing a potato patch with a man’s hat on her head,
and they gave him buttermilk and soda cakes, but his hand shook so that
he could hardly eat them.

The geologist left Cahoga station that night for the City with a
newspaper full of specimens inside his suit-case, and he knew that if
any person or persons would put up money enough to tear that block of
rock away and follow the fissure down, there would be found there
something to astonish humanity, geologists and all.

* * * * *

After that point in the launching of a gold mine the rest is easy.
Generous, warm-hearted men, interested in geology, were soon found.
There was no stint of money. The great rock was torn sideways from its
place, and from beneath it the crumbled, glittering rock-dust that
sparkled in the sun was sent in little boxes to the testing
laboratories of Plutoria University. There the senior professor of
geology had sat up with it far into the night in a darkened laboratory,
with little blue flames playing underneath crucibles, as in a
magician’s cavern, and with the door locked. And as each sample that he
tested was set aside and tied in a cardboard box by itself, he labelled
it “aur. p. 75,” and the pen shook in his hand as he marked it. For to
professors of geology those symbols mean “this is seventy-five per cent
pure gold.” So it was no wonder that the senior professor of geology
working far into the night among the blue flames shook with excitement;
not, of course, for the gold’s sake as money (he had no time to think
of that), but because if this thing was true it meant that an
auriferous vein had been found in what was Devonian rock of the
post-tertiary stratification, and if that was so it upset enough
geology to spoil a textbook. It would mean that the professor could
read a paper at the next Pan-Geological Conference that would turn the
whole assembly into a bedlam.

It pleased him, too, to know that the men he was dealing with were
generous. They had asked him to name his own price or the tests that he
made and when he had said two dollars per sample they had told him to
go right ahead. The professor was not, I suppose, a mercenary man, but
it pleased him to think that he could, clean up sixteen dollars in a
single evening in his laboratory. It showed, at any rate, that
businessmen put science at its proper value. Strangest of all was the
fact that the men had told him that even this ore was apparently
nothing to what there was; it had all come out of one single spot in
the creek, not the hundredth part of the whole claim. Lower down, where
they had thrown the big dam across to make the bed dry, they were
taking out this same stuff and even better, so they said, in cartloads.
The hydraulic dredges were tearing it from the bed of the creek all
day, and at night a great circuit of arc lights gleamed and sputtered
over the roaring labour of the friends of geological research.

Thus had the Erie Auriferous Consolidated broken in a tidal wave over
financial circles. On the Stock Exchange, in the downtown offices, and
among the palm trees of the Mausoleum Club they talked of nothing else.
And so great was the power of the wave that it washed Tomlinson and his
wife along on the crest of it, and landed them fifty feet up in their
thousand-dollar suite in the Grand Palaver. And as a result of it
“mother” wore a beetle-back jacket; and Tomlinson received a hundred
telegrams a day, and Fred quit school and ate chocolates.

But in the business world the most amazing thing about it was the
wonderful shrewdness of Tomlinson.

The first sign of it had been that he had utterly refused to allow the
Erie Auriferous Consolidated (as the friends of geology called
themselves) to take over the top half of the Tomlinson farm. For the
bottom part he let them give him one-half of the preferred stock in the
company in return for their supply of development capital. This was
their own proposition; in fact, they reckoned that in doing this they
were trading about two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of machinery
for, say ten million dollars of gold. But it frightened them when
Tomlinson said “Yes” to the offer, and when he said that as to common
stock they might keep it, it was no use to him, they were alarmed and
uneasy till they made him take a block of it for the sake of market
confidence.

But the top end of the farm he refused to surrender, and the friends of
applied geology knew that there must be something pretty large behind
this refusal; the more so as the reason that Tomlinson gave was such a
simple one. He said that he didn’t want to part with the top end of the
place because his father was buried on it beside the creek, and so he
didn’t want the dam higher up, not for any consideration.

This was regarded in business circles as a piece of great shrewdness.
“Says his father is buried there, eh? Devilish shrewd that!”

It was so long since any of the members of the Exchange or the
Mausoleum Club had wandered into such places as Cahoga County that they
did not know that there was nothing strange in what Tomlinson said. His
father was buried there, on the farm itself, in a grave overgrown with
raspberry bushes, and with a wooden headstone encompassed by a square
of cedar rails, and slept as many another pioneer of Cahoga is sleeping.

“Devilish smart idea!” they said; and forthwith half the financial men
of the city buried their fathers, or professed to have done so, in
likely places–along the prospective right-of-way of a suburban
railway, for example; in fact, in any place that marked them out for
the joyous resurrection of an expropriation purchase.

Thus the astounding shrewdness of Tomlinson rapidly became a legend,
the more so as he turned everything he touched to gold.

They narrated little stories of him in the whiskey-and-soda corners of
the Mausoleum Club.

“I put it to him in a casual way,” related, for example, Mr. Lucullus
Fyshe, “casually, but quite frankly. I said, ‘See here, this is just a
bagatelle to you, no doubt, but to me it might be of some use. T. C.
bonds,’ I said, ‘have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know
as well as I do that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock
underneath never could and never can earn a par dividend. Now,’ I said,
‘Mr. Tomlinson, tell me what all that means?’ Would you believe it, the
fellow looked me right in the face in that queer way he has and he
said, ‘I don’t know!’”

“He said he didn’t know!” repeated the listener, in a tone of amazement
and respect. “By Jove! eh? he said he didn’t know! The man’s a wizard!”

“And he looked as if he didn’t!” went on Mr. Fyshe. “That’s the deuce
of it. That man when he wants to can put on a look, sir, that simply
means nothing, absolutely nothing.”

In this way Tomlinson had earned his name of the Wizard of American
Finance.

And meantime Tomlinson and his wife, within their suite at the Grand
Palaver, had long since reached their decision. For there was one
aspect and only one in which Tomlinson was really and truly a wizard.
He saw clearly that for himself and his wife the vast fortune that had
fallen to them was of no manner of use. What did it bring them? The
noise and roar of the City in place of the silence of the farm and the
racket of the great rotunda to drown the remembered murmur of the
waters of the creek.

So Tomlinson had decided to rid himself of his new wealth, save only
such as might be needed to make his son a different kind of man from
himself.

“For Fred, of course,” he said, “it’s different. But out of such a lot
as that it’ll be easy to keep enough for him. It’ll be a grand thing
for Fred, this money. He won’t have to grow up like you and me. He’ll
have opportunities we never got.” He was getting them already. The
opportunity to wear seven dollar patent leather shoes and a bell-shaped
overcoat with a silk collar, to lounge into moving-picture shows and
eat chocolates and smoke cigarettes–all these opportunities he was
gathering immediately. Presently, when he learned his way round a
little, he would get still bigger ones.

“He’s improving fast,” said mother. She was thinking of his patent
leather shoes.

“He’s popular,” said his father. “I notice it downstairs. He sasses any
of them just as he likes; and no matter how busy they are, as soon as
they see it’s Fred they’re all ready to have a laugh with him.”

Certainly they were, as any hotel clerk with plastered hair is ready to
laugh with the son of a multimillionaire. It’s a certain sense of
humour that they develop.

“But for us, mother,” said the Wizard, “we’ll be rid of it. The gold is
there. It’s not right to keep it back. But we’ll just find a way to
pass it on to folks that need it worse than we do.”

For a time they had thought of giving away the fortune. But how? Who
did they know that would take it?

It had crossed their minds–for who could live in the City a month
without observing the imposing buildings of Plutoria University, as
fine as any departmental store in town?–that they might give it to the
college.

But there, it seemed, the way was blocked.

“You see, mother,” said the puzzled Wizard, “we’re not known. We’re
strangers. I’d look fine going up there to the college and saying, ‘I
want to give you people a million dollars.’ They’d laugh at me!”

“But don’t one read it in the papers,” his wife had protested, “where
Mr. Carnegie gives ever so much to the colleges, more than all we’ve
got, and they take it?”

“That’s different,” said the Wizard. “He’s in with them. They all know
him. Why, he’s a sort of chairman of different boards of colleges, and
he knows all the heads of the schools, and the professors, so it’s no
wonder that if he offers to give a pension, or anything, they take it.
Just think of me going up to one of the professors up there in the
middle of his teaching and saying; ‘I’d like to give you a pension for
life!’ Imagine it! Think what he’d say!”

But the Tomlinsons couldn’t imagine it, which was just as well.

So it came about that they had embarked on their system. Mother, who
knew most arithmetic, was the leading spirit. She tracked out all the
stocks and bonds in the front page of the _Financial Undertone_, and on
her recommendation the Wizard bought. They knew the stocks only by
their letters, but this itself gave a touch of high finance to their
deliberations.

“I’d buy some of this R.O.P. if I was you,” said mother; “it’s gone
down from 127 to 107 in two days, and I reckon it’ll be all gone in ten
days or so.”

“Wouldn’t ‘G.G. deb.’ be better? It goes down quicker.”

“Well, it’s a quick one,” she assented, “but it don’t go down so
steady. You can’t rely on it. You take ones like R.O.P. and T.R.R.
pfd.; they go down all the time and you know where you are.”

As a result of which, Tomlinson would send his instructions. He did it
all from the rotunda in a way of his own that he had evolved with a
telegraph clerk who told him the names of brokers, and he dealt thus
through brokers whom he never saw. As a result of this, the sluggish
R.O.P. and T.R.R. would take as sudden a leap into the air as might a
mule with a galvanic shock applied to its tail. At once the word was
whispered that the “Tomlinson interests” were after the R.O.P. to
reorganize it, and the whole floor of the Exchange scrambled for the
stock.

And so it was that after a month or two of these operations the Wizard
of Finance saw himself beaten.

“It’s no good, mother,” he repeated, “it’s just a kind of Destiny.”

Destiny perhaps it was.

But, if the Wizard of Finance had known it, at this very moment when he
sat with the Aladdin’s palace of his golden fortune reared so strangely
about him, Destiny was preparing for him still stranger things.

Destiny, so it would seem, was devising Its own ways and means of
dealing with Tomlinson’s fortune. As one of the ways and means, Destiny
was sending at this moment as its special emissaries two huge, portly
figures, wearing gigantic goloshes, and striding downwards from the
halls of Plutoria University to the Grand Palaver Hotel. And one of
these was the gigantic Dr. Boomer, the president of the college, and
the other was his professor of Greek, almost as gigantic as himself.
And they carried in their capacious pockets bundles of pamphlets on
“Archaeological Remains of Mitylene,” and the “Use of the Greek
Pluperfect,” and little treatises such as “Education and Philanthropy,”
by Dr. Boomer, and “The Excavation of Mitylene: An Estimate of Cost,”
by Dr. Boyster, “Boomer on the Foundation and Maintenance of Chairs,”
etc.

Many a man in city finance who had seen Dr. Boomer enter his office
with a bundle of these monographs and a fighting glitter in his eyes
had sunk back in his chair in dismay. For it meant that Dr. Boomer had
tracked him out for a benefaction to the University, and that all
resistance was hopeless.

When Dr. Boomer once laid upon a capitalist’s desk his famous pamphlet
on the “Use of the Greek Pluperfect,” it was as if an Arabian sultan
had sent the fatal bow-string to a condemned pasha, or Morgan the
buccaneer had served the death-sign on a shuddering pirate.

So they came nearer and nearer, shouldering the passers-by. The sound
of them as they talked was like the roaring of the sea as Homer heard
it. Never did Castor and Pollux come surging into battle as Dr. Boomer
and Dr. Boyster bore down upon the Grand Palaver Hotel.

Tomlinson, the Wizard of Finance, had hesitated about going to the
university. The university was coming to him. As for those millions of
his, he could take his choice–dormitories, apparatus, campuses,
buildings, endowment, anything he liked but choose he must. And if he
feared that, after all, his fortune was too vast even for such a
disposal, Dr. Boomer would show him how he might use it in digging up
ancient Mitylene, or modern Smyrna, or the lost cities of the Plain of
Pactolus. If the size of the fortune troubled him, Dr. Boomer would dig
him up the whole African Sahara from Alexandria to Morocco, and ask for
more.

But if Destiny held all this for Tomlinson in its outstretched palm
before it, it concealed stranger things still beneath the folds of its
toga.

There were enough surprises there to turn the faces of the whole
directorate of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated as yellow as the gold
they mined.

For at this very moment, while the president of Plutoria University
drew nearer and nearer to the Grand Palaver Hotel, the senior professor
of geology was working again beside the blue flames in his darkened
laboratory. And this time there was no shaking excitement over him. Nor
were the labels that he marked, as sample followed sample in the tests,
the same as those of the previous marking. Not by any means.

And his grave face as he worked in silence was as still as the stones
of the post-tertiary period.

CHAPTER THREE: The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson

“This, Mr. Tomlinson, is our campus,” said President Boomer as they
passed through the iron gates of Plutoria University.

“For camping?” said the Wizard.

“Not exactly,” answered the president, “though it would, of course,
suit for that. _Nihil humunum alienum_, eh?” and he broke into a loud,
explosive laugh, while his spectacles irradiated that peculiar form of
glee derived from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr.
Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson, joined in the
laugh in a deep, reverberating chorus.

The two had the Wizard of Finance between them, and they were marching
him up to the University. He was taken along much as is an arrested man
who has promised to go quietly. They kept their hands off him, but they
watched him sideways through their spectacles. At the least sign of
restlessness they doused him with Latin. The Wizard of Finance, having
been marked out by Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster as a prospective
benefactor, was having Latin poured over him to reduce him to the
proper degree of plasticity.

They had already put him through the first stage. They had, three days
ago, called on him at the Grand Palaver and served him with a pamphlet
on “The Excavation of Mitylene” as a sort of writ. Tomlinson and his
wife had looked at the pictures of the ruins, and from the appearance
of them they judged that Mitylene was in Mexico, and they said that it
was a shame to see it in that state and that the United States ought to
intervene.

As the second stage on the path of philanthropy, the Wizard of Finance
was now being taken to look at the university. Dr. Boomer knew by
experience that no rich man could look at it without wanting to give it
money.

And here the president had found that there is no better method of
dealing with businessmen than to use Latin on them. For other purposes
the president used other things. For example at a friendly dinner at
the Mausoleum Club where light conversation was in order, Dr. Boomer
chatted, as has been seen, on the archaeological remains of the
Navajos. In the same way, at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s Dante luncheons, he
generally talked of the Italian _cinquecentisti_ and whether Gian Gobbo
della Scala had left a greater name than Can Grande della Spiggiola.
But such talk as that was naturally only for women. Businessmen are
much too shrewd for that kind of thing; in fact, so shrewd are they, as
President Boomer had long since discovered, that nothing pleases them
so much as the quiet, firm assumption that they know Latin. It is like
writing them up an asset. So it was that Dr. Boomer would greet a
business acquaintance with a roaring salutation of, “_Terque quaterque
beatus_,” or stand wringing his hand off to the tune of “_Oh et
presidium et dulce decus meum_.”

This caught them every time.

“You don’t,” said Tomlinson the Wizard in a hesitating tone as he
looked at the smooth grass of the campus, “I suppose, raise anything on
it?”

“No, no; this is only for field sports,” said the president; “_sunt
quos curriculo_–”

To which Dr. Boyster on the other side added, like a chorus, “_pulverem
Olympicum_.”

This was their favourite quotation. It always gave President Boomer a
chance to speak of the final letter “m” in Latin poetry, and to say
that in his opinion the so-called elision of the final “m” was more
properly a dropping of the vowel with a repercussion of the two last
consonants. He supported this by quoting Ammianus, at which Dr. Boyster
exclaimed, “Pooh! Ammianus: more dog Latin!” and appealed to Mr.
Tomlinson as to whether any rational man nowadays cared what Ammianus
thought?

To all of which Tomlinson answered never a word, but looked steadily
first at one and then at the other. Dr. Boomer said afterwards that the
penetration of Tomlinson was wonderful, and that it was excellent to
see how Boyster tried in vain to draw him; and Boyster said afterwards
that the way in which Tomlinson quietly refused to be led on by Boomer
was delicious, and that it was a pity that Aristophanes was not there
to do it justice.

All of which was happening as they went in at the iron gates and up the
elm avenue of Plutoria University.

The university, as everyone knows, stands with its great gates on
Plutoria Avenue, and with its largest buildings, those of the faculties
of industrial and mechanical science, fronting full upon the street.

These buildings are exceptionally fine, standing fifteen stories high
and comparing favourably with the best departmental stores or factories
in the City. Indeed, after nightfall, when they are all lighted up for
the evening technical classes and when their testing machinery is in
full swing and there are students going in and out in overall suits,
people have often mistaken the university, or this newer part of it,
for a factory. A foreign visitor once said that the students looked
like plumbers, and President Boomer was so proud of it that he put the
phrase into his next Commencement address; and from there the
newspapers got it and the Associated Press took it up and sent it all
over the United States with the heading, “Have Appearance of Plumbers;
Plutoria University Congratulated on Character of Students,” and it was
a proud day indeed for the heads of the Industrial Science faculty.

But the older part of the university stands so quietly and modestly at
the top end of the elm avenue, so hidden by the leaves of it, that no
one could mistake it for a factory. This, indeed, was once the whole
university, and had stood there since colonial days under the name
Concordia College. It had been filled with generations of presidents
and professors of the older type with long white beards and rusty black
clothes, and salaries of fifteen hundred dollars.

But the change both of name and of character from Concordia College to
Plutoria University was the work of President Boomer. He had changed it
from an old-fashioned college of the by-gone type to a university in
the true modern sense. At Plutoria they now taught everything.
Concordia College, for example, had no teaching of religion except
lectures on the Bible. Now they had lectures also on Confucianism,
Mohammedanism Buddhism, with an optional course on atheism for students
in the final year.

And, of course, they had long since admitted women, and there were now
beautiful creatures with Cleo de Merode hair studying astronomy at
oaken desks and looking up at the teacher with eyes like comets. The
university taught everything and did everything. It had whirling
machines on the top of it that measured the speed of the wind, and deep
in its basements it measured earthquakes with a seismograph; it held
classes on forestry and dentistry and palmistry; it sent life classes
into the slums, and death classes to the city morgue. It offered such a
vast variety of themes, topics and subjects to the students, that there
was nothing that a student was compelled to learn, while from its own
presses in its own press-building it sent out a shower of bulletins and
monographs like driven snow from a rotary plough.

In fact, it had become, as President Boomer told all the businessmen in
town, not merely a university, but a _universitas_ in the true sense,
and every one of its faculties was now a _facultas_ in the real
acceptance of the word, and its studies properly and truly _studia_;
indeed, if the businessmen would only build a few more dormitories and
put up enough money to form an adequate _fondatum_ or _fundum_, then
the good work might be looked upon as complete.

As the three walked up the elm avenue there met them a little stream of
students with college books, and female students with winged-victory
hats, and professors with last year’s overcoats. And some went past
with a smile and others with a shiver.

“That’s Professor Withers,” said the president in a sympathetic voice
as one of the shivering figures went past; “poor Withers,” and he
sighed.

“What’s wrong with him?” said the Wizard; “is he sick?”

“No, not sick,” said the president quietly and sadly, “merely
inefficient.”

“Inefficient?”

“Unfortunately so. Mind you, I don’t mean ‘inefficient’ in every sense.
By no means. If anyone were to come to me and say, ‘Boomer, can you put
your hand for me on a first-class botanist?’ I’d say, ‘Take Withers.’
I’d say it in a minute.” This was true. He would have. In fact, if
anyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr. Boomer would have given
away half the professoriate.

“Well, what’s wrong with him?” repeated Tomlinson, “I suppose he ain’t
quite up to the mark in some ways, eh?”

“Precisely,” said the president, “not quite up to the mark–a very
happy way of putting it. _Capax imperii nisi imperasset_, as no doubt
you are thinking to yourself. The fact is that Withers, though an
excellent fellow, can’t manage large classes. With small classes he is
all right, but with large classes the man is lost. He can’t handle
them.”

“He can’t, eh?” said the Wizard.

“No. But what can I do? There he is. I can’t dismiss him. I can’t
pension him. I’ve no money for it.”

Here the president slackened a little in his walk and looked sideways
at the prospective benefactor. But Tomlinson gave no sign.

A second professorial figure passed them on the other side.

“There again,” said the president, “that’s another case of
inefficiency–Professor Shottat, our senior professor of English.”

“What’s wrong with _him_?” asked the Wizard.

“He can’t handle _small_ classes,” said the president. “With large
classes he is really excellent, but with small ones the man is simply
hopeless.”

In this fashion, before Mr. Tomlinson had measured the length of the
avenue, he had had ample opportunity to judge of the crying need of
money at Plutoria University, and of the perplexity of its president.
He was shown professors who could handle the first year, but were
powerless with the second; others who were all right with the second
but broke down with the third, while others could handle the third but
collapsed with the fourth. There were professors who were all right in
their own subject, but perfectly impossible outside of it; others who
were so occupied outside of their own subject that they were useless
inside of it; others who knew their subject, but couldn’t lecture; and
others again who lectured admirably, but didn’t know their subject.

In short it was clear–as it was meant to be–that the need of the
moment was a sum of money sufficient to enable the president to dismiss
everybody but himself and Dr. Boyster. The latter stood in a class all
by himself. He had known the president for forty-five years, ever since
he was a fat little boy with spectacles in a classical academy,
stuffing himself on irregular Greek verbs as readily as if on oysters.

But it soon appeared that the need for dismissing the professors was
only part of the trouble. There were the buildings to consider.

“This, I am ashamed to say,” said Dr. Boomer, as they passed the
imitation Greek portico of the old Concordia College building, “is our
original home, the _fons et origo_ of our studies, our faculty of arts.”

It was indeed a dilapidated building, yet there was a certain majesty
about it, too, especially when one reflected that it had been standing
there looking much the same at the time when its students had trooped
off in a flock to join the army of the Potomac, and much the same,
indeed, three generations before that, when the classes were closed and
the students clapped three-cornered hats on their heads and were off to
enlist as minute men with flintlock muskets under General Washington.

But Dr. Boomer’s one idea was to knock the building down and to build
on its site a real _facultas_ ten storeys high, with elevators in it.

Tomlinson looked about him humbly as he stood in the main hall. The
atmosphere of the place awed him. There were bulletins and time-tables
and notices stuck on the walls that gave evidence of the activity of
the place. “Professor Slithers will be unable to meet his classes
today,” ran one of them, and another “Professor Withers will not meet
his classes this week,” and another, “Owing to illness, Professor
Shottat will not lecture this month,” while still another announced,
“Owing to the indisposition of Professor Podge, all botanical classes
are suspended, but Professor Podge hopes to be able to join in the
Botanical Picnic Excursion to Loon Lake on Saturday afternoon.” You
could judge of the grinding routine of the work from the nature of
these notices. Anyone familiar with the work of colleges would not heed
it, but it shocked Tomlinson to think how often the professors of the
college were stricken down by overwork.

Here and there in the hall, set into niches, were bronze busts of men
with Roman faces and bare necks, and the edge of a toga cast over each
shoulder.

“Who would these be?” asked Tomlinson, pointing at them. “Some of the
chief founders and benefactors of the faculty,” answered the president,
and at this the hopes of Tomlinson sank in his heart. For he realized
the class of man one had to belong to in order to be accepted as a
university benefactor.

“A splendid group of men, are they not?” said the president. “We owe
them much. This is the late Mr. Hogworth, a man of singularly large
heart.” Here he pointed to a bronze figure wearing a wreath of laurel
and inscribed GULIEMUS HOGWORTH, LITT. DOC. “He had made a great
fortune in the produce business and wishing to mark his gratitude to
the community he erected the anemometer, the wind-measure, on the roof
of the building, attaching to it no other condition than that his name
should be printed in the weekly reports immediately beside the velocity
of the wind. The figure beside him is the late Mr. Underbugg, who
founded our lectures on the Four Gospels on the sole stipulation that
henceforth any reference of ours to the four gospels should be coupled
with his name.”

“What’s that after his name?” asked Tomlinson.

“Litt. Doc.?” said the president. “Doctor of Letters, our honorary
degree. We are always happy to grant it to our benefactors by a vote of
the faculty.”

Here Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster wheeled half round and looked quietly
and steadily at the Wizard of Finance. To both their minds it was
perfectly plain that an honourable bargain was being struck.

“Yes, Mr. Tomlinson,” said the president, as they emerged from the
building, “no doubt you begin to realize our unhappy position. Money,
money, money,” he repeated half-musingly. “If I had the money I’d have
that whole building down and dismantled in a fortnight.”

From the central building the three passed to the museum building,
where Tomlinson was shown a vast skeleton of a Diplodocus Maximus, and
was specially warned not to confuse it with the Dinosaurus Perfectus,
whose bones, however, could be bought if anyone, any man of large
heart; would come to the university and say straight out, “Gentlemen,
what can I do for you?” Better still, it appeared the whole museum
which was hopelessly antiquated, being twenty-five years old, could be
entirely knocked down if a sufficient sum was forthcoming; and its
curator, who was as ancient as the Dinosaurus itself, could be
dismissed on half-pay if any man had a heart large enough for the
dismissal.

From the museum they passed to the library, where there were
full-length portraits of more founders and benefactors in long red
robes, holding scrolls of paper, and others sitting holding pens and
writing on parchment, with a Greek temple and a thunderstorm in the
background.

And here again it appeared that the crying need of the moment was for
someone to come to the university and say, “Gentlemen, what can I do
for you?” On which the whole library, for it was twenty years old and
out of date, might be blown up with dynamite and carted away.

But at all this the hopes of Tomlinson sank lower and lower. The red
robes and the scrolls were too much for him.

From the library they passed to the tall buildings that housed the
faculty of industrial and mechanical science. And here again the same
pitiful lack of money was everywhere apparent. For example, in the
physical science department there was a mass of apparatus for which the
university was unable to afford suitable premises, and in the chemical
department there were vast premises for which the university was unable
to buy apparatus, and so on. Indeed it was part of Dr. Boomer’s method
to get himself endowed first with premises too big for the apparatus,
and then by appealing to public spirit to call for enough apparatus to
more than fill the premises, by means of which system industrial
science at Plutoria University advanced with increasing and gigantic
strides.

But most of all, the electric department interested the Wizard of
Finance. And this time his voice lost its hesitating tone and he looked
straight at Dr. Boomer as he began,

“I have a boy–”

“Ah!” said Dr. Boomer, with a huge ejaculation of surprise and relief;
“you have a boy!”

There were volumes in his tone. What it meant was, “Now, indeed, we
have got you where we want you,” and he exchanged a meaning look with
the professor of Greek.

Within five minutes the president and Tomlinson and Dr. Boyster were
gravely discussing on what terms and in what way Fred might be admitted
to study in the faculty of industrial science. The president, on
learning that Fred had put in four years in Cahoga County Section No. 3
School, and had been head of his class in ciphering, nodded his head
gravely and said it would simply be a matter of a _pro tanto_; that, in
fact, he felt sure that Fred might be admitted _ad eundem_. But the
real condition on which they meant to admit him was, of course, not
mentioned.

One door only in the faculty of industrial and mechanical science they
did not pass, a heavy oak door at the end of a corridor bearing the
painted inscription: Geological and Metallurgical Laboratories. Stuck
in the door was a card with the words (they were conceived in the
courteous phrases of mechanical science, which is almost a branch of
business in the real sense): Busy–keep out.

Dr. Boomer looked at the card. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Gildas is no doubt
busy with his tests. We won’t disturb him.” The president was always
proud to find a professor busy; it looked well.

But if Dr. Boomer had known what was going on behind the oaken door of
the Department of Geology and Metallurgy, he would have felt
considerably disturbed himself.

For here again Gildas, senior professor of geology, was working among
his blue flames at a final test on which depended the fate of the Erie
Auriferous Consolidated and all connected with it.

Before him there were some twenty or thirty packets of crumpled dust
and splintered ore that glittered on the testing-table. It had been
taken up from the creek along its whole length, at even spaces twenty
yards apart, by an expert sent down in haste by the directorate, after
Gildas’s second report, and heavily bribed to keep his mouth shut.

And as Professor Gildas stood and worked at the samples and tied them
up after analysis in little white cardboard boxes, he marked each one
very carefully and neatly with the words, PYRITES: WORTHLESS.

Beside the professor worked a young demonstrator of last year’s
graduation class. It was he, in fact, who had written the polite notice
on the card.

“What is the stuff, anyway?” he asked.

“A sulphuret of iron,” said the professor, “or iron pyrites. In colour
and appearance it is practically identical with gold. Indeed, in all
ages,” he went on, dropping at once into the classroom tone and
adopting the professional habit of jumping backwards twenty centuries
in order to explain anything properly, “it has been readily mistaken
for the precious metal. The ancients called it ‘fool’s gold.’ Martin
Frobisher brought back four shiploads of it from Baffin Land thinking
that he had discovered an Eldorado. There are large deposits of it in
the mines of Cornwall, and it is just possible,” here the professor
measured his words as if speaking of something that he wouldn’t
promise, “that the Cassiterides of the Phoenicians contained deposits
of the same sulphuret. Indeed, I defy anyone,” he continued, for he was
piqued in his scientific pride, “to distinguish it from gold without a
laboratory-test. In large quantities, I concede, its lack of weight
would betray it to a trained hand, but without testing its solubility
in nitric acid, or the fact of its burning with a blue flame under the
blow-pipe, it cannot be detected. In short, when crystallized in
dodecahedrons–”

“Is it any good?” broke in the demonstrator.

“Good?” said the professor. “Oh, you mean commercially? Not in the
slightest. Much less valuable than, let us say, ordinary mud or clay.
In fact, it is absolutely good for nothing.”

They were silent for a moment, watching the blue flames above the
brazier.

Then Gildas spoke again. “Oddly enough,” he said, “the first set of
samples were undoubtedly pure gold–not the faintest doubt of that.
That is the really interesting part of the matter. These gentlemen
concerned in the enterprise will, of course, lose their money, and I
shall therefore decline to accept the very handsome fee which they had
offered me for my services. But the main feature, the real point of
interest in this matter remains. Here we have undoubtedly a sporadic
deposit–what miners call a pocket–of pure gold in a Devonian
formation of the post-tertiary period. This once established, we must
revise our entire theory of the distribution of igneous and aqueous
rocks. In fact, I am already getting notes together for a paper for the
Pan-Geological under the heading, Auriferous Excretions in the Devonian
Strata: a Working Hypothesis. I hope to read it at the next meeting.”

The young demonstrator looked at the professor with one eye half-closed.

“I don’t think I would if I were you.” he said.

Now this young demonstrator knew nothing or practically nothing, of
geology, because he came of one of the richest and best families in
town and didn’t need to. But he was a smart young man, dressed in the
latest fashion with brown boots and a crosswise tie, and he knew more
about money and business and the stock exchange in five minutes than
Professor Gildas in his whole existence.

“Why not?” said the professor.

“Why, don’t you see what’s happened?”

“Eh?” said Gildas.

“What happened to those first samples? When that bunch got interested
and planned to float the company? Don’t you see? Somebody salted them
on you.”

“_Salted_ them on me?” repeated the professor, mystified.

“Yes, salted them. Somebody got wise to what they were and swopped them
on you for the real thing, so as to get your certified report that the
stuff was gold.”

“I begin to see,” muttered the professor. “Somebody exchanged the
samples, some person no doubt desirous of establishing the theory that
a sporadic outcropping of the sort might be found in a post-tertiary
formation. I see, I see. No doubt he intended to prepare a paper on it,
and prove his thesis by these tests. I see it all!”

The demonstrator looked at the professor with a sort of pity.

“You’re on!” he said, and he laughed softly to himself.

* * * * *

“Well,” said Dr. Boomer, after Tomlinson had left the university, “what
do you make of him?” The president had taken Dr. Boyster over to his
house beside the campus, and there in his study had given him a cigar
as big as a rope and taken another himself. This was a sign that Dr.
Boomer wanted Dr. Boyster’s opinion in plain English, without any Latin
about it.

“Remarkable man,” said the professor of Greek; “wonderful penetration,
and a man of very few words. Of course his game is clear enough?”

“Entirely so,” asserted Dr. Boomer.

“It’s clear enough that he means to give the money on two conditions.”

“Exactly,” said the president.

“First that we admit his son, who is quite unqualified, to the senior
studies in electrical science, and second that we grant him the degree
of Doctor of Letters. Those are his terms.” “Can we meet them?”

“Oh, certainly. As to the son, there is no difficulty, of course; as to
the degree, it’s only a question of getting the faculty to vote it. I
think we can manage it.”

* * * * *

Vote it they did that very afternoon. True, if the members of the
faculty had known the things that were being whispered, and more than
whispered, in the City about Tomlinson and his fortune, no degree would
ever have been conferred on him. But it so happened that at that moment
the whole professoriate was absorbed in one of those great educational
crises which from time to time shake a university to its base. The
meeting of the faculty that day bid fair to lose all vestige of decorum
in the excitement of the moment. For, as Dean Elderberry Foible, the
head of the faculty, said, the motion that they had before them
amounted practically to a revolution. The proposal was nothing less
than the permission of the use of lead-pencils instead of pen and ink
in the sessional examinations of the university. Anyone conversant with
the inner life of a college will realize that to many of the
professoriate this was nothing less than a last wild onslaught of
socialistic democracy against the solid bulwarks of society. They must
fight it back or die on the walls. To others it was one more step in
the splendid progress of democratic education, comparable only to such
epoch-making things as the abandonment of the cap and gown, and the
omission of the word “sir” in speaking to a professor.

No wonder that the fight raged. Elderberry Foible, his fluffed white
hair almost on end, beat in vain with his gavel for order. Finally,
Chang of Physiology, who was a perfect dynamo of energy and was known
frequently to work for three or four hours at a stretch, proposed that
the faculty should adjourn the question and meet for its further
discussion on the following Saturday morning. This revolutionary
suggestion, involving work on Saturday, reduced the meeting to a mere
turmoil, in the midst of which Elderberry Foible proposed that the
whole question of the use of lead-pencils should be adjourned till that
day six months, and that meantime a new special committee of seventeen
professors, with power to add to their number, to call witnesses and,
if need be, to hear them, should report on the entire matter _de novo_.
This motion, after the striking out of the words _de novo_ and the
insertion of _ab initio_, was finally carried, after which the faculty
sank back completely exhausted into its chair, the need of afternoon
tea and toast stamped on every face.

And it was at this moment that President Boomer, who understood
faculties as few men have done, quietly entered the room, laid his silk
hat on a volume of Demosthenes, and proposed the vote of a degree of
Doctor of Letters for Edward Tomlinson. He said that there was no need
to remind the faculty of Tomlinson’s services to the nation; they knew
them. Of the members of the faculty, indeed, some thought that he meant
the Tomlinson who wrote the famous monologue on the Iota Subscript,
while others supposed that he referred to the celebrated philosopher
Tomlinson, whose new book on the Indivisibility of the Inseparable was
just then maddening the entire world. In any case, they voted the
degree without a word, still faint with exhaustion.

* * * * *

But while the university was conferring on Tomlinson the degree of
Doctor of Letters, all over the City in business circles they were
conferring on him far other titles. “Idiot,” “Scoundrel,” “Swindler,”
were the least of them. Every stock and share with which his name was
known to be connected was coming down with a run, wiping out the
accumulated profits of the Wizard at the rate of a thousand dollars a
minute.

They not only questioned his honesty, but they went further and
questioned his business capacity.

“The man,” said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, sitting in the Mausoleum Club and
breathing freely at last after having disposed of all his holdings in
the Erie Auriferous, “is an ignoramus. I asked him only the other day,
quite casually, a perfectly simple business question. I said to him.
‘T.C. Bonds have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know and I
know that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock underneath
never could and never would earn a par dividend. Now,’ I said, for I
wanted to test the fellow, ‘tell me what that means?’ Would you believe
me, he looked me right in the face in that stupid way of his, and he
said, ‘I don’t know!’”

“He said he didn’t know!” repeated the listener contemptuously; “the
man is a damn fool!”

* * * * *

The reason of all this was that the results of the researches of the
professor of geology were being whispered among the directorate of the
Erie Auriferous. And the directors and chief shareholders were busily
performing the interesting process called unloading. Nor did ever a
farmer of Cahoga County in haying time with a thunderstorm threatening,
unload with greater rapidity than did the major shareholders of the
Auriferous. Mr. Lucullus Fyshe traded off a quarter of his stock to an
unwary member of the Mausoleum Club at a drop of thirty per cent, and
being too prudent to hold the rest on any terms, he conveyed it at once
as a benefaction in trust to the Plutorian Orphans’ and Foundlings’
Home; while the purchaser of Mr. Fyshe’s stock, learning too late of
his folly, rushed for his lawyers to have the shares conveyed as a gift
to the Home for Incurables.

Mr. Asmodeus Boulder transferred his entire holdings to the Imbeciles’
Relief Society, and Mr. Furlong, senior, passed his over to a Chinese
mission as fast as pen could traverse paper.

Down at the office of Skinyer and Beatem, the lawyers of the company,
they were working overtime drawing up deeds and conveyances and trusts
in perpetuity, with hardly time to put them into typewriting. Within
twenty-four hours the entire stock of the company bid fair to be in the
hands of Idiots, Orphans, Protestants, Foundlings, Imbeciles,
Missionaries, Chinese, and other unfinancial people, with Tomlinson the
Wizard of Finance as the senior shareholder and majority control. And
whether the gentle Wizard, as he sat with mother planning his vast
benefaction to Plutoria University, would have felt more at home with
his new group of fellow-shareholders than his old, it were hard to say.

But, meantime, at the office of Skinyer and Beatem all was activity.
For not only were they drafting the conveyances of the perpetual trusts
as fast as legal brains working overtime could do it, but in another
part of the office a section of the firm were busily making their
preparations against the expected actions for fraud and warrants of
distraint and injunctions against disposal of assets and the whole
battery of artillery which might open on them at any moment. And they
worked like a corps of military engineers fortifying an escarpment,
with the joy of battle in their faces.

The storm might break at any moment. Already at the office of the
_Financial Undertone_ the type was set for a special extra with a
heading three inches high:

COLLAPSE
OF THE ERIE CONSOLIDATED
ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON

Skinyer and Beatem had paid the editor, who was crooked, two thousand
dollars cash to hold back that extra for twenty-four hours; and the
editor had paid the reporting staff, who were crooked, twenty-five
dollars each to keep the news quiet, and the compositors, who were also
crooked, ten dollars per man to hold their mouths shut till the
morning, with the result that from editors and sub-editors and
reporters and compositors the news went seething forth in a flood that
the Erie Auriferous Consolidated was going to shatter into fragments
like the bursting of a dynamite bomb. It rushed with a thousand
whispering tongues from street to street till it filled the corridors
of the law courts and the lobbies of the offices, and till every honest
man that held a share of the stock shivered in his tracks and reached
out to give, sell, or destroy it. Only the unwinking Idiots, and the
mild Orphans, and the calm Deaf mutes and the impassive Chinese held
tight to what they had. So gathered the storm, till all the town, like
the great rotunda of the Grand Palaver, was filled with a silent “call
for Mr. Tomlinson,” voiceless and ominous.

And while all this was happening, and while at Skinyer and Beatem’s
they worked with frantic pens and clattering type there came a knock at
the door, hesitant and uncertain, and before the eyes of the astounded
office there stood in his wide-awake hat and long black coat the figure
of “the man Tomlinson” himself.

And Skinyer, the senior partner, no sooner heard what Tomlinson wanted
than he dashed across the outer office to his partner’s room with his
hyena face all excitement as he said:

“Beatem, Beatem, come over to my room. This man is absolutely the
biggest thing in America. For sheer calmness and nerve I never heard of
anything to approach him. What do you think he wants to do?”

“What?” said Beatem.

“Why, he’s giving his entire fortune to the university.”

“By Gad!” ejaculated Beatem, and the two lawyers looked at one another,
lost in admiration of the marvellous genius and assurance of Tomlinson.

* * * * *

Yet what had happened was very simple.

Tomlinson had come back from the university filled with mingled hope
and hesitation. The university, he saw, needed the money and he hoped
to give it his entire fortune, to put Dr. Boomer in a position to
practically destroy the whole place. But, like many a modest man, he
lacked the assurance to speak out. He felt that up to the present the
benefactors of the university had been men of an entirely different
class from himself. It was mother who solved the situation for him.

“Well, father,” she said, “there’s one thing I’ve learned already since
we’ve had money. If you want to get a thing done you can always find
people to do it for you if you pay them. Why not go to those lawyers
that manage things for the company and get them to arrange it all for
you with the college?”

As a result, Tomlinson had turned up at the door of the Skinyer and
Beatem office.

* * * * *

“Quite so, Mr. Tomlinson,” said Skinyer, with his pen already dipped in
the ink, “a perfectly simple matter. I can draw up a draft of
conveyance with a few strokes of the pen. In fact, we can do it on the
spot.”

What he meant was, “In fact, we can do it so fast that I can pocket a
fee of five hundred dollars right here and now while you have the money
to pay me.”

“Now then,” he continued, “let us see how it is to run.”

“Well,” said Tomlinson, “I want you to put it that I give all my stock
in the company to the university.”

“All of it?” said Skinyer, with a quiet smile to Beatem.

“Every cent of it, sir,” said Tomlinson; “just write down that I give
all of it to the college.”

“Very good,” said Skinyer, and he began to write, “I, so-and-so, and
so-and-so, of the county of so-and-so–Cahoga, I think you said, Mr.
Tomlinson?”

“Yes, sir,” said the Wizard, “I was raised there.”

“–do hereby give, assign, devise, transfer, and the transfer is hereby
given, devised and assigned, all those stocks, shares, hereditaments,
etc., which I hold in the etc., etc., all, several and whatever–you
will observe, Mr. Tomlinson, I am expressing myself with as great
brevity as possible–to that institution, academy, college, school,
university, now known and reputed to be Plutoria University, of the
city of etc., etc.”

He paused a moment. “Now what special objects or purposes shall I
indicate?” he asked.

Whereupon Tomlinson explained as best he could, and Skinyer, working
with great rapidity, indicated that the benefaction was to include a
Demolition Fund for the removal of buildings, a Retirement Fund for the
removal of professors, an Apparatus Fund for the destruction of
apparatus, and a General Sinking Fund for the obliteration of anything
not otherwise mentioned.

“And I’d like to do something, if I could, for Mr. Boomer himself, just
as man to man,” said Tomlinson.

“All right,” said Beatem, and he could hardly keep his face straight.
“Give him a chunk of the stock–give him half a million.”

“I will,” said Tomlinson; “he deserves it.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Skinyer.

And within a few minutes the whole transaction was done, and Tomlinson,
filled with joy, was wringing the hands of Skinyer and Beatem, and
telling them to name their own fee.

They had meant to, anyway.

* * * * *

“Is that legal, do you suppose?” said Beatem to Skinyer, after the
Wizard had gone. “Will it hold water?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Skinyer, “not for a minute. In fact,
rather the other way. If they make an arrest for fraudulent flotation,
this conveyance, I should think, would help to send him to the
penitentiary. But I very much doubt if they can arrest him. Mind you,
the fellow is devilish shrewd. You know, and I know that he planned
this whole flotation with a full knowledge of the fraud. _You_ and _I_
know it–very good–but we know it more from our trained instinct in
such things than by any proof. The fellow has managed to surround
himself with such an air of good faith from start to finish that it
will be deuced hard to get at him.”

“What will he do now?” said Beatem.

“I tell you what he’ll do. Mark my words. Within twenty-four hours
he’ll clear out and be out of the state, and if they want to get him
they’ll have to extradite. I tell you he’s a man of extraordinary
capacity. The rest of us are nowhere beside him.”

In which, perhaps, there was some truth.

* * * * *

“Well, mother,” said the Wizard, when he reached the thousand-dollar
suite, after his interview with Skinyer and Beatem, his face irradiated
with simple joy, “it’s done. I’ve put the college now in a position it
never was in before, nor any other college; the lawyers say so
themselves.”

“That’s good,” said mother.

“Yes, and it’s a good thing I didn’t lose the money when I tried to.
You see, mother, what I hadn’t realized was the good that could be done
with all that money if a man put his heart into it. They can start in
as soon as they like and tear down those buildings. My! but it’s just
wonderful what you can do with money. I’m glad I didn’t lose it!”

So they talked far into the evening. That night they slept in an
Aladdin’s palace filled with golden fancies.

And in the morning the palace and all its visions fell tumbling about
their heads in sudden and awful catastrophe. For with Tomlinson’s first
descent to the rotunda it broke. The whole great space seemed filled
with the bulletins and the broadside sheets of the morning papers, the
crowd surging to and fro buying the papers, men reading them as they
stood, and everywhere in great letters there met his eye:

COLLAPSE
OF THE ERIE AURIFEROUS

THE GREAT GOLD SWINDLE

ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
EXPECTED THIS MORNING

So stood the Wizard of Finance beside a pillar, the paper fluttering in
his hand, his eyes fixed, while about him a thousand eager eyes and
rushing tongues sent shame into his stricken heart.

And there his boy Fred, sent from upstairs, found him; and at the sight
of the seething crowd and his father’s stricken face, aged as it seemed
all in a moment, the boy’s soul woke within him. What had happened he
could not tell, only that his father stood there, dazed, beaten, and
staring at him on every side in giant letters:

ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON

“Come, father come upstairs,” he said, and took him by the arm,
dragging him through the crowd.

In the next half-hour as they sat and waited for the arrest in the
false grandeur of the thousand-dollar suite-Tomlinson, his wife, and
Fred-the boy learnt more than all the teaching of the industrial
faculty of Plutoria University could have taught him in a decade.
Adversity laid its hand upon him, and at its touch his adolescent heart
turned to finer stuff than the salted gold of the Erie Auriferous. As
he looked upon his father’s broken figure waiting meekly for arrest,
and his mother’s blubbered face, a great wrath burned itself into his
soul.

“When the sheriff comes–” said Tomlinson, and his lip trembled as he
spoke. He had no other picture of arrest than that.

“They can’t arrest you, father,” broke out the boy. “You’ve done
nothing. You never swindled them. I tell you, if they try to arrest
you, I’ll–” and his voice broke and stopped upon a sob, and his hands
clenched in passion.

“You stay here, you and mother. I’ll go down. Give me your money and
I’ll go and pay them and we’ll get out of this and go home. They can’t
stop us; there’s nothing to arrest you for.”

Nor was there. Fred paid the bill unmolested, save for the prying eyes
and babbling tongues of the rotunda.

And a few hours from that, while the town was still ringing with news
of his downfall, the Wizard with his wife and son walked down from
their thousand-dollar suite into the corridor, their hands burdened
with their satchels. A waiter, with something between a sneer and an
obsequious smile upon his face, reached out for the valises, wondering
if it was still worth while.

“You get to hell out of that!” said Fred. He had put on again his rough
store suit in which he had come from Cahoga County, and there was a
dangerous look about his big shoulders and his set jaw. And the waiter
slunk back.

So did they pass, unarrested and unhindered, through corridor and
rotunda to the outer portals of the great hotel.

Beside the door of the Palaver as they passed out was a tall official
with a uniform and a round hat. He was called by the authorities a
_chasseur_ or a _commissionaire_, or some foreign name to mean that he
did nothing.

At the sight of him the Wizard’s face flushed for a moment, with a look
of his old perplexity.

“I wonder,” he began to murmur, “how much I ought–”

“Not a damn cent, father,” said Fred, as he shouldered past the
magnificent _chasseur_; “let him work.”

With which admirable doctrine the Wizard and his son passed from the
portals of the Grand Palaver.

* * * * *

Nor was there any arrest either then or later. In spite of the
expectations of the rotunda and the announcements of the _Financial
Undertone_, the “man Tomlinson” was _not_ arrested, neither as he left
the Grand Palaver nor as he stood waiting at the railroad station with
Fred and mother for the outgoing train for Cahoga County.

There was nothing to arrest him for. That was not the least strange
part of the career of the Wizard of Finance. For when all the affairs
of the Erie Auriferous Consolidated were presently calculated up by the
labours of Skinyer and Beatem and the legal representatives of the
Orphans and the Idiots and the Deaf-mutes they resolved themselves into
the most beautiful and complete cipher conceivable. The salted gold
about paid for the cost of the incorporation certificate: the
development capital had disappeared, and those who lost most preferred
to say the least about it; and as for Tomlinson, if one added up his
gains on the stock market before the fall and subtracted his bill at
the Grand Palaver and the thousand dollars which he gave to Skinyer and
Beatem to recover his freehold on the lower half of his farm, and the
cost of three tickets to Cahoga station, the debit and credit account
balanced to a hair.

Thus did the whole fortune of Tomlinson vanish in a night, even as the
golden palace seen in the mirage of a desert sunset may fade before the
eyes of the beholder, and leave no trace behind.

* * * * *

It was some months after the collapse of the Erie Auriferous that the
university conferred upon Tomlinson the degree of Doctor of Letters _in
absentia_. A university must keep its word, and Dean Elderberry Foible,
who was honesty itself, had stubbornly maintained that a vote of the
faculty of arts once taken and written in the minute book became as
irrefragable as the Devonian rock itself.

So the degree was conferred. And Dean Elderberry Foible, standing in a
long red gown before Dr. Boomer, seated in a long blue gown, read out
after the ancient custom of the college the Latin statement of the
award of the degree of Doctor of Letters, “Eduardus Tomlinsonius, vir
clarrisimus, doctissimus, praestissimus,” and a great many other things
all ending in _issimus_.

But the recipient was not there to receive. He stood at that moment
with his boy Fred on a windy hillside beside Lake Erie, where
Tomlinson’s Creek ran again untrammelled to the lake. Nor was the scene
altered to the eye, for Tomlinson and his son had long since broken a
hole in the dam with pickaxe and crowbar, and day by day the angry
water carried down the vestiges of the embankment till all were gone.
The cedar poles of the electric lights had been cut into fence-rails;
the wooden shanties of the Italian gang of Auriferous workers had been
torn down and split into fire wood; and where they had stood, the
burdocks and the thistles of the luxuriant summer conspired to hide the
traces of their shame. Nature reached out its hand and drew its
coverlet of green over the grave of the vanished Eldorado.

And as the Wizard and his son stood upon the hillside, they saw nothing
but the land sloping to the lake and the creek murmuring again to the
willows, while the off-shore wind rippled the rushes of the shallow
water.

CHAPTER FOUR: The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown

Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown lived on Plutoria Avenue in a vast sandstone
palace, in which she held those fashionable entertainments which have
made the name of Rasselyer-Brown what it is. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown lived
there also.

The exterior of the house was more or less a model of the facade of an
Italian palazzo of the sixteenth century. If one questioned Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown at dinner in regard to this (which was only a fair
return for drinking five dollar champagne), she answered that the
facade was _cinquecentisti_, but that it reproduced also the Saracenic
mullioned window of the Siennese School. But if the guest said later in
the evening to Mr. Rasselyer-Brown that he understood that his house
was _cinquecentisti_, he answered that he guessed it was. After which
remark and an interval of silence, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would probably
ask the guest if he was dry.

So from that one can tell exactly the sort of people the
Rasselyer-Browns were.

In other words, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown was a severe handicap to Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown. He was more than that; the word isn’t strong enough.
He was, as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herself confessed to her confidential
circle of three hundred friends, a drag. He was also a tie, and a
weight, and a burden, and in Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s religious moments a
crucifix. Even in the early years of their married life, some twenty or
twenty-five years ago, her husband had been a drag on her by being in
the coal and wood business. It is hard for a woman to have to realize
that her husband is making a fortune out of coal and wood and that
people know it. It ties one down. What a woman wants most of all–this,
of course, is merely a quotation from Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s own
thoughts as expressed to her three hundred friends–is room to expand,
to grow. The hardest thing in the world is to be stifled: and there is
nothing more stifling than a husband who doesn’t know a Giotto from a
Carlo Dolci, but who can distinguish nut coal from egg and is never
asked to dinner without talking about the furnace.

These, of course, were early trials. They had passed to some extent, or
were, at any rate, garlanded with the roses of time.

But the drag remained.

Even when the retail coal and wood stage was long since over, it was
hard to have to put up with a husband who owned a coal mine and who
bought pulp forests instead of illuminated missals of the twelfth
century. A coal mine is a dreadful thing at a dinner-table. It humbles
one so before one’s guests.

It wouldn’t have been so bad–this Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herself
admitted–if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything. This phrase should be
clearly understood. It meant if there was any one thing that he _did_.
For instance if he had only _collected_ anything. Thus, there was Mr.
Lucullus Fyshe, who made soda-water, but at the same time everybody
knew that he had the best collection of broken Italian furniture on the
continent; there wasn’t a sound piece among the lot.

And there was the similar example of old Mr. Feathertop. He didn’t
exactly _collect_ things; he repudiated the name. He was wont to say,
“Don’t call me a collector, I’m _not_. I simply pick things up. Just
where I happen to be, Rome, Warsaw, Bucharest, anywhere”–and it is to
be noted what fine places these are to happen to be. And to think that
Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would never put his foot outside of the United
States! Whereas Mr. Feathertop would come back from what he called a
run to Europe, and everybody would learn in a week that he had picked
up the back of a violin in Dresden (actually discovered it in a violin
shop), and the lid of an Etruscan kettle (he had lighted on it, by pure
chance, in a kettle shop in Etruria), and Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown would
feel faint with despair at the nonentity of her husband.

So one can understand how heavy her burden was.

“My dear,” she often said to her bosom friend, Miss Snagg, “I shouldn’t
mind things so much” (the things she wouldn’t mind were, let us say,
the two million dollars of standing timber which Brown Limited, the
ominous business name of Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, were buying that year)
“if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown _did_ anything. But he does _nothing_. Every
morning after breakfast off to his wretched office, and never back till
dinner, and in the evening nothing but his club, or some business
meeting. One would think he would have more ambition. How I wish I had
been a man.”

It was certainly a shame.

So it came that, in almost everything she undertook Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown had to act without the least help from her husband.
Every Wednesday, for instance, when the Dante Club met at her house
(they selected four lines each week to meditate on, and then discussed
them at lunch), Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown had to carry the whole burden of
it–her very phrase, “the whole burden”–alone. Anyone who has carried
four lines of Dante through a Moselle lunch knows what a weight it is.

In all these things her husband was useless, quite useless. It is not
right to be ashamed of one’s husband. And to do her justice, Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown always explained to her three hundred intimates that
she was _not_ ashamed of him; in fact, that she _refused_ to be. But it
was hard to see him brought into comparison at their own table with
superior men. Put him, for instance, beside Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the
sex-poet, and where was he? Nowhere. He couldn’t even understand what
Mr. Snoop was saying. And when Mr. Snoop would stand on the hearth-rug
with a cup of tea balanced in his hand, and discuss whether sex was or
was not the dominant note in Botticelli, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown would be
skulking in a corner in his ill-fitting dress suit. His wife would
often catch with an agonized ear such scraps of talk as, “When I was
first in the coal and wood business,” or, “It’s a coal that burns
quicker than egg, but it hasn’t the heating power of nut,” or even in a
low undertone the words, “If you’re feeling _dry_ while he’s reading–”
And this at a time when everybody in the room ought to have been
listening to Mr. Snoop.

Nor was even this the whole burden of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. There was
another part of it which was perhaps more _real_, though Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown herself never put it into words. In fact, of this part
of her burden she never spoke, even to her bosom friend Miss Snagg; nor
did she talk about it to the ladies of the Dante Club, nor did she make
speeches on it to the members of the Women’s Afternoon Art Society, nor
to the Monday Bridge Club.

But the members of the Bridge Club and the Art Society and the Dante
Club all talked about it among themselves.

Stated very simply, it was this: Mr. Rasselyer-Brown drank. It was not
meant that he was a drunkard or that he drank too much, or anything of
that sort. He drank. That was all.

There was no excess about it. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, of course, began the
day with an eye-opener–and after all, what alert man does not wish his
eyes well open in the morning? He followed it usually just before
breakfast with a bracer–and what wiser precaution can a businessman
take than to brace his breakfast? On his way to business he generally
had his motor stopped at the Grand Palaver for a moment, if it was a
raw day, and dropped in and took something to keep out the damp. If it
was a cold day he took something to keep out the cold, and if it was
one of those clear, sunny days that are so dangerous to the system he
took whatever the bartender (a recognized health expert) suggested to
tone the system up. After which he could sit down in his office and
transact more business, and bigger business, in coal, charcoal, wood,
pulp, pulpwood, and woodpulp, in two hours than any other man in the
business could in a week. Naturally so. For he was braced, and propped,
and toned up, and his eyes had been opened, and his brain cleared, till
outside of very big business, indeed, few men were on a footing with
him.

In fact, it was business itself which had compelled Mr. Rasselyer-Brown
to drink. It is all very well for a junior clerk on twenty dollars a
week to do his work on sandwiches and malted milk. In big business it
is not possible. When a man begins to rise in business, as Mr.
Rasselyer-Brown had begun twenty-five years ago, he finds that if he
wants to succeed he must cut malted milk clear out. In any position of
responsibility a man has got to drink. No really big deal can be put
through without it. If two keen men, sharp as flint, get together to
make a deal in which each intends to outdo the other, the only way to
succeed is for them to adjourn to some such place as the luncheon-room
of the Mausoleum Club and both get partially drunk. This is what is
called the personal element in business. And, beside it, plodding
industry is nowhere.

Most of all do these principles hold true in such manly out-of-door
enterprises as the forest and timber business, where one deals
constantly with chief rangers, and pathfinders, and wood-stalkers,
whose very names seem to suggest a horn of whiskey under a hemlock tree.

But–let it be repeated and carefully understood–there was no excess
about Mr. Rasselyer-Brown’s drinking. Indeed, whatever he might be
compelled to take during the day, and at the Mausoleum Club in the
evening, after his return from his club at night Mr. Rasselyer-Brown
made it a fixed rule to take nothing. He might, perhaps, as he passed
into the house, step into the dining-room and take a very small drink
at the sideboard. But this he counted as part of the return itself, and
not after it. And he might, if his brain were over-fatigued, drop down
later in the night in his pajamas and dressing-gown when the house was
quiet, and compose his mind with a brandy and water, or something
suitable to the stillness of the hour. But this was not really a drink.
Mr. Rasselyer-Brown called it a _nip_; and of course any man may need a
_nip_ at a time when he would scorn a drink.

* * * * *

But after all, a woman may find herself again in her daughter. There,
at least, is consolation. For, as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown herself
admitted, her daughter, Dulphemia, was herself again. There were, of
course, differences, certain differences of face and appearance. Mr.
Snoop had expressed this fact exquisitely when he said that it was the
difference between a Burne-Jones and a Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But even
at that the mother and daughter were so alike that people, certain
people, were constantly mistaking them on the street. And as everybody
that mistook them was apt to be asked to dine on five-dollar champagne
there was plenty of temptation towards error.

There is no doubt that Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown was a girl of
remarkable character and intellect. So is any girl who has beautiful
golden hair parted in thick bands on her forehead, and deep blue eyes
soft as an Italian sky.

Even the oldest and most serious men in town admitted that in talking
to her they were aware of a grasp, a reach, a depth that surprised
them. Thus old Judge Longerstill, who talked to her at dinner for an
hour on the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, felt
sure from the way in which she looked up in his face at intervals and
said, “How interesting!” that she had the mind of a lawyer. And Mr.
Brace, the consulting engineer, who showed her on the table-cloth at
dessert with three forks and a spoon the method in which the overflow
of the spillway of the Gatun Dam is regulated, felt assured, from the
way she leaned her face on her hand sideways and said, “How
extraordinary!” that she had the brain of an engineer. Similarly
foreign visitors to the social circles of the city were delighted with
her. Viscount FitzThistle, who explained to Dulphemia for half an hour
the intricacies of the Irish situation, was captivated at the quick
grasp she showed by asking him at the end, without a second’s
hesitation, “And which are the Nationalists?”

This kind of thing represents female intellect in its best form. Every
man that is really a man is willing to recognize it at once. As to the
young men, of course they flocked to the Rasselyer-Brown residence in
shoals. There were batches of them every Sunday afternoon at five
o’clock, encased in long black frock-coats, sitting very rigidly in
upright chairs, trying to drink tea with one hand. One might see
athletic young college men of the football team trying hard to talk
about Italian music; and Italian tenors from the Grand Opera doing
their best to talk about college football. There were young men in
business talking about art, and young men in art talking about
religion, and young clergymen talking about business. Because, of
course, the Rasselyer-Brown residence was the kind of cultivated home
where people of education and taste are at liberty to talk about things
they don’t know, and to utter freely ideas that they haven’t got. It
was only now and again, when one of the professors from the college
across the avenue came booming into the room, that the whole
conversation was pulverized into dust under the hammer of accurate
knowledge.

The whole process was what was called, by those who understood such
things, a _salon_. Many people said that Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s
afternoons at home were exactly like the delightful _salons_ of the
eighteenth century: and whether the gatherings were or were not
_salons_ of the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that Mr.
Rasselyer-Brown, under whose care certain favoured guests dropped
quietly into the back alcove of the dining-room, did his best to put
the gathering on a par with the best saloons of the twentieth.

Now it so happened that there had come a singularly slack moment in the
social life of the City. The Grand Opera had sung itself into a huge
deficit and closed. There remained nothing of it except the efforts of
a committee of ladies to raise enough money to enable Signor Puffi to
leave town, and the generous attempt of another committee to gather
funds in order to keep Signor Pasti in the City. Beyond this, opera was
dead, though the fact that the deficit was nearly twice as large as it
had been the year before showed that public interest in music was
increasing. It was indeed a singularly trying time of the year. It was
too early to go to Europe; and too late to go to Bermuda. It was too
warm to go south, and yet still too cold to go north. In fact, one was
almost compelled to stay at home–which was dreadful.

As a result Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred friends moved
backwards and forwards on Plutoria Avenue, seeking novelty in vain.
They washed in waves of silk from tango teas to bridge afternoons. They
poured in liquid avalanches of colour into crowded receptions, and they
sat in glittering rows and listened to lectures on the enfranchisement
of the female sex. But for the moment all was weariness.

Now it happened, whether by accident or design, that just at this
moment of general _ennui_ Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred
friends first heard of the presence in the city of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, the
celebrated Oriental mystic. He was so celebrated that nobody even
thought of asking who he was or where he came from. They merely told
one another, and repeated it, that he was _the_ celebrated Yahi-Bahi.
They added for those who needed the knowledge that the name was
pronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahi
was Boohooism. This latter, if anyone inquired further, was explained
to be a form of Shoodooism, only rather more intense. In fact, it was
esoteric–on receipt of which information everybody remarked at once
how infinitely superior the Oriental peoples are to ourselves.

Now as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown was always a leader in everything that was
done in the best circles on Plutoria Avenue, she was naturally among
the first to visit Mr. Yahi-Bahi.

“My dear,” she said, in describing afterwards her experience to her
bosom friend, Miss Snagg, “it was _most_ interesting. We drove away
down to the queerest part of the City, and went to the strangest little
house imaginable, up the narrowest stairs one ever saw–quite Eastern,
in fact, just like a scene out of the Koran.”

“How fascinating!” said Miss Snagg. But as a matter of fact, if Mr.
Yahi-Bahi’s house had been inhabited, as it might have been, by a
streetcar conductor or a railway brakesman, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
wouldn’t have thought it in any way peculiar or fascinating.

“It was all hung with curtains inside,” she went on, “with figures of
snakes and Indian gods, perfectly weird.”

“And did you see Mr. Yahi-Bahi?” asked Miss Snagg.

“Oh no, my dear. I only saw his assistant Mr. Ram Spudd; such a queer
little round man, a Bengalee, I believe. He put his back against a
curtain and spread out his arms sideways and wouldn’t let me pass. He
said that Mr. Yahi-Bahi was in meditation and mustn’t be disturbed.”

“How delightful!” echoed Miss Snagg.

But in reality Mr. Yahi-Bahi was sitting behind the curtain eating a
ten-cent can of pork and beans.

“What I like most about eastern people,” went on Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown,
“is their wonderful delicacy of feeling. After I had explained about my
invitation to Mr. Yahi-Bahi to come and speak to us on Boohooism, and
was going away, I took a dollar bill out of my purse and laid it on the
table. You should have seen the way Mr. Ram Spudd took it. He made the
deepest salaam and said, ‘Isis guard you, beautiful lady.’ Such perfect
courtesy, and yet with the air of scorning the money. As I passed out I
couldn’t help slipping another dollar into his hand, and he took it as
if utterly unaware of it, and muttered, ‘Osiris keep you, O flower of
women!’ And as I got into the motor I gave him another dollar and he
said, ‘Osis and Osiris both prolong your existence, O lily of the
ricefield,’ and after he had said it he stood beside the door of the
motor and waited without moving till I left. He had such a strange,
rapt look, as if he were still expecting something!”

“How exquisite!” murmured Miss Snagg. It was her business in life to
murmur such things as this for Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. On the whole,
reckoning Grand Opera tickets and dinners, she did very well out of it.

“Is it not?” said Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. “So different from our men. I
felt so ashamed of my chauffeur, our new man, you know; he seemed such
a contrast beside Ram Spudd. The rude way in which the opened the door,
and the rude way in which he climbed on to his own seat, and the
_rudeness_ with which he turned on the power–I felt positively
ashamed. And he so managed it–I am sure he did it on purpose–that the
car splashed a lot of mud over Mr. Spudd as it started.”

Yet, oddly enough, the opinion of other people on this new chauffeur,
that of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown herself, for example, to whose
service he was specially attached, was very different.

The great recommendation of him in the eyes of Miss Dulphemia and her
friends, and the thing that gave him a touch of mystery was–and what
higher qualification can a chauffeur want?–that he didn’t look like a
chauffeur at all.

“My dear Dulphie,” whispered Miss Philippa Furlong, the rector’s sister
(who was at that moment Dulphemia’s second self), as they sat behind
the new chauffeur, “don’t tell me that he is a chauffeur, because he
_isn’t_. He can chauffe, of course, but that’s nothing.”

For the new chauffeur had a bronzed face, hard as metal, and a stern
eye; and when he put on a chauffeur’s overcoat some how it seemed to
turn into a military greatcoat; and even when he put on the round cloth
cap of his profession it was converted straightway into a military
shako. And by Miss Dulphemia and her friends it was presently
reported–or was invented?–that he had served in the Philippines;
which explained at once the scar upon his forehead, which must have
been received at Iloilo, or Huila-Huila, or some other suitable place.

But what affected Miss Dulphemia Brown herself was the splendid
rudeness of the chauffeur’s manner. It was so different from that of
the young men of the _salon_. Thus, when Mr. Sikleigh Snoop handed her
into the car at any time he would dance about saying, “Allow me,” and
“Permit me,” and would dive forward to arrange the robes. But the
Philippine chauffeur merely swung the door open and said to Dulphemia,
“Get in,” and then slammed it.

This, of course, sent a thrill up the spine and through the imagination
of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, because it showed that the chauffeur
was a gentleman in disguise. She thought it very probable that he was a
British nobleman, a younger son, very wild, of a ducal family; and she
had her own theories as to why he had entered the service of the
Rasselyer-Browns. To be quite candid about it, she expected that the
Philippine chauffeur meant to elope with her, and every time he drove
her from a dinner or a dance she sat back luxuriously, wishing and
expecting the elopement to begin.

* * * * *

But for the time being the interest of Dulphemia, as of everybody else
that was anybody at all, centred round Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the new cult
of Boohooism.

After the visit of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown a great number of ladies, also
in motors, drove down to the house of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. And all of them,
whether they saw Mr. Yahi-Bahi himself or his Bengalee assistant, Mr.
Ram Spudd, came back delighted.

“Such exquisite tact!” said one. “Such delicacy! As I was about to go I
laid a five dollar gold piece on the edge of the little table. Mr.
Spudd scarcely seemed to see it. He murmured, ‘Osiris help you!’ and
pointed to the ceiling. I raised my eyes instinctively, and when I
lowered them the money had disappeared. I think he must have caused it
to vanish.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” said the listener.

Others came back with wonderful stories of Mr. Yahi-Bahi’s occult
powers, especially his marvellous gift of reading the future.

Mrs. Buncomhearst, who had just lost her third husband–by divorce–had
received from Mr. Yahi-Bahi a glimpse into the future that was almost
uncanny in its exactness. She had asked for a divination, and Mr.
Yahi-Bahi had effected one by causing her to lay six ten-dollar pieces
on the table arranged in the form of a mystic serpent. Over these he
had bent and peered deeply, as if seeking to unravel their meaning, and
finally he had given her the prophecy, “Many things are yet to happen
before others begin.”

“How _does_ he do it?” asked everybody.

* * * * *

As a result of all this it naturally came about that Mr. Yahi-Bahi and
Mr. Ram Spudd were invited to appear at the residence of Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood that steps would be taken to
form a special society, to be known as the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society.

Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, was the leading spirit in the
organization. He had a special fitness for the task: he had actually
resided in India. In fact, he had spent six weeks there on a stop-over
ticket of a round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and he
knew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhootal to Jehumbalabad in
the Carnatic. So he was looked upon as a great authority on India,
China, Mongolia, and all such places, by the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.

Next in importance was Mrs. Buncomhearst, who became later, by a
perfectly natural process, the president of the society. She was
already president of the Daughters of the Revolution, a society
confined exclusively to the descendants of Washington’s officers and
others; she was also president of the Sisters of England, an
organization limited exclusively to women born in England and
elsewhere; of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungarians
and friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the Circle of Franz
Joseph, which was composed exclusively of the partisans, and others, of
Austria. In fact, ever since she had lost her third husband, Mrs.
Buncomhearst had thrown herself–that was her phrase–into outside
activities. Her one wish was, on her own statement, to lose herself. So
very naturally Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown looked at once to Mrs. Buncomhearst
to preside over the meetings of the new society.

* * * * *

The large dining-room at the Rasselyer-Browns’ had been cleared out as
a sort of auditorium, and in it some fifty or sixty of Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown’s more intimate friends had gathered. The whole meeting
was composed of ladies, except for the presence of one or two men who
represented special cases. There was, of course, little Mr. Spillikins,
with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there, as everybody
knew, on account of Dulphemia; and there was old Judge Longerstill, who
sat leaning on a gold-headed stick with his head sideways, trying to
hear some fraction of what was being said. He came to the gathering in
the hope that it would prove a likely place for seconding a vote of
thanks and saying a few words–half an hour’s talk, perhaps–on the
constitution of the United States. Failing that, he felt sure that at
least someone would call him “this eminent old gentleman,” and even
that was better than staying at home.

But for the most part the audience was composed of women, and they sat
in a little buzz of conversation waiting for Mr. Yahi-Bahi.

“I wonder,” called Mrs. Buncomhearst from the chair, “if some lady
would be good enough to write minutes? Miss Snagg, I wonder if you
would be kind enough to write minutes? Could you?”

“I shall be delighted,” said Miss Snagg, “but I’m afraid there’s hardly
time to write them before we begin, is there?”

“Oh, but it would be all right to write them _afterwards_,” chorussed
several ladies who understood such things; “it’s quite often done that
way.”

“And I should like to move that we vote a constitution,” said a stout
lady with a double eye-glass.

“Is that carried?” said Mrs. Buncomhearst. “All those in favour please
signify.”

Nobody stirred.

“Carried,” said the president. “And perhaps you would be good enough,
Mrs. Fyshe,” she said, turning towards the stout lady, “to _write_ the
constitution.”

“Do you think it necessary to _write_ it?” said Mrs. Fyshe. “I should
like to move, if I may, that I almost wonder whether it is necessary to
write the constitution–unless, of course, anybody thinks that we
really ought to.”

“Ladies,” said the president, “you have heard the motion. All those
against it–”

There was no sign.

“All those in favour of it–”

There was still no sign.

“Lost,” she said.

Then, looking across at the clock on the mantel-piece, and realizing
that Mr. Yahi-Bahi must have been delayed and that something must be
done, she said:

“And now, ladies, as we have in our midst a most eminent gentleman who
probably has thought more deeply about constitutions than–”

All eyes turned at once towards Judge Longerstill, but as fortune had
it at this very moment Mr. Sikleigh Snoop entered, followed by Mr.
Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd.

Mr. Yahi-Bahi was tall. His drooping Oriental costume made him taller
still. He had a long brown face and liquid brown eyes of such depth
that when he turned them full upon the ladies before him a shiver of
interest and apprehension followed in the track of his glance.

“My dear,” said Miss Snagg afterwards, “he seemed simply to see right
through us.”

This was correct. He did.

Mr. Ram Spudd presented a contrast to his superior. He was short and
round, with a dimpled mahogany face and eyes that twinkled in it like
little puddles of molasses. His head was bound in a turban and his body
was swathed in so many bands and sashes that he looked almost circular.
The clothes of both Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd were covered with the
mystic signs of Buddha and the seven serpents of Vishnu.

It was impossible, of course, for Mr. Yahi-Bahi or Mr. Ram Spudd to
address the audience. Their knowledge of English was known to be too
slight for that. Their communications were expressed entirely through
the medium of Mr. Snoop, and even he explained afterwards that it was
very difficult. The only languages of India which he was able to speak,
he said, with any fluency were Gargamic and Gumaic both of these being
old Dravidian dialects with only two hundred and three words in each,
and hence in themselves very difficult to converse in. Mr. Yahi-Bahi
answered in what Mr. Snoop understood to be the Iramic of the Vedas, a
very rich language, but one which unfortunately he did not understand.
The dilemma is one familiar to all Oriental scholars.

All of this Mr. Snoop explained in the opening speech which he
proceeded to make. And after this he went on to disclose, amid deep
interest, the general nature of the cult of Boohooism. He said that
they could best understand it if he told them that its central doctrine
was that of Bahee. Indeed, the first aim of all followers of the cult
was to attain to Bahee. Anybody who could spend a certain number of
hours each day, say sixteen, in silent meditation on Boohooism would
find his mind gradually reaching a condition of Bahee. The chief aim of
Bahee itself was sacrifice: a true follower of the cult must be willing
to sacrifice his friends, or his relatives, and even strangers, in
order to reach Bahee. In this way one was able fully to realize oneself
and enter into the Higher Indifference. Beyond this, further meditation
and fasting–by which was meant living solely on fish, fruit, wine, and
meat–one presently attained to complete Swaraj or Control of Self, and
might in time pass into the absolute Nirvana, or the Negation of
Emptiness, the supreme goal of Boohooism.

As a first step to all this, Mr. Snoop explained, each neophyte or
candidate for holiness must, after searching his own heart, send ten
dollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi. Gold, it appeared, was recognized in the cult
of Boohooism as typifying the three chief virtues, whereas silver or
paper money did not; even national banknotes were only regarded as do
or, a halfway palliation; and outside currencies such as Canadian or
Mexican bills were looked upon as entirely boo, or contemptible. The
Oriental view of money, said Mr. Snoop, was far superior to our own,
but it also might be attained by deep thought, and, as a beginning, by
sending ten dollars to Mr. Yahi-Bahi.

After this Mr. Snoop, in conclusion, read a very beautiful Hindu poem,
translating it as he went along. It began, “O cow, standing beside the
Ganges, and apparently without visible occupation,” and it was voted
exquisite by all who heard it. The absence of rhyme and the entire
removal of ideas marked it as far beyond anything reached as yet by
Occidental culture.

When Mr. Snoop had concluded, the president called upon Judge
Longerstill for a few words of thanks, which he gave, followed by a
brief talk on the constitution of the United States.

After this the society was declared constituted, Mr. Yahi-Bahi made
four salaams, one to each point of the compass, and the meeting
dispersed.

And that evening, over fifty dinner tables, everybody discussed the
nature of Bahee, and tried in vain to explain it to men too stupid to
understand.

* * * * *

Now it so happened that on the very afternoon of this meeting at Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown’s, the Philippine chauffeur did a strange and peculiar
thing. He first asked Mr. Rasselyer-Brown for a few hours’ leave of
absence to attend the funeral of his mother in-law. This was a request
which Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, on principle, never refused to a man-servant.

Whereupon, the Philippine chauffeur, no longer attired as one, visited
the residence of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. He let himself in with a marvellous
little key which he produced from a very wonderful bunch of such. He
was in the house for nearly half an hour, and when he emerged, the
notebook in his breast pocket, had there been an eye to read it, would
have been seen to be filled with stranger details in regard to Oriental
mysticism than even Mr. Yahi-Bahi had given to the world. So strange
were they that before the Philippine chauffeur returned to the
Rasselyer-Brown residence he telegraphed certain and sundry parts of
them to New York. But why he should have addressed them to the head of
a detective bureau instead of to a college of Oriental research it
passes the imagination to conceive. But as the chauffeur duly
reappeared at motor-time in the evening the incident passed unnoticed.

* * * * *

It is beyond the scope of the present narrative to trace the progress
of Boohooism during the splendid but brief career of the Yahi-Bahi
Oriental Society. There could be no doubt of its success. Its
principles appealed with great strength to all the more cultivated
among the ladies of Plutoria Avenue. There was something in the
Oriental mysticism of its doctrines which rendered previous belief
stale and puerile. The practice of the sacred rites began at once. The
ladies’ counters of the Plutorian banks were inundated with requests
for ten-dollar pieces in exchange for banknotes. At dinner in the best
houses nothing was eaten except a thin soup (or bru), followed by fish,
succeeded by meat or by game, especially such birds as are particularly
pleasing to Buddha, as the partridge, the pheasant, and the woodcock.
After this, except for fruits and wine, the principle of Swaraj, or
denial of self, was rigidly imposed. Special Oriental dinners of this
sort were given, followed by listening to the reading of Oriental
poetry, with closed eyes and with the mind as far as possible in a
state of Stoj, or Negation of Thought.

By this means the general doctrine of Boohooism spread rapidly. Indeed,
a great many of the members of the society soon attained to a stage of
Bahee, or the Higher Indifference, that it would have been hard to
equal outside of Juggapore or Jumbumbabad. For example, when Mrs.
Buncomhearst learned of the remarriage of her second husband–she had
lost him three years before, owing to a difference of opinion on the
emancipation of women–she showed the most complete Bahee possible. And
when Miss Snagg learned that her brother in Venezuela had died–a very
sudden death brought on by drinking rum for seventeen years–and had
left her ten thousand dollars, the Bahee which she exhibited almost
amounted to Nirvana.

In fact, the very general dissemination of the Oriental idea became
more and more noticeable with each week that passed. Some members
attained to so complete a Bahee, or Higher Indifference, that they even
ceased to attend the meetings of the society; others reached a Swaraj,
or Control of Self, so great that they no longer read its pamphlets;
while others again actually passed into Nirvana, to a Complete Negation
of Self, so rapidly that they did not even pay their subscriptions.

But features of this sort, of course, are familiar wherever a
successful occult creed makes its way against the prejudices of the
multitude.

The really notable part of the whole experience was the marvellous
demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the
society, the true nature of which is still wrapped in mystery.

For some weeks it had been rumoured that a very special feat or
demonstration of power by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was under contemplation. In
fact, the rapid spread of Swaraj and of Nirvana among the members
rendered such a feat highly desirable. Just what form the demonstration
would take was for some time a matter of doubt. It was whispered at
first that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt the mysterious eastern rite of
burying Ram Spudd alive in the garden of the Rasselyer-Brown residence
and leaving him there in a state of Stoj, or Suspended Inanition, for
eight days. But this project was abandoned, owing to some doubt,
apparently, in the mind of Mr. Ram Spudd as to his astral fitness for
the high state of Stoj necessitated by the experiment.

At last it became known to the members of the Poosh, or Inner Circle,
under the seal of confidence, that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt nothing
less than the supreme feat of occultism, namely, a reincarnation, or
more correctly a reastralization of Buddha.

The members of the Inner Circle shivered with a luxurious sense of
mystery when they heard of it.

“Has it ever been done before?” they asked of Mr. Snoop.

“Only a few times,” he said; “once, I believe, by Jam-bum, the famous
Yogi of the Carnatic; once, perhaps twice, by Boohoo, the founder of
the sect. But it is looked upon as extremely rare. Mr. Yahi tells me
that the great danger is that, if the slightest part of the formula is
incorrectly observed, the person attempting the astralization is
swallowed up into nothingness. However, he declares himself willing to
try.”

* * * * *

The seance was to take place at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s residence, and
was to be at midnight.

“At midnight!” said each member in surprise. And the answer was, “Yes,
at midnight. You see, midnight here is exactly midday in Allahabad in
India.”

This explanation was, of course, ample. “Midnight,” repeated everybody
to everybody else, “is exactly midday in Allahabad.” That made things
perfectly clear. Whereas if midnight had been midday in Timbuctoo the
whole situation would have been different.

Each of the ladies was requested to bring to the seance some ornament
of gold; but it must be plain gold, without any setting of stones.

It was known already that, according to the cult of Boohooism, gold,
plain gold, is the seat of the three virtues–beauty, wisdom and grace.
Therefore, according to the creed of Boohooism, anyone who has enough
gold, plain gold, is endowed with these virtues and is all right. All
that is needed is to have enough of it; the virtues follow as a
consequence.

But for the great experiment the gold used must not be set with stones,
with the one exception of rubies, which are known to be endowed with
the three attributes of Hindu worship, modesty, loquacity, and
pomposity.

In the present case it was found that as a number of ladies had nothing
but gold ornaments set with diamonds, a second exception was made;
especially as Mr. Yahi-Bahi, on appeal, decided that diamonds, though
less pleasing to Buddha than rubies, possessed the secondary Hindu
virtues of divisibility, movability, and disposability.

On the evening in question the residence of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown might
have been observed at midnight wrapped in utter darkness. No lights
were shown. A single taper, brought by Ram Spudd from the Taj Mohal,
and resembling in its outer texture those sold at the five-and-ten
store near Mr. Spudd’s residence, burned on a small table in the vast
dining-room. The servants had been sent upstairs and expressly enjoined
to retire at half past ten. Moreover, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had had to
attend that evening, at the Mausoleum Club, a meeting of the trustees
of the Church of St. Asaph, and he had come home at eleven o’clock, as
he always did after diocesan work of this sort, quite used up; in fact,
so fatigued that he had gone upstairs to his own suite of rooms
sideways, his knees bending under him. So utterly used up was he with
his church work that, as far as any interest in what might be going on
in his own residence, he had attained to a state of Bahee, or Higher
Indifference, that even Buddha might have envied.

The guests, as had been arranged, arrived noiselessly and on foot. All
motors were left at least a block away. They made their way up the
steps of the darkened house, and were admitted without ringing, the
door opening silently in front of them. Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram
Spudd, who had arrived on foot carrying a large parcel, were already
there, and were behind a screen in the darkened room, reported to be in
meditation.

At a whispered word from Mr. Snoop, who did duty at the door, all furs
and wraps were discarded in the hall and laid in a pile. Then the
guests passed silently into the great dining room. There was no light
in it except the dim taper which stood on a little table. On this table
each guest, as instructed, laid an ornament of gold, and at the same
time was uttered in a low voice the word Ksvoo. This means, “O Buddha,
I herewith lay my unworthy offering at thy feet; take it and keep it
for ever.” It was explained that this was only a form.

* * * * *

“What is he doing?” whispered the assembled guests as they saw Mr.
Yahi-Bahi pass across the darkened room and stand in front of the
sideboard.

“Hush!” said Mr. Snoop; “he’s laying the propitiatory offering for
Buddha.”

“It’s an Indian rite,” whispered Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown.

Mr. Yahi-Bahi could be seen dimly moving to and fro in front of the
sideboard. There was a faint clinking of glass.

“He has to set out a glass of Burmese brandy, powdered over with nutmeg
and aromatics,” whispered Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. “I had the greatest
hunt to get it all for him. He said that nothing but Burmese brandy
would do, because in the Hindu religion the god can only be invoked
with Burmese brandy, or, failing that, Hennessy’s with three stars,
which is not entirely displeasing to Buddha.”

“The aromatics,” whispered Mr. Snoop, “are supposed to waft a perfume
or incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiatory
wine and the aromatic spices are mentioned in the Vishnu-Buddayat.”

Mr. Yahi-Bahi, his preparations completed, was now seen to stand in
front of the sideboard bowing deeply four times in an Oriental salaam.
The light of the single taper had by this time burned so dim that his
movements were vague and uncertain. His body cast great flickering
shadows on the half-seen wall. From his throat there issued a low wail
in which the word wah! wah! could be distinguished.

The excitement was intense.

“What does wah mean?” whispered Mr. Spillikins.

“Hush!” said Mr. Snoop; “it means, ‘O Buddha, wherever thou art in thy
lofty Nirvana, descend yet once in astral form before our eyes!’”

Mr. Yahi-Bahi rose. He was seen to place one finger on his lips and
then, silently moving across the room, he disappeared behind the
screen. Of what Mr. Ram Spudd was doing during this period there is no
record. It was presumed that he was still praying.

The stillness was now absolute.

“We must wait in perfect silence,” whispered Mr. Snoop from the extreme
tips of his lips.

Everybody sat in strained intensity, silent, looking towards the vague
outline of the sideboard.

The minutes passed. No one moved. All were spellbound in expectancy.

Still the minutes passed. The taper had flickered down till the great
room was almost in darkness.

Could it be that by some neglect in the preparations, the substitution
perhaps of the wrong brandy, the astralization could not be effected?

But no.

Quite suddenly, it seemed, everybody in the darkened room was aware of
a _presence_. That was the word as afterwards repeated in a hundred
confidential discussions. A _presence_. One couldn’t call it a body. It
wasn’t. It was a figure, an astral form, a presence.

“Buddha!” they gasped as they looked at it.

Just how the figure entered the room, the spectators could never
afterwards agree. Some thought it appeared through the wall,
deliberately astralizing itself as it passed through the bricks. Others
seemed to have seen it pass in at the farther door of the room, as if
it had astralized itself at the foot of the stairs in the back of the
hall outside.

Be that as it may, there it stood before them, the astralized shape of
the Indian deity, so that to every lip there rose the half-articulated
word, “Buddha”; or at least to every lip except that of Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown. From her there came no sound.

The figure as afterwards described was attired in a long _shirak_, such
as is worn by the Grand Llama of Tibet, and resembling, if the
comparison were not profane, a modern dressing-gown. The legs, if one
might so call them, of the apparition were enwrapped in loose
punjahamas, a word which is said to be the origin of the modern
pyjamas; while the feet, if they were feet, were encased in loose
slippers.

Buddha moved slowly across the room. Arrived at the sideboard the
astral figure paused, and even in the uncertain light Buddha was seen
to raise and drink the propitiatory offering. That much was perfectly
clear. Whether Buddha spoke or not is doubtful. Certain of the
spectators thought that he said, ‘Must a fagotnit’, which is
Hindustanee for “Blessings on this house.” To Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s
distracted mind it seemed as if Buddha said, “I must have forgotten it”
But this wild fancy she never breathed to a soul.

Silently Buddha recrossed the room, slowly wiping one arm across his
mouth after the Hindu gesture of farewell.

For perhaps a full minute after the disappearance of Buddha not a soul
moved. Then quite suddenly Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown, unable to stand the
tension any longer, pressed an electric switch and the whole room was
flooded with light.

There sat the affrighted guests staring at one another with pale faces.

But, to the amazement and horror of all, the little table in the centre
stood empty–not a single gem, not a fraction of the gold that had lain
upon it was left. All had disappeared.

The truth seemed to burst upon everyone at once. There was no doubt of
what had happened.

The gold and the jewels had been deastralized. Under the occult power
of the vision they had been demonetized, engulfed into the astral plane
along with the vanishing Buddha.

Filled with the sense of horror still to come, somebody pulled aside
the little screen. They fully expected to find the lifeless bodies of
Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the faithful Ram Spudd. What they saw before them was
more dreadful still. The outer Oriental garments of the two devotees
lay strewn upon the floor. The long sash of Yahi-Bahi and the thick
turban of Ram Spudd were side by side near them; almost sickening in
its repulsive realism was the thick black head of hair of the junior
devotee, apparently torn from his scalp as if by lightning and bearing
a horrible resemblance to the cast-off wig of an actor.

The truth was too plain.

“They are engulfed!” cried a dozen voices at once.

It was realized in a flash that Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd had paid the
penalty of their daring with their lives. Through some fatal neglect,
against which they had fairly warned the participants of the seance,
the two Orientals had been carried bodily in the astral plane.

“How dreadful!” murmured Mr. Snoop. “We must have made some awful
error.”

“Are they deastralized?” murmured Mrs. Buncomhearst.

“Not a doubt of it,” said Mr. Snoop.

And then another voice in the group was heard to say, “We must hush it
up. We _can’t_ have it known!”

On which a chorus of voices joined in, everybody urging that it must be
hushed up.

“Couldn’t you try to reastralize them?” said somebody to Mr. Snoop.

“No, no,” said Mr. Snoop, still shaking. “Better not try to. We must
hush it up if we can.”

And the general assent to this sentiment showed that, after all, the
principles of Bahee, or Indifference to Others, had taken a real root
in the society.

“Hush it up,” cried everybody, and there was a general move towards the
hall.

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Mrs. Buncomhearst; “our wraps!”

“Deastralized!” said the guests.

There was a moment of further consternation as everybody gazed at the
spot where the ill-fated pile of furs and wraps had lain.

“Never mind,” said everybody, “let’s go without them–don’t stay. Just
think if the police should–”

And at the word police, all of a sudden there was heard in the street
the clanging of a bell and the racing gallop of the horses of the
police patrol wagon.

“The police!” cried everybody. “Hush it up! Hush it up!” For of course
the principles of Bahee are not known to the police.

In another moment the doorbell of the house rang with a long and
violent peal, and in a second as it seemed, the whole hall was filled
with bulky figures uniformed in blue.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown,” cried a loud, firm voice from
the sidewalk. “We have them both. Everything is here. We got them
before they’d gone a block. But if you don’t mind, the police must get
a couple of names for witnesses in the warrant.”

It was the Philippine chauffeur. But he was no longer attired as such.
He wore the uniform of an inspector of police, and there was the metal
badge of the Detective Department now ostentatiously outside his coat.

And beside him, one on each side of him, there stood the deastralized
forms of Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd. They wore long overcoats, doubtless
the contents of the magic parcels, and the Philippine chauffeur had a
grip of iron on the neck of each as they stood. Mr. Spudd had lost his
Oriental hair, and the face of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, perhaps in the struggle
which had taken place, had been scraped white in patches.

They were making no attempt to break away. Indeed, Mr. Spudd, with that
complete Bahee, or Submission to Fate, which is attained only by long
services in state penitentiaries, was smiling and smoking a cigarette.

“We were waiting for them,” explained a tall police officer to the two
or three ladies who now gathered round him with a return of courage.
“They had the stuff in a hand-cart and were pushing it away. The chief
caught them at the corner, and rang the patrol from there. You’ll find
everything all right, I think, ladies,” he added, as a burly assistant
was seen carrying an armload of furs up the steps.

Somehow many of the ladies realized at the moment what cheery, safe,
reliable people policemen in blue are, and what a friendly, familiar
shelter they offer against the wiles of Oriental occultism.

“Are they old criminals?” someone asked.

“Yes, ma’am. They’ve worked this same thing in four cities already, and
both of them have done time, and lots of it. They’ve only been out six
months. No need to worry over them,” he concluded with a shrug of the
shoulders.

So the furs were restored and the gold and the jewels parcelled out
among the owners, and in due course Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd
were lifted up into the patrol wagon where they seated themselves with
a composure worthy of the best traditions of Jehumbabah and
Bahoolapore. In fact, Mr. Spudd was heard to address the police as
“boys,” and to remark that they had “got them good” that time.

So the seance ended and the guests vanished, and the Yahi-Bahi Society
terminated itself without even a vote of dissolution.

And in all the later confidential discussions of the episode only one
point of mysticism remained. After they had time really to reflect on
it, free from all danger of arrest, the members of the society realized
that on one point the police were entirely off the truth of things. For
Mr. Yahi-Bahi, whether a thief or not, and whether he came from the
Orient, or, as the police said, from Missouri, had actually succeeded
in reastralizing Buddha.

Nor was anyone more emphatic on this point than Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown
herself.

“For after all,” she said, “if it was not Buddha, who was it?”

And the question was never answered.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins

Almost any day, on Plutoria Avenue or thereabouts, you may see little
Mr. Spillikins out walking with his four tall sons, who are practically
as old as himself.

To be exact, Mr. Spillikins is twenty-four, and Bob, the oldest of the
boys, must be at least twenty. Their exact ages are no longer known,
because, by a dreadful accident, their mother forgot them. This was at
a time when the boys were all at Mr. Wackem’s Academy for Exceptional
Youths in the foothills of Tennessee, and while their mother, Mrs.
Everleigh, was spending the winter on the Riviera and felt that for
their own sake she must not allow herself to have the boys with her.

But now, of course, since Mrs. Everleigh has remarried and become Mrs.
Everleigh-Spillikins there is no need to keep them at Mr. Wackem’s any
longer. Mr. Spillikins is able to look after them.

Mr. Spillikins generally wears a little top hat and an English morning
coat. The boys are in Eton jackets and black trousers, which, at their
mother’s wish, are kept just a little too short for them. This is
because Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins feels that the day will come some
day–say fifteen years hence–when the boys will no longer be children,
and meantime it is so nice to feel that they are still mere boys. Bob
is the eldest, but Sib the youngest is the tallest, whereas Willie the
third boy is the dullest, although this has often been denied by those
who claim that Gib the second boy is just a trifle duller. Thus at any
rate there is a certain equality and good fellowship all round.

Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is not to be seen walking with them. She is
probably at the race-meet, being taken there by Captain Cormorant of
the United States navy, which Mr. Spillikins considers very handsome of
him. Every now and then the captain, being in the navy, is compelled to
be at sea for perhaps a whole afternoon or even several days; in which
case Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is very generally taken to the Hunt Club
or the Country Club by Lieutenant Hawk, which Mr. Spillikins regards as
awfully thoughtful of him. Or if Lieutenant Hawk is also out of town
for the day, as he sometimes has to be, because he is in the United
States army, Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is taken out by old Colonel
Shake, who is in the State militia and who is at leisure all the time.

During their walks on Plutoria Avenue one may hear the four boys
addressing Mr. Spillikins as “father” and “dad” in deep bull-frog
voices.

“Say, dad,” drawls Bob, “couldn’t we all go to the ball game?”

“No. Say, dad,” says Gib, “let’s all go back to the house and play
five-cent pool in the billiard-room.”

“All right, boys,” says Mr. Spillikins. And a few minutes later one may
see them all hustling up the steps of the Everleigh-Spillikins’s
mansion, quite eager at the prospect, and all talking together.

* * * * *

Now the whole of this daily panorama, to the eye that can read it,
represents the outcome of the tangled love story of Mr. Spillikins,
which culminated during the summer houseparty at Castel Casteggio, the
woodland retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Newberry.

But to understand the story one must turn back a year or so to the time
when Mr. Peter Spillikins used to walk on Plutoria Avenue alone, or sit
in the Mausoleum Club listening to the advice of people who told him
that he really ought to get married.

* * * * *

In those days the first thing that one noticed about Mr. Peter
Spillikins was his exalted view of the other sex. Every time he passed
a beautiful woman in the street he said to himself, “I say!” Even when
he met a moderately beautiful one he murmured, “By Jove!” When an
Easter hat went sailing past, or a group of summer parasols stood
talking on a leafy corner, Mr. Spillikins ejaculated, “My word!” At the
opera and at tango teas his projecting blue eyes almost popped out of
his head.

Similarly, if he happened to be with one of his friends, he would
murmur, “I say, _do_ look at that beautiful girl,” or would exclaim, “I
say, don’t look, but isn’t that an awfully pretty girl across the
street?” or at the opera, “Old man, don’t let her see you looking, but
do you see that lovely girl in the box opposite?”

One must add to this that Mr. Spillikins, in spite of his large and
bulging blue eyes, enjoyed the heavenly gift of short sight. As a
consequence he lived in a world of amazingly beautiful women. And as
his mind was focused in the same way as his eyes he endowed them with
all the virtues and graces which ought to adhere to fifty-dollar
flowered hats and cerise parasols with ivory handles.

Nor, to do him justice, did Mr. Spillikins confine his attitude to his
view of women alone. He brought it to bear on everything. Every time he
went to the opera he would come away enthusiastic, saying, “By Jove,
isn’t it simply splendid! Of course I haven’t the ear to appreciate
it–I’m not musical, you know–but even with the little that I know,
it’s great; it absolutely puts me to sleep.” And of each new novel that
he bought he said, “It’s a perfectly wonderful book! Of course I
haven’t the head to understand it, so I didn’t finish it, but it’s
simply thrilling.” Similarly with painting, “It’s one of the most
marvellous pictures I ever saw,” he would say. “Of course I’ve no eye
for pictures, and I couldn’t see anything in it, but it’s wonderful!”

The career of Mr. Spillikins up to the point of which we are speaking
had hitherto not been very satisfactory, or at least not from the point
of view of Mr. Boulder, who was his uncle and trustee. Mr. Boulder’s
first idea had been to have Mr. Spillikins attend the university. Dr.
Boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad the idea that
a university education was perfectly suitable even for the rich; that
it didn’t follow that because a man was a university graduate he need
either work or pursue his studies any further; that what the university
aimed to do was merely to put a certain stamp upon a man. That was all.
And this stamp, according to the tenor of the president’s convocation
addresses, was perfectly harmless. No one ought to be afraid of it. As
a result, a great many of the very best young men in the City, who had
no need for education at all, were beginning to attend college. “It
marked,” said Dr. Boomer, “a revolution.”

Mr. Spillikins himself was fascinated with his studies. The professors
seemed to him living wonders.

“By Jove!” he said, “the professor of mathematics is a marvel. You
ought to see him explaining trigonometry on the blackboard. You can’t
understand a word of it.” He hardly knew which of his studies he liked
best. “Physics,” he said, “is a wonderful study. I got five per cent in
it. But, by Jove! I had to work for it. I’d go in for it altogether if
they’d let me.”

But that was just the trouble–they wouldn’t. And so in course of time
Mr. Spillikins was compelled, for academic reasons, to abandon his life
work. His last words about it were, “Gad! I nearly passed in
trigonometry!” and he always said afterwards that he had got a
tremendous lot out of the university.

After that, as he had to leave the university, his trustee, Mr.
Boulder, put Mr. Spillikins into business. It was, of course, his own
business, one of the many enterprises for which Mr. Spillikins, ever
since he was twenty-one, had already been signing documents and
countersigning cheques. So Mr. Spillikins found himself in a mahogany
office selling wholesale oil. And he liked it. He said that business
sharpened one up tremendously.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Spillikins,” a caller in the mahogany office would
say, “that we can’t meet you at five dollars. Four seventy is the best
we can do on the present market.”

“My dear chap,” said Mr. Spillikins, “that’s all right. After all,
thirty cents isn’t much, eh what? Dash it, old man, we won’t fight
about thirty cents. How much do you want?”

“Well, at four seventy we’ll take twenty thousand barrels.”

“By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins; “twenty thousand barrels. Gad! you want
a lot, don’t you? Pretty big sale, eh, for a beginner like me? I guess
uncle’ll be tickled to death.”

So tickled was he that after a few weeks of oil-selling Mr. Boulder
urged Mr. Spillikins to retire, and wrote off many thousand dollars
from the capital value of his estate.

So after this there was only one thing for Mr. Spillikins to do, and
everybody told him so–namely to get married. “Spillikins,” said his
friends at the club after they had taken all his loose money over the
card table, “you ought to get married.”

“Think so?” said Mr. Spillikins.

Goodness knows he was willing enough. In fact, up to this point Mr.
Spillikins’s whole existence had been one long aspiring sigh directed
towards the joys of matrimony.

In his brief college days his timid glances had wandered by an
irresistible attraction towards the seats on the right-hand side of the
class room, where the girls of the first year sat, with golden pigtails
down their backs, doing trigonometry.

He would have married any of them. But when a girl can work out
trigonometry at sight, what use can she possibly have for marriage?
None. Mr. Spillikins knew this and it kept him silent. And even when
the most beautiful girl in the class married the demonstrator and thus
terminated her studies in her second year, Spillikins realized that it
was only because the man was, undeniably, a demonstrator and knew
things.

Later on, when Spillikins went into business and into society, the same
fate pursued him. He loved, for at least six months, Georgiana
McTeague, the niece of the presbyterian minister of St. Osoph’s. He
loved her so well that for her sake he temporarily abandoned his pew at
St. Asaph’s, which was episcopalian, and listened to fourteen
consecutive sermons on hell. But the affair got no further than that.
Once or twice, indeed, Spillikins walked home with Georgiana from
church and talked about hell with her; and once her uncle asked him
into the manse for cold supper after evening service, and they had a
long talk about hell all through the meal and upstairs in the
sitting-room afterwards. But somehow Spillikins could get no further
with it. He read up all he could about hell so as to be able to talk
with Georgiana, but in the end it failed: a young minister fresh from
college came and preached at St. Osoph’s six special sermons on the
absolute certainty of eternal punishment, and he married Miss McTeague
as a result of it.

And, meantime, Mr. Spillikins had got engaged, or practically so, to
Adelina Lightleigh; not that he had spoken to her, but he considered
himself bound to her. For her sake he had given up hell altogether, and
was dancing till two in the morning and studying action bridge out of a
book. For a time he felt so sure that she meant to have him that he
began bringing his greatest friend, Edward Ruff of the college football
team, of whom Spillikins was very proud, up to the Lightleighs’
residence. He specially wanted Adelina and Edward to be great friends,
so that Adelina and he might ask Edward up to the house after he was
married. And they got to be such great friends, and so quickly, that
they were married in New York that autumn. After which Spillikins used
to be invited up to the house by Edward and Adelina. They both used to
tell him how much they owed him; and they, too, used to join in the
chorus and say, “You know, Peter, you’re awfully silly not to get
married.”

Now all this had happened and finished at about the time when the
Yahi-Bahi Society ran its course. At its first meeting Mr. Spillikins
had met Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown. At the very sight of her he began
reading up the life of Buddha and a translation of the Upanishads so as
to fit himself to aspire to live with her. Even when the society ended
in disaster Mr. Spillikins’s love only burned the stronger.
Consequently, as soon as he knew that Mr. and Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown were
going away for the summer, and that Dulphemia was to go to stay with
the Newberrys at Castel Casteggio, this latter place, the summer
retreat of the Newberrys, became the one spot on earth for Mr. Peter
Spillikins.

Naturally, therefore, Mr. Spillikins was presently transported to the
seventh heaven when in due course of time he received a note which
said, “We shall be so pleased if you can come out and spend a week or
two with us here. We will send the car down to the Thursday train to
meet you. We live here in the simplest fashion possible; in fact, as
Mr. Newberry says, we are just roughing it, but I am sure you don’t
mind for a change. Dulphemia is with us, but we are quite a small
party.”

The note was signed “Margaret Newberry” and was written on heavy cream
paper with a silver monogram such as people use when roughing it.

* * * * *

The Newberrys, like everybody else, went away from town in the
summertime. Mr. Newberry being still in business, after a fashion, it
would not have looked well for him to remain in town throughout the
year. It would have created a bad impression on the market as to how
much he was making.

In fact, in the early summer everybody went out of town. The few who
ever revisited the place in August reported that they hadn’t seen a
soul on the street.

It was a sort of longing for the simple life, for nature, that came
over everybody. Some people sought it at the seaside, where nature had
thrown out her broad plank walks and her long piers and her vaudeville
shows. Others sought it in the heart of the country, where nature had
spread her oiled motor roads and her wayside inns. Others, like the
Newberrys, preferred to “rough it” in country residences of their own.

Some of the people, as already said, went for business reasons, to
avoid the suspicion of having to work all the year round. Others went
to Europe to avoid the reproach of living always in America. Others,
perhaps most people, went for medical reasons, being sent away by their
doctors. Not that they were ill; but the doctors of Plutoria Avenue,
such as Doctor Slyder, always preferred to send all their patients out
of town during the summer months. No well-to-do doctor cares to be
bothered with them. And of course patients, even when they are anxious
to go anywhere on their own account, much prefer to be sent there by
their doctor.

“My dear madam,” Dr. Slyder would say to a lady who, as he knew, was
most anxious to go to Virginia, “there’s really nothing I can do for
you.” Here he spoke the truth. “It’s not a case of treatment. It’s
simply a matter of dropping everything and going away. Now why don’t
you go for a month or two to some quiet place, where you will simply
_do nothing?_” (She never, as he knew, did anything, anyway.) “What do
you say to Hot Springs, Virginia?–absolute quiet, good golf, not a
soul there, plenty of tennis.” Or else he would say, “My dear madam,
you’re simply _worn out_. Why don’t you just drop everything and go to
Canada?–perfectly quiet, not a soul there, and, I believe, nowadays
quite fashionable.”

Thus, after all the patients had been sent away, Dr. Slyder and his
colleagues of Plutoria Avenue managed to slip away themselves for a
month or two, heading straight for Paris and Vienna. There they were
able, so they said, to keep in touch with what continental doctors were
doing. They probably were.

Now it so happened that both the parents of Miss Dulphemia
Rasselyer-Brown had been sent out of town in this fashion. Mrs.
Rasselyer-Brown’s distressing experience with Yahi-Bahi had left her in
a condition in which she was utterly fit for nothing, except to go on a
Mediterranean cruise, with about eighty other people also fit for
nothing.

Mr. Rasselyer-Brown himself, though never exactly an invalid, had
confessed that after all the fuss of the Yahi-Bahi business he needed
bracing up, needed putting into shape, and had put himself into Dr.
Slyder’s hands. The doctor had examined him, questioned him searchingly
as to what he drank, and ended by prescribing port wine to be taken
firmly and unflinchingly during the evening, and for the daytime, at
any moment of exhaustion, a light cordial such as rye whiskey, or rum
and Vichy water. In addition to which Dr. Slyder had recommended Mr.
Rasselyer-Brown to leave town.

“Why don’t you go down to Nagahakett on the Atlantic?” he said.

“Is that in Maine?” said Mr. Rasselyer-Brown in horror.

“Oh, dear me, no!” answered the doctor reassuringly. “It’s in New
Brunswick, Canada; excellent place, most liberal licence laws; first
class cuisine and a bar in the hotel. No tourists, no golf, too cold to
swim–just the place to enjoy oneself.”

So Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had gone away also, and as a result Dulphemia
Rasselyer-Brown, at the particular moment of which we speak, was
declared by the Boudoir and Society column of the _Plutorian Daily
Dollar_ to be staying with Mr. and Mrs. Newberry at their charming
retreat, Castel Casteggio.

The Newberrys belonged to the class of people whose one aim in the
summer is to lead the simple life. Mr. Newberry himself said that his
one idea of a vacation was to get right out into the bush, and put on
old clothes, and just eat when he felt like it.

This was why he had built Castel Casteggio. It stood about forty miles
from the city, out among the wooded hills on the shore of a little
lake. Except for the fifteen or twenty residences like it that dotted
the sides of the lake it was entirely isolated. The only way to reach
it was by the motor road that wound its way among leafy hills from the
railway station fifteen miles away. Every foot of the road was private
property, as all nature ought to be. The whole country about Castel
Casteggio was absolutely primeval, or at any rate as primeval as Scotch
gardeners and French landscape artists could make it. The lake itself
lay like a sparkling gem from nature’s workshop–except that they had
raised the level of it ten feet, stone-banked the sides, cleared out
the brush, and put a motor road round it. Beyond that it was pure
nature.

Castel Casteggio itself, a beautiful house of white brick with sweeping
piazzas and glittering conservatories, standing among great trees with
rolling lawns broken with flower-beds as the ground sloped to the lake,
was perhaps the most beautiful house of all; at any rate, it was an
ideal spot to wear old clothes in, to dine early (at 7.30) and, except
for tennis parties, motor-boat parties, lawn teas, and golf, to live
absolutely to oneself.

It should be explained that the house was not called Castel Casteggio
because the Newberrys were Italian: they were not; nor because they
owned estates in Italy: they didn’t nor had travelled there: they
hadn’t. Indeed, for a time they had thought of giving it a Welsh name,
or a Scotch. But the beautiful country residence of the
Asterisk-Thomsons had stood close by in the same primeval country was
already called Penny-gw-rydd, and the woodland retreat of the
Hyphen-Joneses just across the little lake was called
Strathythan-na-Clee, and the charming chalet of the Wilson-Smiths was
called Yodel-Dudel; so it seemed fairer to select an Italian name.

* * * * *

“By Jove! Miss Furlong, how awfully good of you to come down!”

The little suburban train–two cars only, both first class, for the
train went nowhere except out into the primeval wilderness–had drawn
up at the diminutive roadside station. Mr. Spillikins had alighted, and
there was Miss Philippa Furlong sitting behind the chauffeur in the
Newberrys’ motor. She was looking as beautiful as only the younger
sister of a High Church episcopalian rector can look, dressed in white,
the colour of saintliness, on a beautiful morning in July.

There was no doubt about Philippa Furlong. Her beauty was of that
peculiar and almost sacred kind found only in the immediate
neighbourhood of the High Church clergy. It was admitted by all who
envied or admired her that she could enter a church more gracefully,
move more swimmingly up the aisle, and pray better than any girl on
Plutoria Avenue.

Mr. Spillikins, as he gazed at her in her white summer dress and wide
picture hat, with her parasol nodding above her head, realized that
after all, religion, as embodied in the younger sisters of the High
Church clergy, fills a great place in the world.

“By Jove!” he repeated, “how awfully good of you!”

“Not a bit,” said Philippa. “Hop in. Dulphemia was coming, but she
couldn’t. Is that all you have with you?”

The last remark was ironical. It referred to the two quite large
steamer trunks of Mr. Spillikins that were being loaded, together with
his suit-case, tennis racket, and golf kit, on to the fore part of the
motor. Mr. Spillikins, as a young man of social experience, had roughed
it before. He knew what a lot of clothes one needs for it.

So the motor sped away, and went bowling noiselessly over the oiled
road, and turning corners where the green boughs of the great trees
almost swished in their faces, and rounding and twisting among curves
of the hills as it carried Spillikins and Philippa away from the lower
domain or ordinary fields and farms up into the enchanted country of
private property and the magic castles of Casteggio and Penny-gw-rydd.

Mr. Spillikins must have assured Philippa at least a dozen times in
starting off how awfully good it was of her to come down in the motor;
and he was so pleased at her coming to meet him that Philippa never
even hinted that the truth was that she had expected somebody else on
the same train. For to a girl brought up in the principles of the High
Church the truth is a very sacred thing. She keeps it to herself.

And naturally, with such a sympathetic listener, it was not long before
Mr. Spillikins had begun to talk of Dulphemia and his hopes.

“I don’t know whether she really cares for me or not,” said Mr.
Spillikins, “but I have pretty good hope. The other day, or at least
about two months ago, at one of the Yahi-Bahi meetings–you were not in
that, were you?” he said breaking off.

“Only just at the beginning,” said Philippa; “we went to Bermuda.”

“Oh yes, I remember. Do you know, I thought it pretty rough at the end,
especially on Ram Spudd. I liked him. I sent him two pounds of tobacco
to the penitentiary last week; you can get it in to them, you know, if
you know how.”

“But what were you going to say?” asked Philippa.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Spillikins. And he realized that he had actually
drifted off the topic of Dulphemia, a thing that had never happened to
him before. “I was going to say that at one of the meetings, you know,
I asked her if I might call her Dulphemia.”

“And what did she say to that?” asked Philippa.

“She said she didn’t care what I called her. So I think that looks
pretty good, don’t you?”

“Awfully good,” said Philippa.

“And a little after that I took her slippers home from the Charity Ball
at the Grand Palaver. Archie Jones took her home herself in his car,
but I took her slippers. She’d forgotten them. I thought that a pretty
good sign, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t let a chap carry round your slippers
unless you knew him pretty well, would you, Miss Philippa?”

“Oh no, nobody would,” said Philippa. This of course, was a standing
principle of the Anglican Church.

“And a little after that Dulphemia and Charlie Mostyn and I were
walking to Mrs. Buncomhearst’s musical, and we’d only just started
along the street, when she stopped and sent me back for her music–me,
mind you, not Charlie. That seems to me awfully significant.”

“It seems to speak volumes,” said Philippa.

“Doesn’t it?” said Mr. Spillikins. “You don’t mind my telling you all
about this Miss Philippa?” he added.

Incidentally Mr. Spillikins felt that it was all right to call her Miss
Philippa, because she had a sister who was really Miss Furlong, so it
would have been quite wrong, as Mr. Spillikins realized, to have called
Miss Philippa by her surname. In any case, the beauty of the morning
was against it.

“I don’t mind a bit,” said Philippa. “I think it’s awfully nice of you
to tell me about it.”

She didn’t add that she knew all about it already.

“You see,” said Mr. Spillikins, “you’re so awfully sympathetic. It
makes it so easy to talk to you. With other girls, especially with
clever ones, even with Dulphemia. I often feel a perfect jackass beside
them. But I don t feel that way with you at all.”

“Don’t you really?” said Philippa, but the honest admiration in Mr.
Spillikin’s protruding blue eyes forbade a sarcastic answer.

“By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins presently, with complete irrelevance, “I
hope you don’t mind my saying it, but you look awfully well in
white–stunning.” He felt that a man who was affianced, or practically
so, was allowed the smaller liberty of paying honest compliments.

“Oh, this old thing,” laughed Philippa, with a contemptuous shake of
her dress. “But up here, you know, we just wear anything.” She didn’t
say that this old thing was only two weeks old and had cost eighty
dollars, or the equivalent of one person’s pew rent at St. Asaph’s for
six months.

And after that they had only time, so it seemed to Mr. Spillikins, for
two or three remarks, and he had scarcely had leisure to reflect what a
charming girl Philippa had grown to be since she went to Bermuda–the
effect, no doubt, of the climate of those fortunate islands–when quite
suddenly they rounded a curve into an avenue of nodding trees, and
there were the great lawn and wide piazzas and the conservatories of
Castel Casteggio right in front of them.

“Here we are,” said Philippa, “and there’s Mr. Newberry out on the
lawn.”

* * * * *

“Now, here,” Mr. Newberry was saying a little later, waving his hand,
“is where you get what I think the finest view of the place.”

He was standing at the corner of the lawn where it sloped, dotted with
great trees, to the banks of the little lake, and was showing Mr.
Spillikins the beauties of Castel Casteggio.

Mr. Newberry wore on his short circular person the summer costume of a
man taking his ease and careless of dress: plain white flannel
trousers, not worth more than six dollars a leg, an ordinary white silk
shirt with a rolled collar, that couldn’t have cost more than fifteen
dollars, and on his head an ordinary Panama hat, say forty dollars.

“By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins, as he looked about him at the house and
the beautiful lawn with its great trees, “it’s a lovely place.”

“Isn’t it?” said Mr. Newberry. “But you ought to have seen it when I
took hold of it. To make the motor road alone I had to dynamite out
about a hundred yards of rock, and then I fetched up cement, tons and
tons of it, and boulders to buttress the embankment.”

“Did you really!” said Mr. Spillikins, looking at Mr. Newberry with
great respect.

“Yes, and even that was nothing to the house itself. Do you know, I had
to go at least forty feet for the foundations. First I went through
about twenty feet of loose clay, after that I struck sand, and I’d no
sooner got through that than, by George! I landed in eight feet of
water. I had to pump it out; I think I took out a thousand gallons
before I got clear down to the rock. Then I took my solid steel beams
in fifty-foot lengths,” here Mr. Newberry imitated with his arms the
action of a man setting up a steel beam, “and set them upright and
bolted them on the rock. After that I threw my steel girders across,
clapped on my roof rafters, all steel, in sixty-foot pieces, and then
just held it easily, just supported it a bit, and let it sink gradually
to its place.”

Mr. Newberry illustrated with his two arms the action of a huge house
being allowed to sink slowly to a firm rest.

“You don’t say so!” said Mr. Spillikins, lost in amazement at the
wonderful physical strength that Mr. Newberry must have.

“Excuse me just a minute,” broke off Mr. Newberry, “while I smooth out
the gravel where you’re standing. You’ve rather disturbed it, I’m
afraid.”

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry,” said Mr. Spillikins.

“Oh, not at all, not at all,” said his host. “I don’t mind in the
least. It’s only on account of McAlister.”

“Who?” asked Mr. Spillikins.

“My gardener. He doesn’t care to have us walk on the gravel paths. It
scuffs up the gravel so. But sometimes one forgets.”

It should be said here, for the sake of clearness, that one of the
chief glories of Castel Casteggio lay in its servants. All of them, it
goes without saying, had been brought from Great Britain. The comfort
they gave to Mr. and Mrs. Newberry was unspeakable. In fact, as they
themselves admitted, servants of the kind are simply not to be found in
America.

“Our Scotch gardener,” Mrs. Newberry always explained “is a perfect
character. I don’t know how we could get another like him. Do you know,
my dear, he simply won’t allow us to pick the roses; and if any of us
walk across the grass he is furious. And he positively refuses to let
us use the vegetables. He told me quite plainly that if we took any of
his young peas or his early cucumbers he would leave. We are to have
them later on when he’s finished growing them.”

“How delightful it is to have servants of that sort,” the lady
addressed would murmur; “so devoted and so different from servants on
this side of the water. Just imagine, my dear, my chauffeur, when I was
in Colorado, actually threatened to leave me merely because I wanted to
reduce his wages. I think it’s these wretched labour unions.”

“I’m sure it is. Of course we have trouble with McAlister at times, but
he’s always very reasonable when we put things in the right light. Last
week, for example, I was afraid that we had gone too far with him. He
is always accustomed to have a quart of beer every morning at half-past
ten–the maids are told to bring it out to him, and after that he goes
to sleep in the little arbour beside the tulip bed. And the other day
when he went there he found that one of our guests who hadn’t been
told, was actually sitting in there reading. Of course he was
_furious_. I was afraid for the moment that he would give notice on the
spot.”

“What _would_ you have done?”

“Positively, my dear, I don’t know. But we explained to him at once
that it was only an accident and that the person hadn’t known and that
of course it wouldn’t occur again. After that he was softened a little,
but he went off muttering to himself, and that evening he dug up all
the new tulips and threw them over the fence. We saw him do it, but we
didn’t dare say anything.”

“Oh no,” echoed the other lady; “if you had you might have lost him.”

“Exactly. And I don’t think we could possibly get another man like him;
at least, not on this side of the water.”

* * * * *

“But come,” said Mr. Newberry, after he had finished adjusting the
gravel with his foot, “there are Mrs. Newberry and the girls on the
verandah. Let’s go and join them.”

A few minutes later Mr. Spillikins was talking with Mrs. Newberry and
Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, and telling Mrs. Newberry what a beautiful
house she had. Beside them stood Philippa Furlong, and she had her arm
around Dulphemia’s waist; and the picture that they thus made, with
their heads close together, Dulphemia’s hair being golden and
Philippa’s chestnut-brown, was such that Mr. Spillikins had no eyes for
Mrs. Newberry nor for Castel Casteggio nor for anything. So much so
that he practically didn’t see at all the little girl in green that
stood unobtrusively on the further side of Mrs. Newberry. Indeed,
though somebody had murmured her name in introduction, he couldn’t have
repeated it if asked two minutes afterwards. His eyes and his mind were
elsewhere.

But hers were not.

For the Little Girl in Green looked at Mr. Spillikins with wide eyes,
and when she looked at him she saw all at once such wonderful things
about him as nobody had ever seen before.

For she could see from the poise of his head how awfully clever he was;
and from the way he stood with his hands in his side pockets she could
see how manly and brave he must be; and of course there was firmness
and strength written all over him. In short, she saw as she looked such
a Peter Spillikins as truly never existed, or could exist–or at least
such a Peter Spillikins as no one else in the world had ever suspected
before.

All in a moment she was ever so glad that she accepted Mrs. Newberry’s
invitation to Castel Casteggio and hadn’t been afraid to come. For the
Little Girl in Green, whose Christian name was Norah, was only what is
called a poor relation of Mrs. Newberry, and her father was a person of
no account whatever, who didn’t belong to the Mausoleum Club or to any
other club, and who lived, with Norah, on a street that nobody who was
anybody lived upon. Norah had been asked up a few days before out of
the City to give her air–which is the only thing that can be safely
and freely given to poor relations. Thus she had arrived at Castel
Casteggio with one diminutive trunk, so small and shabby that even the
servants who carried it upstairs were ashamed of it. In it were a pair
of brand new tennis shoes (at ninety cents reduced to seventy-five) and
a white dress of the kind that is called “almost evening,” and such few
other things as poor relations might bring with fear and trembling to
join in the simple rusticity of the rich.

Thus stood Norah looking at Mr. Spillikins.

As for him, such is the contrariety of human things, he had no eyes for
her at all.

“What a perfectly charming house this is,” Mr. Spillikins was saying.
He always said this on such occasions, but it seemed to the Little Girl
in Green that he spoke with wonderful social ease.

“I am so glad you think so,” said Mrs. Newberry (this was what she
always answered); “you’ve no idea what work it has been. This year we
put in all this new glass in the east conservatory, over a thousand
panes. Such a tremendous business!”

“I was just telling Mr. Spillikins,” said Mr. Newberry, “about the work
we had blasting out the motor road. You can see the gap where it lies
better from here, I think, Spillikins. I must have exploded a ton and a
half of dynamite on it.”

“By Jove!” said Mr. Spillikins; “it must be dangerous work eh? I wonder
you aren’t afraid of it.”

“One simply gets used to it, that’s all,” said Newberry, shrugging his
shoulders; “but of course it is dangerous. I blew up two Italians on
the last job.” He paused a minute and added musingly, “Hardy fellows,
the Italians. I prefer them to any other people for blasting.”

“Did you blow them up yourself?” asked Mr. Spillikins.

“I wasn’t here,” answered Mr. Newberry. “In fact, I never care to be
here when I’m blasting. We go to town. But I had to foot the bill for
them all the same. Quite right, too. The risk, of course, was mine, not
theirs; that’s the law, you know. They cost me two thousand each.”

“But come,” said Mrs. Newberry, “I think we must go and dress for
dinner. Franklin will be frightfully put out if we’re late. Franklin is
our butler,” she went on, seeing that Mr. Spillikins didn’t understand
the reference, “and as we brought him out from England we have to be
rather careful. With a good man like Franklin one is always so afraid
of losing him–and after last night we have to be doubly careful.”

“Why last night?” asked Mr. Spillikins.

“Oh, it wasn’t much,” said Mrs. Newberry. “In fact, it was merely an
accident. Only it just chanced that at dinner, quite late in the meal,
when we had had nearly everything (we dine very simply here, Mr.
Spillikins), Mr. Newberry, who was thirsty and who wasn’t really
thinking what he was saying, asked Franklin to give him a glass of
hock. Franklin said at once, ‘I’m very sorry, sir, I don’t care to
serve hock after the entree!’”

“And of course he was right,” said Dulphemia with emphasis. “Exactly;
he was perfectly right. They know, you know. We were afraid that there
might be trouble, but Mr. Newberry went and saw Franklin afterwards and
he behaved very well over it. But suppose we go and dress? It’s
half-past six already and we’ve only an hour.”

* * * * *

In this congenial company Mr. Spillikins spent the next three days.

Life at Castel Casteggio, as the Newberrys loved to explain, was
conducted on the very simplest plan. Early breakfast, country fashion,
at nine o’clock; after that nothing to eat till lunch, unless one cared
to have lemonade or bottled ale sent out with a biscuit or a macaroon
to the tennis court. Lunch itself was a perfectly plain midday meal,
lasting till about 1.30, and consisting simply of cold meats (say four
kinds) and salads, with perhaps a made dish or two, and, for anybody
who cared for it, a hot steak or a chop, or both. After that one had
coffee and cigarettes in the shade of the piazza and waited for
afternoon tea. This latter was served at a wicker table in any part of
the grounds that the gardener was not at that moment clipping,
trimming, or otherwise using. Afternoon tea being over, one rested or
walked on the lawn till it was time to dress for dinner.

This simple routine was broken only by irruptions of people in motors
or motor boats from Penny-gw-rydd or Yodel-Dudel Chalet.

The whole thing, from the point of view of Mr. Spillikins or Dulphemia
or Philippa, represented rusticity itself.

To the Little Girl in Green it seemed as brilliant as the Court of
Versailles; especially evening dinner–a plain home meal as the others
thought it–when she had four glasses to drink out of and used to
wonder over such problems as whether you were supposed, when Franklin
poured out wine, to tell him to stop or to wait till he stopped without
being told to stop; and other similar mysteries, such as many people
before and after have meditated upon.

During all this time Mr. Spillikins was nerving himself to propose to
Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown. In fact, he spent part of his time walking
up and down under the trees with Philippa Furlong and discussing with
her the proposal that he meant to make, together with such topics as
marriage in general and his own unworthiness.

He might have waited indefinitely had he not learned, on the third day
of his visit, that Dulphemia was to go away in the morning to join her
father at Nagahakett.

That evening he found the necessary nerve to speak, and the proposal in
almost every aspect of it was most successful.

“By Jove!” Spillikins said to Philippa Furlong next morning, in
explaining what had happened, “she was awfully nice about it. I think
she must have guessed, in a way, don’t you, what I was going to say?
But at any rate she was awfully nice–let me say everything I wanted,
and when I explained what a fool I was, she said she didn’t think I was
half such a fool as people thought me. But it’s all right. It turns out
that she isn’t thinking of getting married. I asked her if I might
always go on thinking of her, and she said I might.”

And that morning when Dulphemia was carried off in the motor to the
station, Mr. Spillikins, without exactly being aware how he had done
it, had somehow transferred himself to Philippa.

“Isn’t she a splendid girl!” he said at least ten times a day to Norah,
the Little Girl in Green. And Norah always agreed, because she really
thought Philippa a perfectly wonderful creature. There is no doubt
that, but for a slight shift of circumstances, Mr. Spillikins would
have proposed to Miss Furlong. Indeed, he spent a good part of his time
rehearsing little speeches that began, “Of course I know I’m an awful
ass in a way,” or, “Of course I know that I’m not at all the sort of
fellow,” and so on.

But not one of them ever was delivered.

For it so happened that on the Thursday, one week after Mr.
Spillikins’s arrival, Philippa went again to the station in the motor.
And when she came back there was another passenger with her, a tall
young man in tweed, and they both began calling out to the Newberrys
from a distance of at least a hundred yards.

And both the Newberrys suddenly exclaimed, “Why, it’s Tom!” and rushed
off to meet the motor. And there was such a laughing and jubilation as
the two descended and carried Tom’s valises to the verandah, that Mr.
Spillikins felt as suddenly and completely out of it as the Little Girl
in Green herself–especially as his ear had caught, among the first
things said, the words, “Congratulate us, Mrs. Newberry, we’re engaged.”

After which Mr. Spillikins had the pleasure of sitting and listening
while it was explained in wicker chairs on the verandah, that Philippa
and Tom had been engaged already for ever so long–in fact, nearly two
weeks, only they had agreed not to say a word to anybody till Tom had
gone to North Carolina and back, to see his people.

And as to who Tom was, or what was the relation between Tom and the
Newberrys, Mr. Spillikins neither knew or cared; nor did it interest
him in the least that Philippa had met Tom in Bermuda, and that she
hadn’t known that he even knew the Newberry’s nor any other of the
exuberant disclosures of the moment. In fact, if there was any one
period rather than another when Mr. Spillikins felt corroborated in his
private view of himself, it was at this moment.

So the next day Tom and Philippa vanished together.

“We shall be quite a small party now,” said Mrs. Newberry; “in fact,
quite by ourselves till Mrs. Everleigh comes, and she won’t be here for
a fortnight.”

At which the heart of the Little Girl in Green was glad, because she
had been afraid that other girls might be coming, whereas she knew that
Mrs. Everleigh was a widow with four sons and must be ever so old, past
forty.

The next few days were spent by Mr. Spillikins almost entirely in the
society of Norah. He thought them on the whole rather pleasant days,
but slow. To her they were an uninterrupted dream of happiness never to
be forgotten.

The Newberrys left them to themselves; not with any intent; it was
merely that they were perpetually busy walking about the grounds of
Castel Casteggio, blowing up things with dynamite, throwing steel
bridges over gullies, and hoisting heavy timber with derricks. Nor were
they to blame for it. For it had not always been theirs to command
dynamite and control the forces of nature. There had been a time, now
long ago, when the two Newberrys had lived, both of them, on twenty
dollars a week, and Mrs. Newberry had made her own dresses, and Mr.
Newberry had spent vigorous evenings in making hand-made shelves for
their sitting-room. That was long ago, and since then Mr. Newberry,
like many other people of those earlier days, had risen to wealth and
Castel Casteggio, while others, like Norah’s father, had stayed just
where they were.

So the Newberrys left Peter and Norah to themselves all day. Even after
dinner, in the evening, Mr. Newberry was very apt to call to his wife
in the dusk from some distant corner of the lawn:

“Margaret, come over here and tell me if you don’t think we might cut
down this elm, tear the stump out by the roots, and throw it into the
ravine.”

And the answer was, “One minute, Edward; just wait till I get a wrap.”

Before they came back, the dusk had grown to darkness, and they had
redynamited half the estate.

During all of which time Mr. Spillikins sat with Norah on the piazza.
He talked and she listened. He told her, for instance, all about his
terrific experiences in the oil business, and about his exciting career
at college; or presently they went indoors and Norah played the piano
and Mr. Spillikins sat and smoked and listened. In such a house as the
Newberry’s, where dynamite and the greater explosives were everyday
matters, a little thing like the use of tobacco in the drawing-room
didn’t count. As for the music, “Go right ahead,” said Mr. Spillikins;
“I’m not musical, but I don’t mind music a bit.”

In the daytime they played tennis. There was a court at one end of the
lawn beneath the trees, all chequered with sunlight and mingled shadow;
very beautiful, Norah thought, though Mr. Spillikins explained that the
spotted light put him off his game. In fact, it was owing entirely to
this bad light that Mr. Spillikins’s fast drives, wonderful though they
were, somehow never got inside the service court.

Norah, of course, thought Mr. Spillikins a wonderful player. She was
glad–in fact, it suited them both–when he beat her six to nothing.
She didn’t know and didn’t care that there was no one else in the world
that Mr. Spillikins could beat like that. Once he even said to her.

“By Gad! you don’t play half a bad game, you know. I think you know,
with practice you’d come on quite a lot.”

After that the games were understood to be more or less in the form of
lessons, which put Mr. Spillikins on a pedestal of superiority, and
allowed any bad strokes on his part to be viewed as a form of
indulgence.

Also, as the tennis was viewed in this light, it was Norah’s part to
pick up the balls at the net and throw them back to Mr. Spillikins. He
let her do this, not from rudeness, for it wasn’t in him, but because
in such a primeval place as Castel Casteggio the natural primitive
relation of the sexes is bound to reassert itself.

But of love Mr. Spillikins never thought. He had viewed it so eagerly
and so often from a distance that when it stood here modestly at his
very elbow he did not recognize its presence. His mind had been
fashioned, as it were, to connect love with something stunning and
sensational, with Easter hats and harem skirts and the luxurious
consciousness of the unattainable.

Even at that, there is no knowing what might have happened. Tennis, in
the chequered light of sun and shadow cast by summer leaves, is a
dangerous game. There came a day when they were standing one each side
of the net and Mr. Spillikins was explaining to Norah the proper way to
hold a racquet so as to be able to give those magnificent backhand
sweeps of his, by which he generally drove the ball halfway to the
lake; and explaining this involved putting his hand right over Norah’s
on the handle of the racquet, so that for just half a second her hand
was clasped tight in his; and if that half-second had been lengthened
out into a whole second it is quite possible that what was already
subconscious in his mind would have broken its way triumphantly to the
surface, and Norah’s hand would have stayed in his–how willingly–!
for the rest of their two lives.

But just at that moment Mr. Spillikins looked up, and he said in quite
an altered tone.

“By Jove! who’s that awfully good-looking woman getting out of the
motor?”

And their hands unclasped. Norah looked over towards the house and said:

“Why, it’s Mrs. Everleigh. I thought she wasn’t coming for another
week.”

“I say,” said Mr. Spillikins, straining his short sight to the
uttermost, “what perfectly wonderful golden hair, eh?” “Why, it’s–”
Norah began, and then she stopped. It didn’t seem right to explain that
Mrs. Everleigh’s hair was dyed. “And who’s that tall chap standing
beside her?” said Mr. Spillikins.

“I think it’s Captain Cormorant, but I don’t think he’s going to stay.
He’s only brought her up in the motor from town.” “By Jove, how good of
him!” said Spillikins; and this sentiment in regard to Captain
Cormorant, though he didn’t know it, was to become a keynote of his
existence.

“I didn’t know she was coming so soon,” said Norah, and there was
weariness already in her heart. Certainly she didn’t know it; still
less did she know, or anyone else, that the reason of Mrs. Everleigh’s
coming was because Mr. Spillikins was there. She came with a set
purpose, and she sent Captain Cormorant directly back in the motor
because she didn’t want him on the premises.

“Oughtn’t we to go up to the house?” said Norah.

“All right,” said Mr. Spillikins with great alacrity, “let’s go.”

* * * * *

Now as this story began with the information that Mrs. Everleigh is at
present Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, there is no need to pursue in detail
the stages of Mr. Spillikins’s wooing. Its course was swift and happy.
Mr. Spillikins, having seen the back of Mrs. Everleigh’s head, had
decided instantly that she was the most beautiful woman in the world;
and that impression is not easily corrected in the half-light of a
shaded drawing-room; nor across a dinner-table lighted only with
candles with deep red shades; nor even in the daytime through a veil.
In any case, it is only fair to state that if Mrs. Everleigh was not
and is not a singularly beautiful woman, Mr. Spillikins still doesn’t
know it. And in point of attraction the homage of such experts as
Captain Cormorant and Lieutenant Hawk speaks for itself.

So the course of Mr. Spillikins’s love, for love it must have been, ran
swiftly to its goal. Each stage of it was duly marked by his comments
to Norah.

“She _is_ a splendid woman,” he said, “so sympathetic. She always seems
to know just what one’s going to say.”

So she did, for she was making him say it.

“By Jove!” he said a day later, “Mrs. Everleigh’s an awfully fine
woman, isn’t she? I was telling her about my having been in the oil
business for a little while, and she thinks that I’d really be awfully
good in money things. She said she wished she had me to manage her
money for her.”

This also was quite true, except that Mrs. Everleigh had not made it
quite clear that the management of her money was of the form generally
known as deficit financing. In fact, her money was, very crudely
stated, nonexistent, and it needed a lot of management.

A day or two later Mr. Spillikins was saying, “I think Mrs. Everleigh
must have had great sorrow, don’t you? Yesterday she was showing me a
photograph of her little boy–she has a little boy you know–”

“Yes, I know,” said Norah. She didn’t add that she knew that Mrs.
Everleigh had four.

“–and she was saying how awfully rough it is having him always away
from her at Dr. Something’s academy where he is.”

And very soon after that Mr. Spillikins was saying, with quite a quaver
in his voice,

“By Jove! yes, I’m awfully lucky; I never thought for a moment that
she’d have me, you know–a woman like her, with so much attention and
everything. I can’t imagine what she sees in me.”

Which was just as well.

And then Mr. Spillikins checked himself, for he noticed–this was on
the verandah in the morning–that Norah had a hat and jacket on and
that the motor was rolling towards the door.

“I say,” he said, “are you going away?”

“Yes, didn’t you know?” Norah said. “I thought you heard them speaking
of it at dinner last night. I have to go home; father’s alone, you
know.”

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry,” said Mr. Spillikins; “we shan’t have any more
tennis.”

“Goodbye,” said Norah, and as she said it and put out her hand there
were tears brimming up into her eyes. But Mr. Spillikins, being short
of sight, didn’t see them.

“Goodbye,” he said.

Then as the motor carried her away he stood for a moment in a sort of
reverie. Perhaps certain things that might have been rose unformed and
inarticulate before his mind. And then, a voice called from the
drawing-room within, in a measured and assured tone,

“Peter, darling, where are you?”

“Coming,” cried Mr. Spillikins, and he came.

* * * * *

On the second day of the engagement Mrs. Everleigh showed to Peter a
little photograph in a brooch.

“This is Gib, my second little boy,” she said.

Mr. Spillikins started to say, “I didn’t know–” and then checked
himself and said, “By Gad! what a fine-looking little chap, eh? I’m
awfully fond of boys.”

“Dear little fellow, isn’t he?” said Mrs. Everleigh. “He’s really
rather taller than that now, because this picture was taken a little
while ago.”

And the next day she said, “This is Willie, my third boy,” and on the
day after that she said, “This is Sib, my youngest boy; I’m sure you’ll
love him.”

“I’m sure I shall,” said Mr. Spillikins. He loved him already for being
the youngest.

* * * * *

And so in the fulness of time–nor was it so very full either, in fact,
only about five weeks–Peter Spillikins and Mrs. Everleigh were married
in St. Asaph’s Church on Plutoria Avenue. And the wedding was one of
the most beautiful and sumptuous of the weddings of the September
season. There were flowers, and bridesmaids in long veils, and tall
ushers in frock-coats, and awnings at the church door, and strings of
motors with wedding-favours on imported chauffeurs, and all that goes
to invest marriage on Plutoria Avenue with its peculiar sacredness. The
face of the young rector, Mr. Fareforth Furlong, wore the added
saintliness that springs from a five-hundred dollar fee. The whole town
was there, or at least everybody that was anybody; and if there was one
person absent, one who sat by herself in the darkened drawing-room of a
dull little house on a shabby street, who knew or cared?

So after the ceremony the happy couple–for were they not so?–left for
New York. There they spent their honeymoon. They had thought of
going–it was Mr. Spillikins’s idea–to the coast of Maine. But Mrs.
Everleigh-Spillikins said that New York was much nicer, so restful,
whereas, as everyone knows, the coast of Maine is frightfully noisy.

Moreover, it so happened that before the Everleigh-Spillikinses had
been more than four or five days in New York the ship of Captain
Cormorant dropped anchor in the Hudson; and when the anchor of that
ship was once down it generally stayed there. So the captain was able
to take the Everleigh-Spillikinses about in New York, and to give a tea
for Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins on the deck of his vessel so that she
might meet the officers, and another tea in a private room of a
restaurant on Fifth Avenue so that she might meet no one but himself.

And at this tea Captain Cormorant said, among other things, “Did he
kick up rough at all when you told him about the money?”

And Mrs. Everleigh, now Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, said, “Not he! I
think he is actually pleased to know that I haven’t any. Do you know,
Arthur, he’s really an awfully good fellow,” and as she said it she
moved her hand away from under Captain Cormorant’s on the tea-table.

“I say,” said the Captain, “don’t get sentimental over him.”

* * * * *

So that is how it is that the Everleigh-Spillikinses came to reside on
Plutoria Avenue in a beautiful stone house, with a billiard-room in an
extension on the second floor. Through the windows of it one can almost
hear the click of the billiard balls, and a voice saying, “Hold on,
father, you had your shot.”

CHAPTER SIX: The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph

The church of St. Asaph, more properly call St. Asaph’s in the Fields,
stands among the elm trees of Plutoria Avenue opposite the university,
its tall spire pointing to the blue sky. Its rector is fond of saying
that it seems to him to point, as it were, a warning against the sins
of a commercial age. More particularly does he say this in his Lenten
services at noonday, when the businessmen sit in front of him in rows,
their bald heads uncovered and their faces stamped with contrition as
they think of mergers that they should have made, and real estate that
they failed to buy for lack of faith.

The ground on which St. Asaph’s stands is worth seven dollars and a
half a foot. The mortgagees, as they kneel in prayer in their long
frock-coats, feel that they have built upon a rock. It is a beautifully
appointed church. There are windows with priceless stained glass that
were imported from Normandy, the rector himself swearing out the
invoices to save the congregation the grievous burden of the customs
duty. There is a pipe organ in the transept that cost ten thousand
dollars to install. The debenture-holders, as they join in the morning
anthem, love to hear the dulcet notes of the great organ and to reflect
that it is as good as new. Just behind the church is St. Asaph’s Sunday
School, with a ten-thousand dollar mortgage of its own. And below that
again on the side street, is the building of the Young Men’s Guild with
a bowling-alley and a swimming-bath deep enough to drown two young men
at a time, and a billiard-room with seven tables. It is the rector’s
boast that with a Guild House such as that there is no need for any
young man of the congregation to frequent a saloon. Nor is there.

And on Sunday mornings, when the great organ plays, and the mortgagees
and the bond-holders and the debenture-holders and the Sunday school
teachers and the billiard-markers all lift up their voices together,
there is emitted from St. Asaph’s a volume of praise that is
practically as fine and effective as paid professional work.

St. Asaph’s is episcopal. As a consequence it has in it and about it
all those things which go to make up the episcopal church–brass
tablets let into its walls, blackbirds singing in its elm trees,
parishioners who dine at eight o’clock, and a rector who wears a little
crucifix and dances the tango.

On the other hand, there stands upon the same street, not a hundred
yards away, the rival church of St. Osoph–presbyterian down to its
very foundations in bed-rock, thirty feet below the level of the
avenue. It has a short, squat tower–and a low roof, and its narrow
windows are glazed with frosted glass. It has dark spruce trees instead
of elms, crows instead of blackbirds, and a gloomy minister with a
shovel hat who lectures on philosophy on week-days at the university.
He loves to think that his congregation are made of the lowly and the
meek in spirit, and to reflect that, lowly and meek as they are, there
are men among them that could buy out half the congregation of St.
Asaph’s.

St. Osoph’s is only presbyterian in a special sense. It is, in fact,
too presbyterian to be any longer connected with any other body
whatsoever. It seceded some forty years ago from the original body to
which it belonged, and later on, with three other churches, it seceded
from the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell into a
difference with the three other churches on the question of eternal
punishment, the word “eternal” not appearing to the elders of St.
Osoph’s to designate a sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in a
secession which left the church of St. Osoph practically isolated in a
world of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied nor deplored.

In one respect the rival churches of Plutoria Avenue had had a similar
history. Each of them had moved up by successive stages from the lower
and poorer parts of the city. Forty years ago St. Asaph’s had been
nothing more than a little frame church with a tin spire, away in the
west of the slums, and St. Osoph’s a square, diminutive building away
in the east. But the site of St. Asaph’s had been bought by a brewing
company, and the trustees, shrewd men of business, themselves rising
into wealth, had rebuilt it right in the track of the advancing tide of
a real estate boom. The elders of St. Osoph, quiet men, but illumined
by an inner light, had followed suit and moved their church right
against the side of an expanding distillery. Thus both the churches, as
decade followed decade, made their way up the slope of the City till
St. Asaph’s was presently gloriously expropriated by the street railway
company, and planted its spire in triumph on Plutoria Avenue itself.
But St. Osoph’s followed. With each change of site it moved nearer and
nearer to St. Asaph’s. Its elders were shrewd men. With each move of
their church they took careful thought in the rebuilding. In the
manufacturing district it was built with sixteen windows on each side
and was converted at a huge profit into a bicycle factory. On the
residential street it was made long and deep and was sold to a
moving-picture company without the alteration of so much as a pew. As a
last step a syndicate, formed among the members of the congregation
themselves, bought ground on Plutoria Avenue, and sublet it to
themselves as a site for the church, at a nominal interest of five per
cent per annum, payable nominally every three months and secured by a
nominal mortgage.

As the two churches moved, their congregations, or at least all that
was best of them–such members as were sharing in the rising fortunes
of the City–moved also, and now for some six or seven years the two
churches and the two congregations had confronted one another among the
elm trees of the Avenue opposite to the university.

But at this point the fortunes of the churches had diverged. St.
Asaph’s was a brilliant success; St. Osoph’s was a failure. Even its
own trustees couldn’t deny it. At a time when St. Asaph’s was not only
paying its interest but showing a handsome surplus on everything it
undertook, the church of St. Osoph was moving steadily backwards.

There was no doubt, of course, as to the cause. Everybody knew it. It
was simply a question of men, and, as everybody said, one had only to
compare the two men conducting the churches to see why one succeeded
and the other failed.

The Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong of St. Asaph’s was a man who
threw his whole energy into his parish work. The subtleties of
theological controversy he left to minds less active than his own. His
creed was one of works rather than of words, and whatever he was doing
he did it with his whole heart. Whether he was lunching at the
Mausoleum Club with one of his church wardens, or playing the
flute–which he played as only the episcopal clergy can play
it–accompanied on the harp by one of the fairest of the ladies of his
choir, or whether he was dancing the new episcopal tango with the
younger daughters of the elder parishioners, he threw himself into it
with all his might. He could drink tea more gracefully and play tennis
better than any clergyman on this side of the Atlantic. He could stand
beside the white stone font of St. Asaph’s in his long white surplice
holding a white-robed infant, worth half a million dollars, looking as
beautifully innocent as the child itself, and drawing from every matron
of the congregation with unmarried daughters the despairing cry, “What
a pity that he has no children of his own!”

Equally sound was his theology. No man was known to preach shorter
sermons or to explain away the book of Genesis more agreeably than the
rector of St. Asaph’s; and if he found it necessary to refer to the
Deity he did so under the name of Jehovah or Jah, or even Yaweh in a
manner calculated not to hurt the sensitiveness of any of the
parishioners. People who would shudder at brutal talk of the older
fashion about the wrath of God listened with well-bred interest to a
sermon on the personal characteristics of Jah. In the same way Mr.
Furlong always referred to the devil, not as Satan but as Su or Swa,
which took all the sting out of him. Beelzebub he spoke of as
Behel-Zawbab, which rendered him perfectly harmless. The Garden of Eden
he spoke of as the Paradeisos, which explained it entirely; the flood
as the Diluvium, which cleared it up completely; and Jonah he named,
after the correct fashion Jon Nah, which put the whole situation (his
being swallowed by Baloo or the Great Lizard) on a perfectly
satisfactory footing. Hell itself was spoken of as She-ol, and it
appeared that it was not a place of burning, but rather of what one
might describe as moral torment. This settled She-ol once and for all:
nobody minds moral torment. In short, there was nothing in the
theological system of Mr. Furlong that need have occasioned in any of
his congregation a moment’s discomfort.

There could be no greater contrast with Mr. Fareforth Furlong than the
minister of St. Osoph’s, the Rev. Dr. McTeague, who was also honorary
professor of philosophy at the university. The one was young, the other
was old; the one could dance the other could not; the one moved about
at church picnics and lawn teas among a bevy of disciples in pink and
blue sashes; the other moped around under the trees of the university
campus with blinking eyes that saw nothing and an abstracted mind that
had spent fifty years in trying to reconcile Hegel with St. Paul, and
was still busy with it. Mr. Furlong went forward with the times; Dr.
McTeague slid quietly backwards with the centuries.

Dr. McTeague was a failure, and all his congregation knew it. “He is
not up to date,” they said. That was his crowning sin. “He don’t go
forward any,” said the business members of the congregation. “That old
man believes just exactly the same sort of stuff now that he did forty
years ago. What’s more, he preaches it. You can’t run a church that
way, can you?”

His trustees had done their best to meet the difficulty. They had
offered Dr. McTeague a two-years’ vacation to go and see the Holy Land.
He refused; he said he could picture it. They reduced his salary by
fifty per cent; he never noticed it. They offered him an assistant; but
he shook his head, saying that he didn’t know where he could find a man
to do just the work that he was doing. Meantime he mooned about among
the trees concocting a mixture of St. Paul with Hegel, three parts to
one, for his Sunday sermon, and one part to three for his Monday
lecture.

No doubt it was his dual function that was to blame for his failure.
And this, perhaps, was the fault of Dr. Boomer, the president of the
university. Dr. Boomer, like all university presidents of today,
belonged to the presbyterian church; or rather, to state it more
correctly, he included presbyterianism within himself. He was of
course, a member of the board of management of St. Osoph’s and it was
he who had urged, very strongly, the appointment of Dr. McTeague, then
senior professor of philosophy, as minister.

“A saintly man,” he said, “the very man for the post. If you should ask
me whether he is entirely at home as a professor of philosophy on our
staff at the university, I should be compelled to say no. We are forced
to admit that as a lecturer he does not meet our views. He appears to
find it difficult to keep religion out of his teaching. In fact, his
lectures are suffused with a rather dangerous attempt at moral teaching
which is apt to contaminate our students. But in the Church I should
imagine that would be, if anything, an advantage. Indeed, if you were
to come to me and say, ‘Boomer, we wish to appoint Dr. McTeague as our
minister,’ I should say, quite frankly, ‘Take him.’”

So Dr. McTeague had been appointed. Then, to the surprise of everybody
he refused to give up his lectures in philosophy. He said he felt a
call to give them. The salary, he said, was of no consequence. He wrote
to Mr. Furlong senior (the father of the episcopal rector and honorary
treasurer of the Plutoria University) and stated that he proposed to
give his lectures for nothing. The trustees of the college protested;
they urged that the case might set a dangerous precedent which other
professors might follow. While fully admitting that Dr. McTeague’s
lectures were well worth giving for nothing, they begged him to
reconsider his offer. But he refused; and from that day on, in spite of
all offers that he should retire on double his salary, that he should
visit the Holy Land, or Syria, or Armenia, where the dreadful massacres
of Christians were taking place, Dr. McTeague clung to his post with a
tenacity worthy of the best traditions of Scotland. His only internal
perplexity was that he didn’t see how, when the time came for him to
die, twenty or thirty years hence, they would ever be able to replace
him. Such was the situation of the two churches on a certain beautiful
morning in June, when an unforeseen event altered entirely the current
of their fortunes.

* * * * *

“No, thank you, Juliana,” said the young rector to his sister across
the breakfast table–and there was something as near to bitterness in
his look as his saintly, smooth-shaven face was capable of
reflecting–”no, thank you, no more porridge. Prunes? no, no, thank
you; I don’t think I care for any. And, by the way,” he added, “don’t
bother to keep any lunch for me. I have a great deal of business–that
is, of work in the parish–to see to, and I must just find time to get
a bite of something to eat when and where I can.”

In his own mind he was resolving that the place should be the Mausoleum
Club and the time just as soon as the head waiter would serve him.

After which the Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong bowed his head for a
moment in a short, silent blessing–the one prescribed by the episcopal
church in America for a breakfast of porridge and prunes.

It was their first breakfast together, and it spoke volumes to the
rector. He knew what it implied. It stood for his elder sister
Juliana’s views on the need of personal sacrifice as a means of grace.
The rector sighed as he rose. He had never missed his younger sister
Philippa, now married and departed, so keenly. Philippa had had
opinions of her own on bacon and eggs and on lamb chops with watercress
as a means of stimulating the soul. But Juliana was different. The
rector understood now exactly why it was that his father had exclaimed,
on the news of Philippa’s engagement, without a second’s hesitation,
“Then, of course, Juliana must live with you! Nonsense, my dear boy,
nonsense! It’s my duty to spare her to you. After all, I can always eat
at the club; they can give me a bite of something or other, surely. To
a man of my age, Edward, food is really of no consequence. No, no;
Juliana must move into the rectory at once.”

The rector’s elder sister rose. She looked tall and sallow and
forbidding in the plain black dress that contrasted sadly with the
charming clerical costumes of white and pink and the broad episcopal
hats with flowers in them that Philippa used to wear for morning work
in the parish.

“For what time shall I order dinner?” she asked. “You and Philippa used
to have it at half-past seven, did you not? Don’t you think that rather
too late?”

“A trifle perhaps,” said the rector uneasily. He didn’t care to explain
to Juliana that it was impossible to get home any earlier from the kind
of _the dansant_ that everybody was giving just now. “But don’t trouble
about dinner. I may be working very late. If I need anything to eat I
shall get a biscuit and some tea at the Guild Rooms, or–”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but in his mind he added, “or else a
really first-class dinner at the Mausoleum Club, or at the Newberrys’
or the Rasselyer-Browns’–anywhere except here.”

“If you are going, then,” said Juliana, “may I have the key of the
church.”

A look of pain passed over the rector’s face. He knew perfectly well
what Juliana wanted the key for. She meant to go into his church and
pray in it.

The rector of St. Asaph’s was, he trusted, as broad-minded a man as an
Anglican clergyman ought to be. He had no objection to any reasonable
use of his church–for a thanksgiving festival or for musical recitals
for example–but when it came to opening up the church and using it to
pray in, the thing was going a little too far. What was more, he had an
idea from the look on Juliana’s face that she meant to pray for _him_.
This, for a clergy man, was hard to bear. Philippa, like the good girl
that she was, had prayed only for herself, and then only at the proper
times and places, and in a proper praying costume. The rector began to
realize what difficulties it might make for a clergyman to have a
religious sister as his house-mate.

But he was never a man for unseemly argument. “It is hanging in my
study,” he said.

And with that the Rev. Fareforth Furlong passed into the hall took up
the simple silk hat, the stick and gloves of the working clergyman and
walked out on to the avenue to begin his day’s work in the parish.

The rector’s parish viewed in its earthly aspect, was a singularly
beautiful place. For it extended all along Plutoria Avenue, where the
street is widest and the elm trees are at their leafiest and the motors
at their very drowsiest. It lay up and down the shaded side streets of
the residential district, darkened with great chestnuts and hushed in a
stillness that was almost religion itself. There was not a house in the
parish assessed at less than twenty-five thousand, and in very heart of
it the Mausoleum Club, with its smooth white stone and its Grecian
architecture, carried one back to the ancient world and made one think
of Athens and of Paul preaching on Mars Hill. It was, all considered, a
splendid thing to fight sin in such a parish and to keep it out of it.
For kept out it was. One might look the length and breadth of the broad
avenue and see no sign of sin all along it. There was certainly none in
the smooth faces of the chauffeurs trundling their drowsy motors; no
sign of it in the expensive children paraded by imported nursemaids in
the chequered light of the shaded street; least of all was there any
sign of it in the Stock Exchange members of the congregation as they
walked along side by side to their lunch at the Mausoleum Club, their
silk hats nodding together in earnest colloquy on Shares Preferred and
Profits Undivided. So might have walked, so must have walked, the very
Fathers of the Church themselves.

Whatever sin there was in the City was shoved sideways into the roaring
streets of commerce where the elevated railway ran, and below that
again into the slums. Here there must have been any quantity of sin.
The rector of St. Asaph’s was certain of it. Many of the richer of his
parishioners had been down in parties late at night to look at it, and
the ladies of his congregation were joined together into all sorts of
guilds and societies and bands of endeavour for stamping it out and
driving it under or putting it into jail till it surrendered.

But the slums lay outside the rector’s parish. He had no right to
interfere. They were under the charge of a special mission or
auxiliary, a remnant of the St. Asaph’s of the past, placed under the
care of a divinity student, at four hundred dollars per annum. His
charge included all the slums and three police courts and two music
halls and the City jail. One Sunday afternoon in every three months the
rector and several ladies went down and sang hymns for him in his
mission-house. But his work was really very easy. A funeral, for
example, at the mission, was a simple affair, meaning nothing more than
the preparation of a plain coffin and a glassless hearse and the
distribution of a few artificial everlasting flowers to women crying in
their aprons; a thing easily done: whereas in St. Asaph’s parish, where
all the really important souls were, a funeral was a large event,
requiring taste and tact, and a nice shading of delicacy in
distinguishing mourners from beneficiaries, and private grief from
business representation at the ceremony. A funeral with a plain coffin
and a hearse was as nothing beside an interment, with a casket
smothered in hot-house syringas, borne in a coach and followed by
special reporters from the financial papers.

It appeared to the rector afterwards as almost a shocking coincidence
that the first person whom he met upon the avenue should have been the
Rev. Dr. McTeague himself. Mr. Furlong gave him the form of amiable
“good morning” that the episcopal church always extends to those in
error. But he did not hear it. The minister’s head was bent low, his
eyes gazed into vacancy, and from the movements of his lips and from
the fact that he carried a leather case of notes, he was plainly on his
way to his philosophical lecture. But the rector had no time to muse
upon the abstracted appearance of his rival. For, as always happened to
him, he was no sooner upon the street than his parish work of the day
began. In fact, he had hardly taken a dozen steps after passing Dr.
McTeague when he was brought up standing by two beautiful parishioners
with pink parasols.

“Oh, Mr. Furlong,” exclaimed one of them, “so fortunate to happen to
catch you; we were just going into the rectory to consult you. Should
the girls–for the lawn tea for the Guild on Friday, you know–wear
white dresses with light blue sashes all the same, or do you think we
might allow them to wear any coloured sashes that they like? What do
you think?”

This was an important problem. In fact, there was a piece of parish
work here that it took the Reverend Fareforth half an hour to attend to
standing the while in earnest colloquy with the two ladies under the
shadow of the elm trees. But a clergyman must never be grudging of his
time.

“Goodbye then,” they said at last. “Are you coming to the Browning Club
this morning? Oh, so sorry! but we shall see you at the musicale this
afternoon, shall we not?”

“Oh, I trust so,” said the rector.

“How dreadfully hard he works,” said the ladies to one another as they
moved away.

Thus slowly and with many interruptions the rector made his progress
along the avenue. At times he stopped to permit a pink-cheeked infant
in a perambulator to beat him with a rattle while he inquired its age
of an episcopal nurse, gay with flowing ribbons. He lifted his hat to
the bright parasols of his parishioners passing in glistening motors,
bowed to episcopalians, nodded amiably to presbyterians, and even
acknowledged with his lifted hat the passing of persons of graver forms
of error.

Thus he took his way along the avenue and down a side street towards
the business district of the City, until just at the edge of it, where
the trees were about to stop and the shops were about to begin, he
found himself at the door of the Hymnal Supply Corporation, Limited.
The premises as seen from the outside combined the idea of an office
with an ecclesiastical appearance. The door was as that of a chancel or
vestry; there was a large plate-glass window filled with Bibles and
Testaments, all spread open and showing every variety of language in
their pages. These were marked, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Ojibway, Irish
and so forth. On the window in small white lettering were the words,
HYMNAL SUPPLY CORPORATION, and below that, HOSANNA PIPE AND STEAM ORGAN
INCORPORATED, and Still lower the legend BIBLE SOCIETY OF THE GOOD
SHEPHERD LIMITED.

There was no doubt of the sacred character of the place. Here laboured
Mr. Furlong senior, the father of the Rev. Edward Fareforth. He was a
man of many activities; president and managing director of the
companies just mentioned, trustee and secretary of St. Asaph’s,
honorary treasurer of the university, etc.; and each of his occupations
and offices was marked by something of a supramundane character,
something higher than ordinary business. His different official
positions naturally overlapped and brought him into contact with
himself from a variety of angles. Thus he sold himself hymn books at a
price per thousand, made as a business favour to himself, negotiated
with himself the purchase of the ten-thousand-dollar organ (making a
price on it to himself that he begged himself to regard as
confidential), and as treasurer of the college he sent himself an
informal note of enquiry asking if he knew of any sound investment for
the annual deficit of the college funds, a matter of some sixty
thousand dollars a year, which needed very careful handling. Any
man–and there are many such–who has been concerned with business
dealings of this sort with himself realizes that they are more
satisfactory than any other kind.

To what better person, then, could the rector of St. Asaph’s bring the
quarterly accounts and statements of his church than to Mr. Furlong
senior.

The outer door was opened to the rector by a sanctified boy with such a
face as is only found in the choirs of the episcopal church. In an
outer office through which the rector passed were two sacred
stenographers with hair as golden as the daffodils of Sheba, copying
confidential letters on absolutely noiseless typewriters. They were
making offers of Bibles in half-car-load lots at two and a half per
cent reduction, offering to reduce St. Mark by two cents on condition
of immediate export, and to lay down St. John f.o.b. San Francisco for
seven cents, while regretting that they could deliver fifteen thousand
Rock of Ages in Missouri on no other terms than cash.

The sacred character of their work lent them a preoccupation beautiful
to behold.

In the room beyond them was a white-haired confidential clerk,
venerable as the Song of Solomon, and by him Mr. Fareforth Furlong was
duly shown into the office of his father.

“Good morning, Edward,” said Mr. Furlong senior, as he shook hands. “I
was expecting you. And while I think of it, I have just had a letter
from Philippa. She and Tom will be home in two or three weeks. She
writes from Egypt. She wishes me to tell you, as no doubt you have
already anticipated, that she thinks she can hardly continue to be a
member of the congregation when they come back. No doubt you felt this
yourself?”

“Oh, entirely,” said the rector. “Surely in matters of belief a wife
must follow her husband.”

“Exactly; especially as Tom’s uncles occupy the position they do with
regard to–” Mr. Furlong jerked his head backwards and pointed with his
thumb over his shoulder in a way that his son knew was meant to
indicate St. Osoph’s Church.

The Overend brothers, who were Tom’s uncles (his name being Tom
Overend) were, as everybody knew, among the principal supporters of St.
Osoph’s. Not that they were, by origin, presbyterians. But they were
self-made men, which put them once and for all out of sympathy with
such a place as St. Asaph’s. “We made ourselves,” the two brothers used
to repeat in defiance of the catechism of the Anglican Church. They
never wearied of explaining how Mr. Dick, the senior brother, had
worked overtime by day to send Mr. George, the junior brother, to
school by night, and how Mr. George had then worked overtime by night
to send Mr. Dick to school by day. Thus they had come up the business
ladder hand over hand, landing later on in life on the platform of
success like two corpulent acrobats, panting with the strain of it.
“For years,” Mr. George would explain, “we had father and mother to
keep as well; then they died, and Dick and me saw daylight.” By which
he meant no harm at all, but only stated a fact, and concealed the
virtue of it.

And being self-made men they made it a point to do what they could to
lessen the importance of such an institution as St. Asaph’s Church. By
the same contrariety of nature the two Overend brothers (their business
name was Overend Brothers, Limited) were supporters of the dissentient
Young Men’s Guild, and the second or rival University Settlement, and
of anything or everything that showed a likelihood of making trouble.
On this principle they were warm supporters and friends of the Rev. Dr.
McTeague. The minister had even gone so far as to present to the
brothers a copy of his philosophical work “McTeague’s Exposition of the
Kantian Hypothesis.” and the two brothers had read it through in the
office, devoting each of them a whole morning to it. Mr. Dick, the
senior brother, had said that he had never seen anything like it, and
Mr. George, the junior, had declared that a man who could write that
was capable of anything.

On the whole it was evident that the relations between the Overend
family and the presbyterian religion were too intimate to allow Mrs.
Tom Overend, formerly Miss Philippa Furlong, to sit anywhere else of a
Sunday than under Dr. McTeague.

“Philippa writes,” continued Mr. Furlong “that under the circumstances
she and Tom would like to do something for your church. She would
like–yes, I have the letter here–to give you, as a surprise, of
course, either a new font or a carved pulpit; or perhaps a cheque; she
wishes me on no account to mention it to you directly, but to ascertain
indirectly from you, what would be the better surprise.”

“Oh, a cheque, I think,” said the rector; “one can do so much more with
it, after all.”

“Precisely,” said his father; he was well aware of many things that can
be done with a cheque that cannot possibly be done with a font.

“That’s settled then,” resumed Mr. Furlong; “and now I suppose you want
me to run my eye over your quarterly statements, do you not, before we
send them in to the trustees? That is what you’ve come for, is it not?”

“Yes,” said the rector, drawing a bundle of blue and white papers from
his pocket. “I have everything with me. Our showing is, I believe,
excellent, though I fear I fail to present it as clearly as it might be
done.”

Mr. Furlong senior spread the papers on the table before him and
adjusted his spectacles to a more convenient angle. He smiled
indulgently as he looked at the documents before him.

“I am afraid you would never make an accountant, Edward,” he said.

“I fear not,” said the rector.

“Your items,” said his father, “are entered wrongly. Here, for example,
in the general statement, you put down Distribution of Coals to the
Poor to your credit. In the same way, Bibles and Prizes to the Sunday
School you again mark to your credit. Why? Don’t you see, my boy, that
these things are debits? When you give out Bibles or distribute fuel to
the poor you give out something for which you get no return. It is a
debit. On the other hand, such items as Church Offertory, Scholars’
Pennies, etc., are pure profit. Surely the principle is clear.”

“I think I see it better now,” said the Rev. Edward.

“Perfectly plain, isn’t it?” his father went on. “And here again.
Paupers’ Burial Fund, a loss; enter it as such. Christmas Gift to
Verger and Sexton, an absolute loss–you get nothing in return. Widows’
Mite, Fines inflicted in Sunday School, etc., these are profit; write
them down as such. By this method, you see, in ordinary business we can
tell exactly where we stand: anything which we give out without return
or reward we count as a debit; all that we take from others without
giving in return we count as so much to our credit.”

“Ah, yes,” murmured the rector. “I begin to understand.”

“Very good. But after all, Edward, I mustn’t quarrel with the mere form
of your accounts; the statement is really a splendid showing. I see
that not only is our mortgage and debenture interest all paid to date,
but that a number of our enterprises are making a handsome return. I
notice, for example, that the Girls’ Friendly Society of the church not
only pays for itself, but that you are able to take something out of
its funds and transfer it to the Men’s Book Club. Excellent! And I
observe that you have been able to take a large portion of the Soup
Kitchen Fund and put it into the Rector’s Picnic Account. Very good
indeed. In this respect your figures are a model for church accounts
anywhere.”

Mr. Furlong continued his scrutiny of the accounts. “Excellent,” he
murmured, “and on the whole an annual surplus, I see, of several
thousands. But stop a bit,” he continued, checking himself; “what’s
this? Are you aware, Edward, that you are losing money on your Foreign
Missions Account?”

“I feared as much,” said Edward.

“It’s incontestable. Look at the figures for yourself: missionary’s
salary so much, clothes and books to converts so much, voluntary and
other offerings of converts so much why, you’re losing on it, Edward!”
exclaimed Mr. Furlong, and he shook his head dubiously at the accounts
before him.

“I thought,” protested his son, “that in view of the character of the
work itself–”

“Quite so,” answered his father, “quite so. I fully admit the force of
that. I am only asking you, is it worth it? Mind you, I am not speaking
now as a Christian, but as a businessman. Is it worth it?”

“I thought that perhaps, in view of the fact of our large surplus in
other directions–”

“Exactly,” said his father, “a heavy surplus. It is precisely on that
point that I wished to speak to you this morning. You have at present a
large annual surplus, and there is every prospect under Providence–in
fact, I think in any case–of it continuing for years to come. If I may
speak very frankly I should say that as long as our reverend friend,
Dr. McTeague, continues in his charge of St. Osoph’s–and I trust that
he may be spared for many years to come–you are likely to enjoy the
present prosperity of your church. Very good. The question arises, what
disposition are we to make of our accumulating funds?”

“Yes,” said the rector, hesitating.

“I am speaking to you now,” said his father “not as the secretary of
your church, but as president of the Hymnal Supply Company which I
represent here. Now please understand, Edward, I don’t want in any way
to force or control your judgment. I merely wish to show you
certain–shall I say certain opportunities that present themselves for
the disposal of our funds? The matter can be taken up later, formally,
by yourself and the trustees of the church. As a matter of fact, I have
already written to myself as secretary in the matter, and I have
received what I consider a quite encouraging answer. Let me explain
what I propose.”

Mr. Furlong senior rose, and opening the door of the office,

“Everett,” he said to the ancient clerk, “kindly give me a Bible.”

It was given to him.

Mr. Furlong stood with the Bible poised in his hand.

“Now we,” he went on, “I mean the Hymnal Supply Corporation, have an
idea for bringing out an entirely new Bible.”

A look of dismay appeared on the saintly face of the rector.

“A new Bible!” he gasped.

“Precisely!” said his father, “a new Bible! This one–and we find it
every day in our business–is all wrong.”

“All wrong!” said the rector with horror in his face.

“My dear boy,” exclaimed his father, “pray, pray, do not misunderstand
me. Don’t imagine for a moment that I mean wrong in a religious sense.
Such a thought could never, I hope, enter my mind. All that I mean is
that this Bible is badly made up.”

“Badly made up?” repeated his son, as mystified as ever.

“I see that you do not understand me. What I mean is this. Let me try
to make myself quite clear. For the market of today this Bible”–and he
poised it again on his hand, as if to test its weight, “is too heavy.
The people of today want something lighter, something easier to get
hold of. Now if–”

But what Mr. Furlong was about to say was lost forever to the world.

For just at this juncture something occurred calculated to divert not
only Mr. Furlong’s sentence, but the fortunes and the surplus of St.
Asaph’s itself. At the very moment when Mr. Furlong was speaking a
newspaper delivery man in the street outside handed to the sanctified
boy the office copy of the noonday paper. And the boy had no sooner
looked at its headlines than he said, “How dreadful!” Being sanctified,
he had no stronger form of speech than that. But he handed the paper
forthwith to one of the stenographers with hair like the daffodils of
Sheba, and when she looked at it she exclaimed, “How awful!” And she
knocked at once at the door of the ancient clerk and gave the paper to
him; and when he looked at it and saw the headline the ancient clerk
murmured, “Ah!” in the gentle tone in which very old people greet the
news of catastrophe or sudden death.

But in his turn he opened Mr. Furlong’s door and put down the paper,
laying his finger on the column for a moment without a word.

Mr. Furlong stopped short in his sentence. “Dear me!” he said as his
eyes caught the item of news. “How very dreadful!”

“What is it?” said the rector.

“Dr. McTeague,” answered his father. “He has been stricken with
paralysis!”

“How shocking!” said the rector, aghast. “But when? I saw him only this
morning.”

“It has just happened,” said his father, following down the column of
the newspaper as he spoke, “this morning, at the university, in his
classroom, at a lecture. Dear me, how dreadful! I must go and see the
president at once.”

Mr. Furlong was about to reach for his hat and stick when at that
moment the aged clerk knocked at the door.

“Dr. Boomer,” he announced in a tone of solemnity suited to the
occasion.

Dr. Boomer entered, shook hands in silence and sat down.

“You have heard our sad news, I suppose?” he said. He used the word
“our” as between the university president and his honorary treasurer.

“How did it happen?” asked Mr. Furlong.

“Most distressing,” said the president. “Dr. McTeague, it seems, had
just entered his ten o’clock class (the hour was about ten-twenty) and
was about to open his lecture, when one of his students rose in his
seat and asked a question. It is a practice,” continued Dr. Boomer,
“which, I need hardly say, we do not encourage; the young man, I
believe, was a newcomer in the philosophy class. At any rate, he asked
Dr. McTeague, quite suddenly it appears; how he could reconcile his
theory of transcendental immaterialism with a scheme of rigid moral
determinism. Dr. McTeague stared for a moment, his mouth, so the class
assert, painfully open. The student repeated the question, and poor
McTeague fell forward over his desk, paralysed.”

“Is he dead?” gasped Mr. Furlong.

“No,” said the president. “But we expect his death at any moment. Dr.
Slyder, I may say, is with him now and is doing all he can.”

“In any case, I suppose, he could hardly recover enough to continue his
college duties,” said the young rector.

“Out of the question,” said the president. “I should not like to state
that of itself mere paralysis need incapacitate a professor. Dr. Thrum,
our professor of the theory of music, is, as you know, paralysed in his
ears, and Mr. Slant, our professor of optics, is paralysed in his right
eye. But this is a case of paralysis of the brain. I fear it is
incompatible with professorial work.”

“Then, I suppose,” said Mr. Furlong senior, “we shall have to think of
the question of a successor.”

They had both _been_ thinking of it for at least three minutes. “We
must,” said the president. “For the moment I feel too stunned by the
sad news to act. I have merely telegraphed to two or three leading
colleges for a _locum tenens_ and sent out a few advertisements
announcing the chair as vacant. But it will be difficult to replace
McTeague. He was a man,” added Dr. Boomer, rehearsing in advance,
unconsciously, no doubt, his forthcoming oration over Dr. McTeague’s
death, “of a singular grasp, a breadth of culture, and he was able, as
few men are, to instil what I might call a spirit of religion into his
teaching. His lectures, indeed, were suffused with moral instruction,
and exercised over his students an influence second only to that of the
pulpit itself.”

He paused.

“Ah yes, the pulpit,” said Mr. Furlong, “there indeed you will miss
him.”

“That,” said Dr. Boomer very reverently, “is our real loss, deep,
irreparable. I suppose, indeed I am certain, we shall never again see
such a man in the pulpit of St. Osoph’s. Which reminds me,” he added
more briskly, “I must ask the newspaper people to let it be known that
there will be service as usual the day after tomorrow, and that Dr.
McTeague’s death will, of course, make no difference–that is to say–I
must see the newspaper people at once.”

* * * * *

That afternoon all the newspaper editors in the City were busy getting
their obituary notices ready for the demise of Dr. McTeague.

“The death of Dr. McTeague,” wrote the editor of the _Commercial and
Financial Undertone_, a paper which had almost openly advocated the
minister’s dismissal for five years back, “comes upon us as an
irreparable loss. His place will be difficult, nay, impossible, to
fill. Whether as a philosopher or a divine he cannot be replaced.”

“We have no hesitation in saying,” so wrote the editor of the
_Plutorian Times_, a three-cent morning paper, which was able to take a
broad or three-cent point of view of men and things, “that the loss of
Dr. McTeague will be just as much felt in Europe as in America. To
Germany the news that the hand that penned ‘McTeague’s Shorter
Exposition of the Kantian Hypothesis’ has ceased to write will come
with the shock of poignant anguish; while to France–”

The editor left the article unfinished at that point. After all, he was
a ready writer, and he reflected that there would be time enough before
actually going to press to consider from what particular angle the blow
of McTeague’s death would strike down the people of France.

So ran in speech and in writing, during two or three days, the requiem
of Dr. McTeague.

Altogether there were more kind things said of him in the three days
during which he was taken for dead, than in thirty years of his
life–which seemed a pity.

And after it all, at the close of the third day, Dr. McTeague feebly
opened his eyes.

But when he opened them the world had already passed on, and left him
behind.

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing

“Well, then, gentlemen, I think we have all agreed upon our man?”

Mr. Dick Overend looked around the table as he spoke at the managing
trustees of St. Osoph’s church. They were assembled in an upper
committee room of the Mausoleum Club. Their official place of meeting
was in a board room off the vestry of the church. But they had felt a
draught in it, some four years ago, which had wafted them over to the
club as their place of assembly. In the club there were no draughts.

Mr. Dick Overend sat at the head of the table, his brother George
beside him, and Dr. Boomer at the foot. Beside them were Mr. Boulder,
Mr. Skinyer (of Skinyer and Beatem) and the rest of the trustees.

“You are agreed, then, on the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing?”

“Quite agreed,” murmured several trustees together.

“A most remarkable man,” said Dr. Boomer. “I heard him preach in his
present church. He gave utterance to thoughts that I have myself been
thinking for years. I never listened to anything so sound or so
scholarly.”

“I heard him the night he preached in New York,” said Mr. Boulder. “He
preached a sermon to the poor. He told them they were no good. I never
heard, outside of a Scotch pulpit, such splendid invective.”

“Is he Scotch?” said one of the trustees.

“Of Scotch parentage,” said the university president. “I believe he is
one of the Dumfarthings of Dunfermline, Dumfries.”

Everybody said “Oh,” and there was a pause.

“Is he married?” asked one of the trustees. “I understand,” answered
Dr. Boomer, “that he is a widower with one child, a little girl.”

“Does he make any conditions?”

“None whatever,” said the chairman, consulting a letter before him,
“except that he is to have absolute control, and in regard to salary.
These two points settled, he says, he places himself entirely in our
hands.”

“And the salary?” asked someone.

“Ten thousand dollars,” said the chairman, “payable quarterly in
advance.”

A chorus of approval went round the table. “Good,” “Excellent,” “A
first-class man,” muttered the trustees, “just what we want.”

“I am sure, gentlemen,” said Mr. Dick Overend, voicing the sentiments
of everybody, “we do _not_ want a cheap man. Several of the candidates
whose names have been under consideration here have been in many
respects–in point of religious qualification, let us say–most
desirable men. The name of Dr. McSkwirt, for example, has been
mentioned with great favour by several of the trustees. But he’s a
cheap man. I feel we don’t want him.”

“What is Mr. Dumfarthing getting where he is?” asked Mr. Boulder.

“Nine thousand nine hundred,” said the chairman.

“And Dr. McSkwirt?”

“Fourteen hundred dollars.”

“Well, that settles it!” exclaimed everybody with a burst of
enlightenment.

And so it was settled.

In fact, nothing could have been plainer.

“I suppose,” said Mr. George Overend as they were about to rise, “that
we are quite justified in taking it for granted that Dr. McTeague will
never be able to resume work?”

“Oh, absolutely for granted,” said Dr. Boomer. “Poor McTeague! I hear
from Slyder that he was making desperate efforts this morning to sit up
in bed. His nurse with difficulty prevented him.”

“Is his power of speech gone?” asked Mr. Boulder.

“Practically so; in any case, Dr. Slyder insists on his not using it.
In fact, poor McTeague’s mind is a wreck. His nurse was telling me that
this morning he was reaching out his hand for the newspaper, and seemed
to want to read one of the editorials. It was quite pathetic,”
concluded Dr. Boomer, shaking his head.

So the whole matter was settled, and next day all the town knew that
St. Osoph’s Church had extended a call to the Rev. Uttermust
Dumfarthing, and that he had accepted it.

* * * * *

Within a few weeks of this date the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing
moved into the manse of St. Osoph’s and assumed his charge. And
forthwith he became the sole topic of conversation on Plutoria Avenue.
“Have you seen the new minister of St. Osoph’s?” everybody asked. “Have
you been to hear Dr. Dumfarthing?” “Were you at St. Osoph’s Church on
Sunday morning? Ah, you really should go! most striking sermon I ever
listened to.”

The effect of him was absolute and instantaneous; there was no doubt of
it.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Buncomhearst to one of her friends, in describing
how she had met him, “I never saw a more striking man. Such power in
his face! Mr. Boulder introduced him to me on the avenue, and he hardly
seemed to see me at all, simply scowled! I was never so favourably
impressed with any man.”

On his very first Sunday he preached to his congregation on eternal
punishment, leaning forward in his black gown and shaking his fist at
them. Dr. McTeague had never shaken his fist in thirty years, and as
for the Rev. Fareforth Furlong, he was incapable of it.

But the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing told his congregation that he was
convinced that at least seventy per cent of them were destined for
eternal punishment; and he didn’t call it by that name, but labelled it
simply and forcibly “hell.” The word had not been heard in any church
in the better part of the City for a generation. The congregation was
so swelled next Sunday that the minister raised the percentage to
eighty-five, and everybody went away delighted. Young and old flocked
to St. Osoph’s. Before a month had passed the congregation at the
evening service at St. Asaph’s Church was so slender that the
offertory, as Mr. Furlong senior himself calculated, was scarcely
sufficient to pay the overhead charge of collecting it.

The presence of so many young men sitting in serried files close to the
front was the only feature of his congregation that extorted from the
Rev. Mr. Dumfarthing something like approval.

“It is a joy to me to see,” he remarked to several of his trustees,
“that there are in the City so many godly young men, whatever the
elders may be.”

But there may have been a secondary cause at work, for among the godly
young men of Plutoria Avenue the topic of conversation had not been,
“Have you heard the new presbyterian minister?” but, “Have you seen his
daughter? You haven’t? Well, say!”

For it turned out that the “child” of Dr. Uttermust Dumfarthing,
so-called by the trustees, was the kind of child that wears a little
round hat, straight from Paris, with an upright feather in it, and a
silk dress in four sections, and shoes with high heels that would have
broken the heart of John Calvin. Moreover, she had the distinction of
being the only person on Plutoria Avenue who was not one whit afraid of
the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing. She even amused herself, in
violation of all rules, by attending evening service at St. Asaph’s,
where she sat listening to the Reverend Edward, and feeling that she
had never heard anything so sensible in her life.

“I’m simply dying to meet your brother,” she said to Mrs. Tom Overend,
otherwise Philippa; “he’s such a complete contrast with father.” She
knew no higher form of praise: “Father’s sermons are always so
frightfully full of religion.”

And Philippa promised that meet him she should.

But whatever may have been the effect of the presence of Catherine
Dumfarthing, there is no doubt the greater part of the changed
situation was due to Dr. Dumfarthing himself.

Everything he did was calculated to please. He preached sermons to the
rich and told them they were mere cobwebs, and they liked it; he
preached a special sermon to the poor and warned them to be mighty
careful; he gave a series of weekly talks to workingmen, and knocked
them sideways; and in the Sunday School he gave the children so fierce
a talk on charity and the need of giving freely and quickly, that such
a stream of pennies and nickels poured into Catherine Dumfarthing’s
Sunday School Fund as hadn’t been seen in the church in fifty years.

Nor was Mr. Dumfarthing different in his private walk of life. He was
heard to speak openly of the Overend brothers as “men of wrath,” and
they were so pleased that they repeated it to half the town. It was the
best business advertisement they had had for years.

Dr. Boomer was captivated with the man. “True scholarship,” he
murmured, as Dr. Dumfarthing poured undiluted Greek and Hebrew from the
pulpit, scorning to translate a word of it. Under Dr. Boomer’s charge
the minister was taken over the length and breadth of Plutoria
University, and reviled it from the foundations up.

“Our library,” said the president, “two hundred thousand volumes!”

“Aye,” said the minister, “a powerful heap of rubbish, I’ll be bound!”

“The photograph of our last year’s graduating class,” said the
president.

“A poor lot, to judge by the faces of them,” said the minister.

“This, Dr. Dumfarthing, is our new radiographic laboratory; Mr. Spiff,
our demonstrator, is preparing slides which, I believe, actually show
the movements of the atom itself, do they not, Mr. Spiff?”

“Ah,” said the minister, piercing Mr. Spiff from beneath his dark
brows, “it will not avail you, young man.”

Dr. Boomer was delighted. “Poor McTeague,” he said–”and by the way,
Boyster, I hear that McTeague is trying to walk again; a great error,
it shouldn’t be allowed!–poor McTeague knew nothing of science.”

The students themselves shared in the enthusiasm, especially after Dr.
Dumfarthing had given them a Sunday afternoon talk in which he showed
that their studies were absolutely futile. As soon as they knew this
they went to work with a vigour that put new life into the college.

* * * * *

Meantime the handsome face of the Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong
began to wear a sad and weary look that had never been seen on it
before. He watched the congregation drifting from St. Asaph’s to St.
Osoph’s and was powerless to prevent it. His sadness reached its climax
one bright afternoon in the late summer, when he noticed that even his
episcopal blackbirds were leaving his elms and moving westward to the
spruce trees of the manse.

He stood looking at them with melancholy on his face. “Why, Edward,”
cried his sister, Philippa, as her motor stopped beside him, “how
doleful you look! Get into the car and come out into the country for a
ride. Let the parish teas look after themselves for today.”

Tom, Philippa’s husband, was driving his own car–he was rich enough to
be able to–and seated with Philippa in the car was an unknown person,
as prettily dressed as Philippa herself. To the rector she was
presently introduced as Miss Catherine Something–he didn’t hear the
rest of it. Nor did he need to. It was quite plain that her surname,
whatever it was, was a very temporary and transitory affair.

So they sped rapidly out of the City and away out into the country,
mile after mile, through cool, crisp air, and among woods with the
touch of autumn bright already upon them, and with blue sky and great
still clouds white overhead. And the afternoon was so beautiful and so
bright that as they went along there was no talk about religion at all!
nor was there any mention of Mothers’ Auxiliaries, or Girls’ Friendly
Societies, nor any discussion of the poor. It was too glorious a day.
But they spoke instead of the new dances, and whether they had come to
stay, and of such sensible topics as that. Then presently, as they went
on still further, Philippa leaned forwards and talked to Tom over his
shoulder and reminded him that this was the very road to Castel
Casteggio, and asked him if he remembered coming up it with her to join
the Newberry’s ever so long ago. Whatever it was that Tom answered it
is not recorded, but it is certain that it took so long in the saying
that the Reverend Edward talked in tete-a-tete with Catherine for
fifteen measured miles, and was unaware that it was more than five
minutes. Among other things he said, and she agreed–or she said and he
agreed–that for the new dances it was necessary to have always one and
the same partner, and to keep that partner all the time. And somehow
simple sentiments of that sort, when said direct into a pair of
listening blue eyes behind a purple motor veil, acquire an infinite
significance.

Then, not much after that, say three or four minutes, they were all of
a sudden back in town again, running along Plutoria Avenue, and to the
rector’s surprise the motor was stopping outside the manse, and
Catherine was saying, “Oh, thank you ever so much, Philippa; it was
just heavenly!” which showed that the afternoon had had its religious
features after all. “What!” said the rector’s sister, as they moved off
again, “didn’t you know? That’s Catherine Dumfarthing!”

* * * * *

When the Rev. Fareforth Furlong arrived home at the rectory he spent an
hour or so in the deepest of deep thought in an armchair in his study.
Nor was it any ordinary parish problem that he was revolving in his
mind. He was trying to think out some means by which his sister Juliana
might be induced to commit the sin of calling on the daughter of a
presbyterian minister.

The thing had to be represented as in some fashion or other an act of
self-denial, a form of mortification of the flesh. Otherwise he knew
Juliana would never do it. But to call on Miss Catherine Dumfarthing
seemed to him such an altogether delightful and unspeakably blissful
process that he hardly knew how to approach the topic. So when Juliana
presently came home the rector could find no better way of introducing
the subject than by putting it on the ground of Philippa’s marriage to
Miss Dumfarthing’s father’s trustee’s nephew.

“Juliana,” he said, “don’t you think that perhaps, on account of
Philippa and Tom, you ought–or at least it might be best for you to
call on Miss Dumfarthing?”

Juliana turned to her brother as he laid aside her bonnet and her black
gloves.

“I’ve just been there this afternoon,” she said.

There was something as near to a blush on her face as her brother had
ever seen.

“But she was not there!” he said.

“No,” answered Juliana, “but Mr. Dumfarthing was. I stayed and talked
some time with him, waiting for her.”

The rector gave a sort of whistle, or rather that blowing out of air
which is the episcopal symbol for it.

“Didn’t you find him pretty solemn?” he said.

“Solemn!” answered his sister. “Surely, Edward, a man in such a calling
as his ought to be solemn.”

“I don’t mean that exactly,” said the rector; “I mean–er–hard,
bitter, so to speak.”

“Edward!” exclaimed Juliana, “how can you speak so. Mr. Dumfarthing
hard! Mr. Dumfarthing bitter! Why, Edward, the man is gentleness and
kindness itself. I don’t think I ever met anyone so full of sympathy,
of compassion with suffering.”

Juliana’s face had flushed It was quite plain that she saw things in
the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing–as some one woman does in every
man–that no one else could see.

The Reverend Edward was abashed. “I wasn’t thinking of his character,”
he said. “I was thinking rather of his doctrines. Wait till you have
heard him preach.”

Juliana flushed more deeply still. “I heard him last Sunday evening,”
she said.

The rector was silent, and his sister, as if impelled to speak, went on,

“And I don’t see, Edward, how anyone could think him a hard or bigoted
man in his creed. He walked home with me to the gate just now, and he
was speaking of all the sin in the world, and of how few, how very few
people, can be saved, and how many will have to be burned as worthless;
and he spoke so beautifully. He regrets it, Edward, regrets it deeply.
It is a real grief to him.”

On which Juliana, half in anger, withdrew, and her brother the rector
sat back in his chair with smiles rippling all over his saintly face.
For he had been wondering whether it would be possible, even remotely
possible, to get his sister to invite the Dumfarthings to high tea at
the rectory some day at six o’clock (evening dinner was out of the
question), and now he knew within himself that the thing was as good as
done.

* * * * *

While such things as these were happening and about to happen, there
were many others of the congregation of St. Asaph’s beside the rector
to whom the growing situation gave cause for serious perplexities.
Indeed, all who were interested in the church, the trustees and the
mortgagees and the underlying debenture-holders, were feeling anxious.
For some of them underlay the Sunday School, whose scholars’ offerings
had declined forty per cent, and others underlay the new organ, not yet
paid for, while others were lying deeper still beneath the ground site
of the church with seven dollars and a half a square foot resting on
them.

“I don’t like it,” said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe to Mr. Newberry (they were
both prominent members of the congregation). “I don’t like the look of
things. I took up a block of Furlong’s bonds on his Guild building from
what seemed at the time the best of motives. The interest appeared
absolutely certain. Now it’s a month overdue on the last quarter. I
feel alarmed.”

“Neither do I like it,” said Mr. Newberry, shaking his head; “and I’m
sorry for Fareforth Furlong. An excellent fellow, Fyshe, excellent. I
keep wondering Sunday after Sunday, if there isn’t something I can do
to help him out. One might do something further, perhaps, in the way of
new buildings or alterations. I have, in fact, offered–by myself, I
mean, and without other aid–to dynamite out the front of his church,
underpin it, and put him in a Norman gateway; either that, or blast out
the back of it where the choir sit, just as he likes. I was thinking
about it last Sunday as they were singing the anthem, and realizing
what a lot one might do there with a few sticks of dynamite.”

“I doubt it,” said Mr. Fyshe. “In fact, Newberry, to speak very
frankly, I begin to ask myself, Is Furlong the man for the post?”

“Oh, surely,” said Mr. Newberry in protest.

“Personally a charming fellow,” went on Mr. Fyshe; “but is he, all said
and done, quite the man to conduct a church? In the _first_ place, he
is _not_ a businessman.”

“No,” said Mr. Newberry reluctantly, “that I admit.”

“Very good. And, _secondly_, even in the matter of his religion itself,
one always feels as if he were too little fixed, too unstable. He
simply moves with the times. That, at least, is what people are
beginning to say of him, that he is perpetually moving with the times.
It doesn’t do, Newberry, it doesn’t do.” Whereupon Mr. Newberry went
away troubled and wrote to Fareforth Furlong a confidential letter with
a signed cheque in it for the amount of Mr. Fyshe’s interest, and with
such further offerings of dynamite, of underpinning and blasting as his
conscience prompted.

When the rector received and read the note and saw the figures of the
cheque, there arose such a thankfulness in his spirit as he hadn’t felt
for months, and he may well have murmured, for the repose of Mr.
Newberry’s soul, a prayer not found in the rubric of King James.

All the more cause had he to feel light at heart, for as it chanced, it
was on that same evening that the Dumfarthings, father and daughter,
were to take tea at the rectory. Indeed, a few minutes before six
o’clock they might have been seen making their way from the manse to
the rectory.

On their way along the avenue the minister took occasion to reprove his
daughter for the worldliness of her hat (it was a little trifle from
New York that she had bought out of the Sunday School money–a
temporary loan); and a little further on he spoke to her severely about
the parasol she carried; and further yet about the strange fashion,
specially condemned by the Old Testament, in which she wore her hair.
So Catherine knew in her heart from this that she must be looking her
very prettiest, and went into the rectory radiant.

The tea was, of course, an awkward meal at the best. There was an
initial difficulty about grace, not easily surmounted. And when the
Rev. Mr. Dumfarthing sternly refused tea as a pernicious drink
weakening to the system, the Anglican rector was too ignorant of the
presbyterian system to know enough to give him Scotch whiskey.

But there were bright spots in the meal as well. The rector was even
able to ask Catherine, sideways as a personal question, if she played
tennis; and she was able to whisper behind her hand, “Not allowed,” and
to make a face in the direction of her father, who was absorbed for the
moment in a theological question with Juliana. Indeed, before the
conversation became general again the rector had contrived to make a
rapid arrangement with Catherine whereby she was to come with him to
the Newberry’s tennis court the day following and learn the game, with
or without permission.

So the tea was perhaps a success in its way. And it is noteworthy that
Juliana spent the days that followed it in reading Calvin’s
“Institutes” (specially loaned to her) and “Dumfarthing on the
Certainty of Damnation” (a gift), and in praying for her brother–a
task practically without hope. During which same time the rector in
white flannels, and Catherine in a white duck skirt and blouse, were
flying about on the green grass of the Newberrys’ court, and calling,
“love,” “love all,” to one another so gaily and so brazenly that even
Mr. Newberry felt that there must be something in it.

But all these things came merely as interludes in the moving currents
of greater events; for as the summer faded into autumn and autumn into
winter the anxieties of the trustees of St. Asaph’s began to call for
action of some sort.

* * * * *

“Edward,” said the rector’s father on the occasion of their next
quarterly discussion, “I cannot conceal from you that the position of
things is very serious. Your statements show a falling off in every
direction. Your interest is everywhere in arrears; your current account
overdrawn to the limit. At this rate, you know, the end is inevitable.
Your debenture and bondholders will decide to foreclose; and if they
do, you know, there is no power that can stop them. Even with your
limited knowledge of business you are probably aware that there is no
higher power that can influence or control the holder of a first
mortgage.”

“I fear so,” said the Rev. Edward very sadly.

“Do you not think perhaps that some of the shortcoming lies with
yourself?” continued Mr. Furlong. “Is it not possible that as a
preacher you fail somewhat, do not, as it were, deal sufficiently with
fundamental things as others do? You leave untouched the truly vital
issues, such things as the creation, death, and, if I may refer to it,
the life beyond the grave.”

As a result of which the Reverend Edward preached a series of special
sermons on the creation for which he made a special and arduous
preparation in the library of Plutoria University. He said that it had
taken a million, possibly a hundred million years of quite difficult
work to accomplish, and that though when we looked at it all was
darkness still we could not be far astray if we accepted and held fast
to the teachings of Sir Charles Lyell. The book of Genesis, he said was
not to be taken as meaning a day when it said a day, but rather
something other than a mere day; and the word “light” meant not exactly
light but possibly some sort of phosphorescence, and that the use of
the word “darkness” was to be understood not as meaning darkness, but
to be taken as simply indicating obscurity. And when he had quite
finished, the congregation declared the whole sermon to be mere milk
and water. It insulted their intelligence, they said. After which, a
week later, the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing took up the same subject, and with
the aid of seven plain texts pulverized the rector into fragments.

One notable result of the controversy was that Juliana Furlong refused
henceforth to attend her brother’s church and sat, even at morning
service, under the minister of St. Osoph’s.

“The sermon was, I fear, a mistake,” said Mr. Furlong senior; “perhaps
you had better not dwell too much on such topics. We must look for aid
in another direction. In fact, Edward, I may mention to you in
confidence that certain of your trustees are already devising ways and
means that may help us out of our dilemma.”

Indeed, although the Reverend Edward did not know it, a certain idea,
or plan, was already germinating in the minds of the most influential
supporters of St. Asaph’s.

Such was the situation of the rival churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph
as the autumn slowly faded into winter: during which time the elm trees
on Plutoria Avenue shivered and dropped their leaves and the chauffeurs
of the motors first turned blue in their faces and then, when the great
snows came, were suddenly converted into liveried coachmen with tall
bearskins and whiskers like Russian horseguards, changing back again to
blue-nosed chauffeurs the very moment of a thaw. During this time also
the congregation of the Reverend Fareforth Furlong was diminishing
month by month, and that of the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing was so
numerous that they filled up the aisles at the back of the church. Here
the worshippers stood and froze, for the minister had abandoned the use
of steam heat in St. Osoph’s on the ground that he could find no
warrant for it.

During the same period other momentous things were happening, such as
that Juliana Furlong was reading, under the immediate guidance of Dr.
Dumfarthing, the History of the Progress of Disruption in the Churches
of Scotland in ten volumes; such also as that Catherine Dumfarthing was
wearing a green and gold winter suit with Russian furs and a Balkan hat
and a Circassian feather, which cut a wide swath of destruction among
the young men on Plutoria Avenue every afternoon as she passed.
Moreover by the strangest of coincidences she scarcely ever seemed to
come along the snow-covered avenue without meeting the Reverend
Edward–a fact which elicited new exclamations of surprise from them
both every day: and by an equally strange coincidence they generally
seemed, although coming in different directions, to be bound for the
same place; towards which they wandered together with such slow steps
and in such oblivion of the passers-by that even the children on the
avenue knew by instinct whither they were wandering.

It was noted also that the broken figure of Dr. McTeague had reappeared
upon the street, leaning heavily upon a stick and greeting those he met
with such a meek and willing affability, as if in apology for his
stroke of paralysis, that all who talked with him agreed that
McTeague’s mind was a wreck.

“He stood and spoke to me about the children for at least a quarter of
an hour,” related one of his former parishioners, “asking after them by
name, and whether they were going to school yet and a lot of questions
like that. He never used to speak of such things. Poor old McTeague,
I’m afraid he is getting soft in the head.” “I know,” said the person
addressed. “His mind is no good. He stopped me the other day to say how
sorry he was to hear about my brother’s illness. I could see from the
way he spoke that his brain is getting feeble. He’s losing his grip. He
was speaking of how kind people had been to him after his accident and
there were tears in his eyes. I think he’s getting batty.”

Nor were even these things the most momentous happenings of the period.
For as winter slowly changed to early spring it became known that
something of great portent was under way. It was rumoured that the
trustees of St. Asaph’s Church were putting their heads together. This
was striking news. The last time that the head of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe,
for example, had been placed side by side with that of Mr. Newberry,
there had resulted a merger of four soda-water companies, bringing what
was called industrial peace over an area as big as Texas and raising
the price of soda by three peaceful cents per bottle. And the last time
that Mr. Furlong senior’s head had been laid side by side with those of
Mr. Rasselyer-Brown and Mr. Skinyer, they had practically saved the
country from the horrors of a coal famine by the simple process of
raising the price of nut coal seventy-five cents a ton and thus
guaranteeing its abundance.

Naturally, therefore, when it became known that such redoubtable heads
as those of the trustees and the underlying mortgagees of St. Asaph’s
were being put together, it was fully expected that some important
development would follow. It was not accurately known from which of the
assembled heads first proceeded the great idea which was presently to
solve the difficulties of the church. It may well have come from that
of Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. Certainly a head which had brought peace out of
civil war in the hardware business by amalgamating ten rival stores and
had saved the very lives of five hundred employees by reducing their
wages fourteen per cent, was capable of it.

At any rate it was Mr. Fyshe who first gave the idea a definite
utterance.

“It’s the only thing, Furlong,” he said, across the lunch table at the
Mausoleum Club. “It’s the one solution. The two churches can’t live
under the present conditions of competition. We have here practically
the same situation as we had with two rum distilleries–the output is
too large for the demand. One or both of the two concerns must go
under. It’s their turn just now, but these fellows are business men
enough to know that it may be ours tomorrow. We’ll offer them a
business solution. We’ll propose a merger.”

“I’ve been thinking of it,” said Mr. Furlong senior, “I suppose it’s
feasible?”

“Feasible!” exclaimed Mr. Fyshe. “Why look what’s being done every day
everywhere, from the Standard Oil Company downwards.”

“You would hardly, I think,” said Mr. Furlong, with a quiet smile,
“compare the Standard Oil Company to a church?” “Well, no, I suppose
not,” said Mr. Fyshe, and he too smiled–in fact he almost laughed. The
notion was too ridiculous. One could hardly compare a mere church to a
thing of the magnitude and importance of the Standard Oil Company.

“But on a lesser scale,” continued Mr. Fyshe, “it’s the same sort of
thing. As for the difficulties of it, I needn’t remind you of the much
greater difficulties we had to grapple with in the rum merger. There,
you remember, a number of the women held out as a matter of principle.
It was not mere business with them. Church union is different. In fact
it is one of the ideas of the day and everyone admits that what is
needed is the application of the ordinary business principles of
harmonious combination, with a proper–er–restriction of output and
general economy of operation.”

“Very good,” said Mr. Furlong, “I’m sure if you’re willing to try, the
rest of us are.”

“All right,” said Mr. Fyshe. “I thought of setting Skinyer, of Skinyer
and Beatem, to work on the form of the organization. As you know he is
not only a deeply religious man but he has already handled the Tin Pot
Combination and the United Hardware and the Associated Tanneries. He
ought to find this quite simple.”

* * * * *

Within a day or two Mr. Skinyer had already commenced his labours. “I
must first,” he said, “get an accurate idea of the existing legal
organization of the two churches.”

For which purpose he approached the rector of St. Asaph’s. “I just want
to ask you, Mr. Furlong,” said the lawyer, “a question or two as to the
exact constitution, the form so to speak, of your church. What is it?
Is it a single corporate body?”

“I suppose,” said the rector thoughtfully, “one would define it as an
indivisible spiritual unit manifesting itself on earth.” “Quite so,”
interrupted Mr. Skinyer, “but I don’t mean what it is in the religious
sense: I mean, in the real sense.” “I fail to understand,” said Mr.
Furlong.

“Let me put it very clearly,” said the lawyer. “Where does it get its
authority?”

“From above.” said the rector reverently.

“Precisely,” said Mr. Skinyer, “no doubt, but I mean its authority in
the exact sense of the term.”

“It was enjoined on St. Peter,” began the rector, but Mr. Skinyer
interrupted him.

“That I am aware of,” he said, “but what I mean is–where does your
church get its power, for example, to hold property, to collect debts,
to use distraint against the property of others, to foreclose its
mortgages and to cause judgement to be executed against those who fail
to pay their debts to it? You will say at once that it has these powers
direct from Heaven. No doubt that is true and no religious person would
deny it. But we lawyers are compelled to take a narrower, a less
elevating point of view. Are these powers conferred on you by the state
legislature or by some higher authority?”

“Oh, by a higher authority, I hope,” said the rector very fervently.
Whereupon Mr. Skinyer left him without further questioning, the
rector’s brain being evidently unfit for the subject of corporation law.

On the other hand he got satisfaction from the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing at
once.

“The church of St. Osoph,” said the minister, “is a perpetual trust,
holding property as such under a general law of the state and able as
such to be made the object of suit or distraint. I speak with some
assurance as I had occasion to enquire into the matter at the time when
I was looking for guidance in regard to the call I had received to come
here.”

* * * * *

“It’s a quite simple matter,” Mr. Skinyer presently reported to Mr.
Fyshe. “One of the churches is a perpetual trust, the other practically
a state corporation. Each has full control over its property provided
nothing is done by either to infringe the purity of its doctrine.”

“Just what does that mean?” asked Mr. Fyshe.

“It must maintain its doctrine absolutely pure. Otherwise if certain of
its trustees remain pure and the rest do not, those who stay pure are
entitled to take the whole of the property. This, I believe, happens
every day in Scotland where, of course, there is great eagerness to
remain pure in doctrine.”

“And what do you define as _pure_ doctrine?” asked Mr. Fyshe.

“If the trustees are in dispute,” said Mr. Skinyer, “the courts decide,
but any doctrine is held to be a pure doctrine if _all_ the trustees
regard it as a pure doctrine.”

“I see,” said Mr. Fyshe thoughtfully, “it’s the same thing as what we
called ‘permissible policy’ on the part of directors in the Tin Pot
Combination.”

“Exactly,” assented Mr. Skinyer, “and it means that for the merger we
need nothing–I state it very frankly–except general consent.”

* * * * *

The preliminary stages of the making of the merger followed along
familiar business lines. The trustees of St. Asaph’s went through the
process known as ‘approaching’ the trustees of St. Osoph’s. First of
all, for example, Mr. Lucullus Fyshe invited Mr. Asmodeus Boulder of
St. Osoph’s to lunch with him at the Mausoleum Club; the cost of the
lunch, as is usual in such cases, was charged to the general expense
account of the church. Of course nothing whatever was said during the
lunch about the churches or their finances or anything concerning them.
Such discussion would have been a gross business impropriety. A few
days later the two brothers Overend dined with Mr. Furlong senior, the
dinner being charged directly to the contingencies account of St.
Asaph’s. After which Mr. Skinyer and his partner, Mr. Beatem, went to
the spring races together on the Profit and Loss account of St.
Osoph’s, and Philippa Overend and Catherine Dumfarthing were taken (by
the Unforeseen Disbursements Account) to the grand opera, followed by a
midnight supper.

All of these things constituted what was called the promotion of the
merger and were almost exactly identical with the successive stages of
the making of the Amalgamated Distilleries and the Associated Tin Pot
Corporation; which was considered a most hopeful sign.

* * * * *

“Do you think they’ll go into it?” asked Mr. Newberry of Mr. Furlong
senior, anxiously. “After all, what inducement have they?”

“Every inducement,” said Mr. Furlong. “All said and done they’ve only
one large asset–Dr. Dumfarthing. We’re really offering to buy up Dr.
Dumfarthing by pooling our assets with theirs.”

“And what does Dr. Dumfarthing himself say to it?”

“Ah, there I am not so sure,” said Mr. Furlong; “that may be a
difficulty. So far there hasn’t been a word from him, and his trustees
are absolutely silent about his views. However, we shall soon know all
about it. Skinyer is asking us all to come together one evening next
week to draw up the articles of agreement.”

“Has he got the financial basis arranged then?”

“I believe so,” said Mr. Furlong. “His idea is to form a new
corporation to be known as the United Church Limited or by some similar
name. All the present mortgagees will be converted into unified
bondholders, the pew rents will be capitalized into preferred stock and
the common stock, drawing its dividend from the offertory, will be
distributed among all members in standing. Skinyer says that it is
really an ideal form of church union, one that he thinks is likely to
be widely adopted. It has the advantage of removing all questions of
religion, which he says are practically the only remaining obstacle to
a union of all the churches. In fact it puts the churches once and for
all on a business basis.”

“But what about the question of doctrine, of belief?” asked Mr.
Newberry.

“Skinyer says he can settle it,” answered Mr. Furlong.

* * * * *

About a week after the above conversation the united trustees of St.
Asaph’s and St. Osoph’s were gathered about a huge egg-shaped table in
the board room of the Mausoleum Club. They were seated in intermingled
fashion after the precedent of the recent Tin Pot Amalgamation and were
smoking huge black cigars specially kept by the club for the promotion
of companies and chargeable to expenses of organization at fifty cents
a cigar. There was an air of deep peace brooding over the assembly, as
among men who have accomplished a difficult and meritorious task.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Skinyer, who was in the chair, with a pile of
documents in front of him, “I think that our general basis of financial
union may be viewed as settled.”

A murmur of assent went round the meeting. “The terms are set forth in
the memorandum before us, which you have already signed. Only one other
point–a minor one–remains to be considered. I refer to the doctrines
or the religious belief of the new amalgamation.”

“Is it necessary to go into that?” asked Mr. Boulder.

“Not entirely, perhaps,” said Mr. Skinyer. “Still there have been, as
you all know, certain points–I won’t say of disagreement–but let us
say of friendly argument–between the members of the different
churches–such things for example,” here he consulted his papers, “as
the theory of the creation, the salvation of the soul, and so forth,
have been mentioned in this connection. I have a memorandum of them
here, though the points escape me for the moment. These, you may say,
are not matters of first importance, especially as compared with the
intricate financial questions which we have already settled in a
satisfactory manner. Still I think it might be well if I were permitted
with your unanimous approval to jot down a memorandum or two to be
afterwards embodied in our articles.”

There was a general murmur of approval. “Very good,” said Mr. Skinyer,
settling himself back in his chair. “Now, first, in regard to the
creation,” here he looked all round the meeting in a way to command
attention–”Is it your wish that we should leave that merely to a
gentlemen’s agreement or do you want an explicit clause?”

“I think it might be well,” said Mr. Dick Overend, “to leave no doubt
about the theory of the creation.”

“Good,” said Mr. Skinyer. “I am going to put it down then something
after this fashion: ‘On and after, let us say, August 1st proximo, the
process of the creation shall be held, and is hereby held, to be such
and such only as is acceptable to a majority of the holders of common
and preferred stock voting pro rata.’ Is that agreed?”

“Carried,” cried several at once.

“Carried,” repeated Mr. Skinyer. “Now let us pass on”–here he
consulted his notes–”to item two, eternal punishment. I have made a
memorandum as follows, ‘Should any doubts arise, on or after August
first proximo, as to the existence of eternal punishment they shall be
settled absolutely and finally by a pro-rata vote of all the holders of
common and preferred stock.’ Is that agreed?”

“One moment!” said Mr. Fyshe, “do you think that quite fair to the
bondholders? After all, as the virtual holders of the property, they
are the persons most interested. I should like to amend your clause and
make it read–I am not phrasing it exactly but merely giving the sense
of it–that eternal punishment should be reserved for the mortgagees
and bondholders.”

At this there was an outbreak of mingled approval and dissent, several
persons speaking at once. In the opinion of some the stockholders of
the company, especially the preferred stockholders, had as good a right
to eternal punishment as the bondholders. Presently Mr. Skinyer, who
had been busily writing notes, held up his hand for silence.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “will you accept this as a compromise? We will
keep the original clause but merely add to it the words, ‘but no form
of eternal punishment shall be declared valid if displeasing to a
three-fifths majority of the holders of bonds.’”

“Carried, carried,” cried everybody.

“To which I think we need only add,” said Mr. Skinyer, “a clause to the
effect that all other points of doctrine, belief or religious principle
may be freely altered, amended, reversed or entirely abolished at any
general annual meeting!”

There was a renewed chorus of “Carried, carried,” and the trustees rose
from the table shaking hands with one another, and lighting fresh
cigars as they passed out of the club into the night air.

“The only thing that I don’t understand,” said Mr. Newberry to Dr.
Boomer as they went out from the club arm in arm (for they might now
walk in that fashion with the same propriety as two of the principals
in a distillery merger), “the only thing that I don’t understand is why
the Reverend Mr. Dumfarthing should be willing to consent to the
amalgamation.”

“Do you really not know?” said Dr. Boomer.

“No.”

“You have heard nothing?”

“Not a word,” said Mr. Newberry.

“Ah,” rejoined the president, “I see that our men have kept it very
quiet–naturally so, in view of the circumstances. The truth is that
the Reverend Mr. Dumfarthing is leaving us.”

“Leaving St. Osoph’s!” exclaimed Mr. Newberry in utter astonishment.

“To our great regret. He has had a call–a most inviting field of work,
he says, a splendid opportunity. They offered him ten thousand one
hundred; we were only giving him ten thousand here, though of course
that feature of the situation would not weigh at all with a man like
Dumfarthing.”

“Oh no, of course not,” said Mr. Newberry.

“As soon as we heard of the call we offered him ten thousand three
hundred–not that that would make any difference to a man of his
character. Indeed Dumfarthing was still waiting and looking for
guidance when they offered him eleven thousand. We couldn’t meet it. It
was beyond us, though we had the consolation of knowing that with such
a man as Dumfarthing the money made no difference.”

“And he has accepted the call?”

“Yes. He accepted it today. He sent word to Mr. Dick Overend our
chairman, that he would remain in his manse, looking for light, until
two-thirty, after which, if we had not communicated with him by that
hour, he would cease to look for it.”

“Dear me,” said Mr. Newberry, deep in reflection, “so that when your
trustees came to the meeting–”

“Exactly,” said Dr. Boomer–and something like a smile passed across
his features for a moment “Dr. Dumfarthing had already sent away his
telegram of acceptance.”

“Why, then,” said Mr. Newberry, “at the time of our discussion tonight,
you were in the position of having no minister.”

“Not at all. We had already appointed a successor.”

“A successor?”

“Certainly. It will be in tomorrow morning’s papers. The fact is that
we decided to ask Dr. McTeague to resume his charge.”

“Dr. McTeague!” repeated Mr. Newberry in amazement. “But surely his
mind is understood to be–”

“Oh not at all,” interrupted Dr. Boomer. “His mind appears if anything,
to be clearer and stronger than ever. Dr. Slyder tells us that
paralysis of the brain very frequently has this effect; it soothes the
brain–clears it, as it were, so that very often intellectual problems
which occasioned the greatest perplexity before present no difficulty
whatever afterwards. Dr. McTeague, I believe, finds no trouble now in
reconciling St. Paul’s dialectic with Hegel as he used to. He says that
so far as he can see they both mean the same thing.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Newberry, “and will Dr. McTeague also resume his
philosophical lectures at the university?”

“We think it wiser not,” said the president. “While we feel that Dr.
McTeague’s mind is in admirable condition for clerical work we fear
that professorial duties might strain it. In order to get the full
value of his remarkable intelligence, we propose to elect him to the
governing body of the university. There his brain will be safe from any
shock. As a professor there would always be the fear that one of his
students might raise a question in his class. This of course is not a
difficulty that arises in the pulpit or among the governors of the
university.”

“Of course not,” said Mr. Newberry.

* * * * *

Thus was constituted the famous union or merger of the churches of St.
Asaph and St. Osoph, viewed by many of those who made it as the
beginning of a new era in the history of the modern church.

There is no doubt that it has been in every way an eminent success.

Rivalry, competition, and controversies over points of dogma have
become unknown on Plutoria Avenue. The parishioners of the two churches
may now attend either of them just as they like. As the trustees are
fond of explaining it doesn’t make the slightest difference. The entire
receipts of the churches, being now pooled, are divided without
reference to individual attendance. At each half year there is issued a
printed statement which is addressed to the shareholders of the United
Churches Limited and is hardly to be distinguished in style or material
from the annual and semi-annual reports of the Tin Pot Amalgamation and
the United Hardware and other quasi-religious bodies of the sort. “Your
directors,” the last of these documents states, “are happy to inform
you that in spite of the prevailing industrial depression the gross
receipts of the corporation have shown such an increase as to justify
the distribution of a stock dividend of special Offertory Stock
Cumulative, which will be offered at par to all holders of common or
preferred shares. You will also be gratified to learn that the
directors have voted unanimously in favour of a special presentation to
the Rev. Uttermust Dumfarthing on the occasion of his approaching
marriage. It was earnestly debated whether this gift should take the
form, as at first suggested, of a cash presentation, or as afterwards
suggested, of a written testimonial in the form of an address. The
latter course was finally adopted as being more fitting to the
circumstances and the address has accordingly been prepared, setting
forth to the Rev. Dr. Dumfarthing, in old English lettering and
wording, the opinion which is held of him by his former parishioners.”

The “approaching marriage” referred of course to Dr. Dumfarthing’s
betrothal to Juliana Furlong. It was not known that he had ever exactly
proposed to her. But it was understood that before giving up his charge
he drew her attention, in very severe terms, to the fact that, as his
daughter was now leaving him, he must either have someone else to look
after his manse or else be compelled to incur the expense of a paid
housekeeper. This latter alternative, he said, was not one that he
cared to contemplate. He also reminded her that she was now at a time
of life when she could hardly expect to pick and choose and that her
spiritual condition was one of, at least, great uncertainty. These
combined statements are held, under the law of Scotland at any rate, to
be equivalent to an offer of marriage.

Catherine Dumfarthing did not join her father in his new manse. She
first remained behind him, as the guest of Philippa Overend for a few
weeks while she was occupied in packing up her things. After that she
stayed for another two or three weeks to unpack them. This had been
rendered necessary by a conversation held with the Reverend Edward
Fareforth Furlong, in a shaded corner of the Overend’s garden. After
which, in due course of time, Catherine and Edward were married, the
ceremony being performed by the Reverend Dr. McTeague whose eyes filled
with philosophical tears as he gave them his blessing.

So the two churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph stand side by side
united and at peace. Their bells call softly back and forward to one
another on Sunday mornings and such is the harmony between them that
even the episcopal rooks in the elm trees of St. Asaph’s and the
presbyterian crows in the spruce trees of St. Osoph’s are known to
exchange perches on alternate Sundays.

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Great Fight for Clean Government

“As to the government of this city,” said Mr. Newberry, leaning back in
a leather armchair at the Mausoleum Club and lighting a second cigar,
“it’s rotten, that’s all.”

“Absolutely rotten,” assented Mr. Dick Overend, ringing the bell for a
second whiskey and soda.

“Corrupt,” said Mr. Newberry, between two puffs of his cigar.

“Full of graft,” said Mr. Overend, flicking his ashes into the grate.

“Crooked aldermen,” said Mr. Newberry.

“A bum city solicitor,” said Mr. Overend, “and an infernal grafter for
treasurer.”

“Yes,” assented Mr. Newberry, and then, leaning forwards in his chair
and looking carefully about the corridors of the club, he spoke behind
his hand and said, “And the mayor’s the biggest grafter of the lot. And
what’s more,” he added, sinking his voice to a whisper, “the time has
come to speak out about it fearlessly.”

Mr. Overend nodded. “It’s a tyranny,” he said.

“Worse than Russia,” rejoined Mr. Newberry.

* * * * *

They had been sitting in a quiet corner of the club–it was on a Sunday
evening–and had fallen into talking, first of all, of the present
rottenness of the federal politics of the United States–not
argumentatively or with any heat, but with the reflective sadness that
steals over an elderly man when he sits in the leather armchair of a
comfortable club smoking a good cigar and musing on the decadence of
the present day. The rottenness of the federal government didn’t anger
them. It merely grieved them.

They could remember–both of them–how different everything was when
they were young men just entering on life. When Mr. Newberry and Mr.
Dick Overend were young, men went into congress from pure patriotism;
there was no such thing as graft or crookedness, as they both admitted,
in those days; and as for the United States Senate–here their voices
were almost hushed in awe–why, when they were young, the United States
Senate–

But no, neither of them could find a phrase big enough for their
meaning.

They merely repeated “as for the United States Senate–” and then shook
their heads and took long drinks of whiskey and soda.

Then, naturally, speaking of the rottenness of the federal government
had led them to talk of the rottenness of the state legislature. How
different from the state legislatures that they remembered as young
men! Not merely different in the matter of graft, but different, so Mr.
Newberry said, in the calibre of the men. He recalled how he had been
taken as a boy of twelve by his father to hear a debate. He would never
forget it. Giants! he said, that was what they were. In fact, the thing
was more like a Witenagemot than a legislature. He said he distinctly
recalled a man, whose name he didn’t recollect, speaking on a question
he didn’t just remember what, either for or against he just couldn’t
recall which; it thrilled him. He would never forget it. It stayed in
his memory as if it were yesterday.

But as for the present legislature–here Mr. Dick Overend sadly nodded
assent in advance to what he knew was coming–as for the present
legislature–well–Mr. Newberry had had, he said, occasion to visit the
state capital a week before in connection with a railway bill that he
was trying to–that is, that he was anxious to–in short in connection
with a railway bill, and when he looked about him at the men in the
legislature–positively he felt ashamed; he could put it no other way
than that–ashamed.

After which, from speaking of the crookedness of the state government
Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were led to talk of the crookedness
of the city government! And they both agreed, as above, that things
were worse than in Russia. What secretly irritated them both most was
that they had lived and done business under this infernal corruption
for thirty or forty years and hadn’t noticed it. They had been too busy.

The fact was that their conversation reflected not so much their own
original ideas as a general wave of feeling that was passing over the
whole community.

There had come a moment–quite suddenly it seemed–when it occurred to
everybody at the same time that the whole government of the city was
rotten. The word is a strong one. But it is the one that was used. Look
at the aldermen, they said–rotten! Look at the city solicitor, rotten!
And as for the mayor himself–phew!

The thing came like a wave. Everybody felt it at once. People wondered
how any sane, intelligent community could tolerate the presence of a
set of corrupt scoundrels like the twenty aldermen of the city. Their
names, it was said, were simply a byword throughout the United States
for rank criminal corruption. This was said so widely that everybody
started hunting through the daily papers to try to find out who in
blazes were aldermen, anyhow. Twenty names are hard to remember, and as
a matter of fact, at the moment when this wave of feeling struck the
city, nobody knew or cared who were aldermen, anyway.

To tell the truth, the aldermen had been much the same persons for
about fifteen or twenty years. Some were in the produce business,
others were butchers, two were grocers, and all of them wore blue
checkered waistcoats and red ties and got up at seven in the morning to
attend the vegetable and other markets. Nobody had ever really thought
about them–that is to say, nobody on Plutoria Avenue. Sometimes one
saw a picture in the paper and wondered for a moment who the person
was; but on looking more closely and noticing what was written under
it, one said, “Oh, I see, an alderman,” and turned to something else.

“Whose funeral is that?” a man would sometimes ask on Plutoria Avenue.
“Oh just one of the city aldermen,” a passerby would answer hurriedly.
“Oh I see, I beg your pardon, I thought it might be somebody important.”

At which both laughed.

* * * * *

It was not just clear how and where this movement of indignation had
started. People said that it was part of a new wave of public morality
that was sweeping over the entire United States. Certainly it was being
remarked in almost every section of the country. Chicago newspapers
were attributing its origin to the new vigour and the fresh ideals of
the middle west. In Boston it was said to be due to a revival of the
grand old New England spirit. In Philadelphia they called it the spirit
of William Penn. In the south it was said to be the reassertion of
southern chivalry making itself felt against the greed and selfishness
of the north, while in the north they recognized it at once as a
protest against the sluggishness and ignorance of the south. In the
west they spoke of it as a revolt against the spirit of the east and in
the east they called it a reaction against the lawlessness of the west.
But everywhere they hailed it as a new sign of the glorious unity of
the country.

If therefore Mr. Newberry and Mr. Overend were found to be discussing
the corrupt state of their city they only shared in the national
sentiments of the moment. In fact in the same city hundreds of other
citizens, as disinterested as themselves, were waking up to the
realization of what was going on. As soon as people began to look into
the condition of things in the city they were horrified at what they
found. It was discovered, for example, that Alderman Schwefeldampf was
an undertaker! Think of it! In a city with a hundred and fifty deaths a
week, and sometimes even better, an undertaker sat on the council! A
city that was about to expropriate land and to spend four hundred
thousand dollars for a new cemetery, had an undertaker on the
expropriation committee itself! And worse than that! Alderman Undercutt
was a butcher! In a city that consumed a thousand tons of meat every
week! And Alderman O’Hooligan–it leaked out–was an Irishman! Imagine
it! An Irishman sitting on the police committee of the council in a
city where thirty-eight and a half out of every hundred policemen were
Irish, either by birth or parentage! The thing was monstrous.

So when Mr. Newberry said “It’s worse than Russia!” he meant it, every
word.

* * * * *

Now just as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were finishing their
discussion, the huge bulky form of Mayor McGrath came ponderously past
them as they sat. He looked at them sideways out of his eyes–he had
eyes like plums in a mottled face–and, being a born politician, he
knew by the very look of them that they were talking of something that
they had no business to be talking about. But,–being a politician–he
merely said, “Good evening, gentlemen,” without a sign of disturbance.

“Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” said Mr. Newberry, rubbing his hands feebly
together and speaking in an ingratiating tone. There is no more
pitiable spectacle than an honest man caught in the act of speaking
boldly and fearlessly of the evil-doer.

“Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” echoed Mr. Dick Overend, also rubbing his
hands; “warm evening, is it not?”

The mayor gave no other answer than that deep guttural grunt which is
technically known in municipal interviews as refusing to commit oneself.

“Did he hear?” whispered Mr. Newberry as the mayor passed out of the
club.

“I don’t care if he did,” whispered Mr. Dick Overend.

Half an hour later Mayor McGrath entered the premises of the Thomas
Jefferson Club, which was situated in the rear end of a saloon and pool
room far down in the town.

“Boys,” he said to Alderman O’Hooligan and Alderman Gorfinkel, who were
playing freeze-out poker in a corner behind the pool tables, “you want
to let the boys know to keep pretty dark and go easy. There’s a lot of
talk I don’t like about the elections going round the town. Let the
boys know that just for a while the darker they keep the better.”

Whereupon the word was passed from the Thomas Jefferson Club to the
George Washington Club and thence to the Eureka Club (coloured), and to
the Kossuth Club (Hungarian), and to various other centres of civic
patriotism in the lower parts of the city. And forthwith such a
darkness began to spread over them that not even honest Diogenes with
his lantern could have penetrated their doings.

“If them stiffs wants to make trouble,” said the president of the
George Washington Club to Mayor McGrath a day or two later, “they won’t
never know what they’ve bumped up against.”

“Well,” said the heavy mayor, speaking slowly and cautiously and eyeing
his henchman with quiet scrutiny, “you want to go pretty easy now, I
tell you.”

The look which the mayor directed at his satellite was much the same
glance that Morgan the buccaneer might have given to one of his
lieutenants before throwing him overboard.

* * * * *

Meantime the wave of civic enthusiasm as reflected in the conversations
of Plutoria Avenue grew stronger with every day.

“The thing is a scandal,” said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe. “Why, these fellows
down at the city hall are simply a pack of rogues. I had occasion to do
some business there the other day (it was connected with the assessment
of our soda factories) and do you know, I actually found that these
fellows take money!”

“I say!” said Mr. Peter Spillikins, to whom he spoke, “I say! You don’t
say!”

“It’s a fact,” repeated Mr. Fyshe. “They take money. I took the
assistant treasurer aside and I said, ‘I want such and such done,’ and
I slipped a fifty dollar bill into his hand. And the fellow took it,
took it like a shot.”

“He took it!” gasped Mr. Spillikins.

“He did,” said Mr. Fyshe. “There ought to be a criminal law for that
sort of thing.”

“I say!” exclaimed Mr. Spillikins, “they ought to go to jail for a
thing like that.”

“And the infernal insolence of them,” Mr. Fyshe continued. “I went down
the next day to see the deputy assistant (about a thing connected with
the same matter), told him what I wanted and passed a fifty dollar bill
across the counter and the fellow fairly threw it back at me, in a
perfect rage. He refused it!”

“Refused it,” gasped Mr. Spillikins, “I say!”

Conversations such as this filled up the leisure and divided the
business time of all the best people in the city.

In the general gloomy outlook, however, one bright spot was observable.
The “wave” had evidently come just at the opportune moment. For not
only were civic elections pending but just at this juncture four or
five questions of supreme importance would be settled by the incoming
council. There was, for instance, the question of the expropriation of
the Traction Company (a matter involving many millions); there was the
decision as to the renewal of the franchise of the Citizens’ Light
Company–a vital question; there was also the four hundred thousand
dollar purchase of land for the new addition to the cemetery, a matter
that must be settled. And it was felt, especially on Plutoria Avenue,
to be a splendid thing that the city was waking up, in the moral sense,
at the very time when these things were under discussion. All the
shareholders of the Traction Company and the Citizens’ Light–and they
included the very best, the most high-minded, people in the city–felt
that what was needed now was a great moral effort, to enable them to
lift the city up and carry it with them, or, if not all of it, at any
rate as much of it as they could.

“It’s a splendid movement!” said Mr. Fyshe (he was a leading
shareholder and director of the Citizens’ Light), “what a splendid
thing to think that we shan’t have to deal for our new franchise with a
set of corrupt rapscallions like these present aldermen. Do you know,
Furlong, that when we approached them first with a proposition for a
renewal for a hundred and fifty years they held us up! Said it was too
long! Imagine that! A hundred and fifty years (only a century and a
half) too long for the franchise! They expect us to install all our
poles, string our wires, set up our transformers in their streets and
then perhaps at the end of a hundred years find ourselves compelled to
sell out at a beggarly valuation. Of course we knew what they wanted.
They meant us to hand them over fifty dollars each to stuff into their
rascally pockets.”

“Outrageous!” said Mr. Furlong.

“And the same thing with the cemetery land deal,” went on Mr. Lucullus
Fyshe. “Do you realize that, if the movement hadn’t come along and
checked them, those scoundrels would have given that rogue
Schwefeldampf four hundred thousand dollars for his fifty acres! Just
think of it!”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Furlong with a thoughtful look upon his face,
“that four hundred thousand dollars is an excessive price, in and of
itself, for that amount of land.”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Fyshe, very quietly and decidedly, looking at
Mr. Furlong in a searching way as he spoke. “It is _not_ a high price.
It seems to me, speaking purely as an outsider, a very fair, reasonable
price for fifty acres of suburban land, if it were the right land. If,
for example, it were a case of making an offer for that very fine
stretch of land, about twenty acres, is it not, which I believe your
Corporation owns on the _other_ side of the cemetery, I should say four
hundred thousand is a most modest price.”

Mr. Furlong nodded his head reflectively.

“You had thought, had you not, of offering it to the city?” said Mr.
Fyshe.

“We did,” said Mr. Furlong, “at a more or less nominal sum–four
hundred thousand or whatever it might be. We felt that for such a
purpose, almost sacred as it were, one would want as little bargaining
as possible.”

“Oh, none at all,” assented Mr. Fyshe.

“Our feeling was,” went on Mr. Furlong, “that if the city wanted our
land for the cemetery extension, it might have it at its own
figure–four hundred thousand, half a million, in fact at absolutely
any price, from four hundred thousand up, that they cared to put on it.
We didn’t regard it as a commercial transaction at all. Our reward lay
merely in the fact of selling it to them.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Fyshe, “and of course your land was more desirable
from every point of view. Schwefeldampf’s ground is encumbered with a
growth of cypress and evergreens and weeping willows which make it
quite unsuitable for an up-to-date cemetery; whereas yours, as I
remember it, is bright and open–a loose sandy soil with no trees and
very little grass to overcome.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Furlong. “We thought, too, that our ground, having the
tanneries and the chemical factory along the farther side of it, was an
ideal place for–” he paused, seeking a mode of expressing his thought.

“For the dead,” said Mr. Fyshe, with becoming reverence. And after this
conversation Mr. Fyshe and Mr. Furlong senior understood one another
absolutely in regard to the new movement.

It was astonishing in fact how rapidly the light spread.

“Is Rasselyer-Brown with us?” asked someone of Mr. Fyshe a few days
later.

“Heart and soul,” answered Mr. Fyshe. “He’s very bitter over the way
these rascals have been plundering the city on its coal supply. He says
that the city has been buying coal wholesale at the pit mouth at three
fifty–utterly worthless stuff, he tells me. He has heard it said that
everyone of these scoundrels has been paid from twenty-five to fifty
dollars a winter to connive at it.”

“Dear me,” said the listener.

“Abominable, is it not?” said Mr. Fyshe. “But as I said to
Rasselyer-Brown, what can one do if the citizens themselves take no
interest in these things. ‘Take your own case,’ I said to him, ‘how is
it that you, a coal man, are not helping the city in this matter? Why
don’t you supply the city?’ He shook his head, ‘I wouldn’t do it at
three-fifty,’ he said. ‘No,’ I answered, ‘but will you at five?’ He
looked at me for a moment and then he said, ‘Fyshe, I’ll do it; at
five, or at anything over that they like to name. If we get a new
council in they may name their own figure.’ ‘Good,’ I said. ‘I hope all
the other businessmen will be animated with the same spirit.’”

* * * * *

Thus it was that the light broke and spread and illuminated in all
directions. People began to realize the needs of the city as they never
had before. Mr. Boulder, who owned, among other things, a stone quarry
and an asphalt company, felt that the paving of the streets was a
disgrace. Mr. Skinyer, of Skinyer and Beatem, shook his head and said
that the whole legal department of the city needed reorganization; it
needed, he said, new blood. But he added always in a despairing tone,
how could one expect to run a department with the head of it drawing
only six thousand dollars; the thing was impossible. If, he argued,
they could superannuate the present chief solicitor and get a man, a
_good_ man (Mr. Skinyer laid emphasis on this) at, say, fifteen
thousand there might be some hope.

“Of course,” said Mr. Skinyer to Mr. Newberry in discussing the topic,
“one would need to give him a proper staff of assistants so as to take
off his hands all the _routine_ work–the mere appearance in court, the
preparation of briefs, the office consultation, the tax revision and
the purely legal work. In that case he would have his hands free to
devote himself entirely to those things, which–in fact to turn his
attention in whatever direction he might feel it was advisable to turn
it.”

* * * * *

Within a week or two the public movement had found definite expression
and embodied itself in the Clean Government Association. This was
organized by a group of leading and disinterested citizens who held
their first meeting in the largest upstairs room of the Mausoleum Club.
Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, Mr. Boulder, and others keenly interested in
obtaining simply justice for the stockholders of the Traction and the
Citizens’ Light were prominent from the start. Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, Mr.
Furlong senior and others were there, not from special interest in the
light or traction questions, but, as they said themselves, from pure
civic spirit. Dr. Boomer was there to represent the university with
three of his most presentable professors, cultivated men who were able
to sit in a first-class club and drink whiskey and soda and talk as
well as any businessman present. Mr. Skinyer, Mr. Beatem and others
represented the bar. Dr. McTeague, blinking in the blue tobacco smoke,
was there to stand for the church. There were all-round enthusiasts as
well, such as Mr. Newberry and the Overend brothers and Mr. Peter
Spillikins.

“Isn’t it fine,” whispered Mr. Spillikins to Mr. Newberry, “to see a
set of men like these all going into a thing like this, not thinking of
their own interests a bit?”

* * * * *

Mr. Fyshe, as chairman, addressed the meeting. He told them they were
there to initiate a great free voluntary movement of the people. It had
been thought wise, he said, to hold it with closed doors and to keep it
out of the newspapers. This would guarantee the league against the old
underhand control by a clique that had hitherto disgraced every part of
the administration of the city. He wanted, he said, to see everything
done henceforth in broad daylight: and for this purpose he had summoned
them there at night to discuss ways and means of action. After they
were once fully assured of exactly what they wanted to do and how they
meant to do it, the league he said, would invite the fullest and freest
advice from all classes in the city. There were none he said, amid
great applause, that were so lowly that they would not be invited–once
the platform of the league was settled–to advise and co-operate. All
might help, even the poorest. Subscription lists would be prepared
which would allow any sum at all, from one to five dollars, to be given
to the treasurer. The league was to be democratic or nothing. The
poorest might contribute as little as one dollar: even the richest
would not be allowed to give more than five. Moreover he gave notice
that he intended to propose that no actual official of the league
should be allowed under its by-laws to give anything. He himself–if
they did him the honour to make him president as he had heard it hinted
was their intention–would be the first to bow to this rule. He would
efface himself. He would obliterate himself, content in the interests
of all, to give nothing. He was able to announce similar pledges from
his friends, Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong, Dr. Boomer, and a number of
others.

Quite a storm of applause greeted these remarks by Mr. Fyshe, who
flushed with pride as he heard it.

“Now, gentlemen,” he went on, “this meeting is open for discussion.
Remember it is quite informal, anyone may speak. I as chairman make no
claim to control or monopolize the discussion. Let everyone
understand–”

“Well then, Mr. Chairman,” began Mr. Dick Overend.

“One minute, Mr. Overend,” said Mr. Fyshe. “I want everyone to
understand that he may speak as–”

“May I say then–” began Mr. Newberry.

“Pardon me, Mr. Newberry,” said Mr. Fyshe, “I was wishing first to
explain that not only may _all_ participate but that we _invite_–”

“In that case–” began Mr. Newberry.

“Before you speak,” interrupted Mr. Fyshe, “let me add one word. We
must make our discussion as brief and to the point as possible. I have
a great number of things which I wish to say to the meeting and it
might be well if all of you would speak as briefly and as little as
possible. Has anybody anything to say?”

“Well,” said Mr. Newberry, “what about organization and officers?”

“We have thought of it,” said Mr. Fyshe. “We were anxious above all
things to avoid the objectionable and corrupt methods of a ‘slate’ and
a prepared list of officers which has disgraced every part of our city
politics until the present time. Mr. Boulder, Mr. Furlong and Mr.
Skinyer and myself have therefore prepared a short list of offices and
officers which we wish to submit to your fullest, freest consideration.
It runs thus: Hon. President Mr. L. Fyshe, Hon. Vice-president, Mr. A.
Boulder, Hon. Secretary Mr. Furlong, Hon. Treasurer Mr. O. Skinyer, et
cetera–I needn’t read it all. You’ll see it posted in the hall later.
Is that carried? Carried! Very good,” said Mr. Fyshe.

There was a moment’s pause while Mr. Furlong and Mr. Skinyer moved into
seats beside Mr. Fyshe and while Mr. Furlong drew from his pocket and
arranged the bundle of minutes of the meeting which he had brought with
him. As he himself said he was too neat and methodical a writer to
trust to jotting them down on the spot.

“Don’t you think,” said Mr. Newberry, “I speak as a practical man, that
we ought to do something to get the newspapers with us?”

“Most important,” assented several members.

“What do you think, Dr. Boomer?” asked Mr. Fyshe of the university
president, “will the newspapers be with us?”

Dr. Boomer shook his head doubtfully. “It’s an important matter,” he
said. “There is no doubt that we need, more than anything, the support
of a clean, wholesome unbiassed press that can’t be bribed and is not
subject to money influence. I think on the whole our best plan would be
to buy up one of the city newspapers.”

“Might it not be better simply to buy up the editorial staff?” said Mr.
Dick Overend.

“We might do that,” admitted Dr. Boomer. “There is no doubt that the
corruption of the press is one of the worst factors that we have to
oppose. But whether we can best fight it by buying the paper itself or
buying the staff is hard to say.”

“Suppose we leave it to a committee with full power to act,” said Mr.
Fyshe. “Let us direct them to take whatever steps may in their opinion
be best calculated to elevate the tone of the press, the treasurer
being authorized to second them in every way. I for one am heartily
sick of old underhand connection between city politics and the city
papers. If we can do anything to alter and elevate it, it will be a
fine work, gentlemen, well worth whatever it costs us.”

* * * * *

Thus after an hour or two of such discussion the Clean Government
League found itself organized and equipped with a treasury and a
programme and a platform. The latter was very simple. As Mr. Fyshe and
Mr. Boulder said there was no need to drag in specific questions or try
to define the action to be taken towards this or that particular
detail, such as the hundred-and-fifty-year franchise, beforehand. The
platform was simply expressed as Honesty, Purity, Integrity. This, as
Mr. Fyshe said, made a straight, flat, clean issue between the league
and all who opposed it.

This first meeting was, of course, confidential. But all that it did
was presently done over again, with wonderful freshness and spontaneity
at a large public meeting open to all citizens. There was a splendid
impromptu air about everything. For instance when somebody away back in
the hall said, “I move that Mr. Lucullus Fyshe be president of the
league,” Mr. Fyshe lifted his hand in unavailing protest as if this
were the newest idea he had ever heard in his life.

After all of which the Clean Government League set itself to fight the
cohorts of darkness. It was not just known where these were. But it was
understood that they were there all right, somewhere. In the platform
speeches of the epoch they figured as working underground, working in
the dark, working behind the scenes, and so forth. But the strange
thing was that nobody could state with any exactitude just who or what
it was that the league was fighting. It stood for “honesty, purity, and
integrity.” That was all you could say about it.

Take, for example, the case of the press. At the inception of the
league it has been supposed that such was the venality and corruption
of the city newspapers that it would be necessary to buy one of them.
But the word “clean government” had been no sooner uttered than it
turned out that every one of the papers in the city was in favour of
it: in fact had been working for it for years.

They vied with one another now in giving publicity to the idea. The
_Plutorian Times_ printed a dotted coupon on the corner of its front
sheet with the words, “Are you in favour of Clean Government? If so,
send us ten cents with this coupon and your name and address.” The
_Plutorian Citizen and Home Advocate_, went even further. It printed a
coupon which said, “Are you out for a clean city? If so send us
twenty-five cents to this office. We pledge ourselves to use it.”

The newspapers did more than this. They printed from day to day such
pictures as the portrait of Mr. Fyshe with the legend below, “Mr.
Lucullus Fyshe, who says that government ought to be by the people,
from the people, for the people and to the people”; and the next day
another labelled. “Mr. P. Spillikins, who says that all men are born
free and equal”; and the next day a picture with the words, “Tract of
ground offered for cemetery by Mr. Furlong, showing rear of tanneries,
with head of Mr. Furlong inserted.”

It was, of course, plain enough that certain of the aldermen of the old
council were to be reckoned as part of the cohort of darkness. That at
least was clear. “We want no more men in control of the stamp of
Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf,” so said practically
every paper in the city. “The public sense revolts at these men. They
are vultures who have feasted too long on the prostrate corpses of our
citizens.” And so on. The only trouble was to discover who or what had
ever supported Alderman Gorfinkel and Alderman Schwefeldampf. The very
organizations that might have seemed to be behind them were evidently
more eager for clean government than the league itself.

“The Thomas Jefferson Club Out for Clean Government,” so ran the
newspaper headings of one day; and of the next, “Will help to clean up
City Government. Eureka Club (Coloured) endorses the League; Is done
with Darkness”; and the day after that, “Sons of Hungary Share in Good
Work: Kossuth Club will vote with the League.”

So strong, indeed, was the feeling against the iniquitous aldermen that
the public demand arose to be done with a council of aldermen
altogether and to substitute government by a Board. The newspapers
contained editorials on the topic each day and it was understood that
one of the first efforts of the league would be directed towards
getting the necessary sanction of the legislature in this direction. To
help to enlighten the public on what such government meant Professor
Proaser of the university (he was one of the three already referred to)
gave a public lecture on the growth of Council Government. He traced it
from the Amphictionic Council of Greece as far down as the Oligarchical
Council of Venice; it was thought that had the evening been longer he
would have traced it clean down to modern times.

But most amazing of all was the announcement that was presently made,
and endorsed by Mr. Lucullus Fyshe in an interview, that Mayor McGrath
himself would favour clean government, and would become the official
nominee of the league itself. This certainly was strange. But it would
perhaps have been less mystifying to the public at large, had they been
able to listen to certain of the intimate conversations of Mr. Fyshe
and Mr. Boulder.

“You say then,” said Mr. Boulder, “to let McGrath’s name stand.”

“We can’t do without him,” said Mr. Fyshe, “he has seven of the wards
in the hollow of his hand. If we take his offer he absolutely pledges
us every one of them.”

“Can you rely on his word?” said Mr. Boulder.

“I think he means to play fair with us,” answered Mr. Fyshe. “I put it
to him as a matter of honour, between man and man, a week ago. Since
then, I have had him carefully dictaphoned and I’m convinced he’s
playing straight.”

“How far will he go with us?” said Mr. Boulder.

“He is willing to throw overboard Gorfinkel, Schwefeldampf and
Undercutt. He says he must find a place for O’Hooligan. The Irish, he
says, don’t care for clean government; they want Irish Government.”

“I see,” said Mr. Boulder very thoughtfully, “and in regard to the
renewal of the franchise and the expropriation, tell me just exactly
what his conditions are.”

But Mr. Fyshe’s answer to this was said so discreetly and in such a low
voice, that not even the birds listening in the elm trees outside the
Mausoleum Club could hear it.

No wonder, then, that if even the birds failed to know everything about
the Clean Government League, there were many things which such good
people as Mr. Newberry and Mr. Peter Spillikins never heard at all and
never guessed.

* * * * *

Each week and every day brought fresh triumphs to the onward march of
the movement.

“Yes, gentlemen,” said Mr. Fyshe to the assembled committee of the
Clean Government League a few days later, “I am glad to be able to
report our first victory. Mr. Boulder and I have visited the state
capital and we are able to tell you definitely that the legislature
will consent to change our form of government so as to replace our
council by a Board.”

“Hear, hear!” cried all the committee men together.

“We saw the governor,” said Mr. Fyshe. “Indeed he was good enough to
lunch with us at the Pocahontas Club. He tells us that what we are
doing is being done in every city and town of the state. He says that
the days of the old-fashioned city council are numbered. They are
setting up boards everywhere.”

“Excellent!” said Mr. Newberry.

“The governor assures us that what we want will be done. The chairman
of the Democratic State Committee (he was good enough to dine with us
at the Buchanan Club) has given us the same assurance. So also does the
chairman of the Republican State Committee, who was kind enough to be
our guest in a box at the Lincoln Theatre. It is most gratifying,”
concluded Mr. Fyshe, “to feel that the legislature will give us such a
hearty, such a thoroughly American support.”

“You are sure of this, are you?” questioned Mr. Newberry. “You have
actually seen the members of the legislature?”

“It was not necessary,” said Mr. Fyshe. “The governor and the different
chairmen have them so well fixed–that is to say, they have such
confidence in the governor and their political organizers that they
will all be prepared to give us what I have described as thoroughly
American support.”

“You are quite sure,” persisted Mr. Newberry, “about the governor and
the others you mentioned?”

Mr. Fyshe paused a moment and then he said very quietly, “We are quite
sure,” and he exchanged a look with Mr. Boulder that meant volumes to
those who would read it.

* * * * *

“I hope you didn’t mind my questioning you in that fashion,” said Mr.
Newberry, as he and Mr. Fyshe strolled home from the club. “The truth
is I didn’t feel sure in my own mind just what was meant by a ‘Board,’
and ‘getting them to give us government by a Board.’ I know I’m
speaking like an ignoramus. I’ve really not paid as much attention in
the past to civic politics as I ought to have. But what is the
difference between a council and a board?”

“The difference between a council and a board?” repeated Mr. Fyshe.

“Yes,” said Mr. Newberry, “the difference between a council and a
board.”

“Or call it,” said Mr. Fyshe reflectively, “the difference between a
board and a council.”

“Precisely,” said Mr Newberry.

“It’s not altogether easy to explain,” said Mr. Fyshe. “One chief
difference is that in the case of a board, sometimes called a
Commission, the salary is higher. You see the salary of an alderman or
councillor in most cities is generally not more than fifteen hundred or
two thousand dollars. The salary of a member of a board or commission
is at least ten thousand. That gives you at once a very different class
of men. As long as you only pay fifteen hundred you get your council
filled up with men who will do any kind of crooked work for fifteen
hundred dollars; as soon as you pay ten thousand you get men with
larger ideas.”

“I see,” said Mr. Newberry.

“If you have a fifteen hundred dollar man,” Mr. Fyshe went on, “you can
bribe him at any time with a fifty-dollar bill. On the other hand your
ten-thousand-dollar man has a wider outlook. If you offer him fifty
dollars for his vote on the board, he’d probably laugh at you.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Newberry, “I see the idea. A fifteen-hundred-dollar
salary is so low that it will tempt a lot of men into office merely for
what they can get out of it.”

“That’s it exactly,” answered Mr. Fyshe.

* * * * *

From all sides support came to the new league. The women of the
city–there were fifty thousand of them on the municipal voters
list–were not behind the men. Though not officials of the league they
rallied to its cause.

“Mr. Fyshe,” said Mrs. Buncomhearst, who called at the office of the
president of the league with offers of support, “tell me what we can
do. I represent fifty thousand women voters of this city–”

(This was a favourite phrase of Mrs. Buncomhearst’s, though it had
never been made quite clear how or why she represented them.)

“We want to help, we women. You know we’ve any amount of initiative, if
you’ll only tell us what to do. You know, Mr. Fyshe, we’ve just as good
executive ability as you men, if you’ll just tell us what to do.
Couldn’t we hold a meeting of our own, all our own, to help the league
along?”

“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Fyshe.

“And could you not get three or four men to come and address it so as
to stir us up?” asked Mrs. Buncomhearst anxiously.

“Oh, certainly,” said Mr. Fyshe.

So it was known after this that the women were working side by side
with the men. The tea rooms of the Grand Palaver and the other hotels
were filled with them every day, busy for the cause. One of them even
invented a perfectly charming election scarf to be worn as a sort of
badge to show one’s allegiance; and its great merit was that it was so
fashioned that it would go with anything.

“Yes,” said Mr. Fyshe to his committee, “one of the finest signs of our
movement is that the women of the city are with us. Whatever we may
think, gentlemen, of the question of woman’s rights in general–and I
think we know what we _do_ think–there is no doubt that the influence
of women makes for purity in civic politics. I am glad to inform the
committee that Mrs. Buncomhearst and her friends have organized all the
working women of the city who have votes. They tell me that they have
been able to do this at a cost as low as five dollars per woman. Some
of the women–foreigners of the lower classes whose sense of political
morality is as yet imperfectly developed–have been organized at a cost
as low as one dollar per vote. But of course with our native American
women, with a higher standard of education and morality, we can hardly
expect to do it as low as that.”

* * * * *

Nor were the women the only element of support added to the league.

“Gentlemen,” reported Dr. Boomer, the president of the university, at
the next committee meeting, “I am glad to say that the spirit which
animates us has spread to the students of the university. They have
organized, entirely by themselves and on their own account, a Students’
Fair Play League which has commenced its activities. I understand that
they have already ducked Alderman Gorfinkel in a pond near the
university. I believe they are looking for Alderman Schwefeldampf
tonight. I understand they propose to throw him into the reservoir. The
leaders of them–a splendid set of young fellows–have given me a
pledge that they will do nothing to bring discredit on the university.”

“I think I heard them on the street last night,” said Mr. Newberry.

“I believe they had a procession,” said the president.

“Yes, I heard them; they were shouting ‘Rah! rah! rah! Clean
Government! Clean Government! Rah! rah!’ It was really inspiring to
hear them.”

“Yes,” said the president, “they are banded together to put down all
the hoodlumism and disturbance on the street that has hitherto
disgraced our municipal elections. Last night, as a demonstration, they
upset two streetcars and a milk wagon.”

“I heard that two of them were arrested,” said Mr. Dick Overend.

“Only by an error,” said the president. “There was a mistake. It was
not known that they were students. The two who were arrested were
smashing the windows of the car, after it was upset, with their hockey
sticks. A squad of police mistook them for rioters. As soon as they
were taken to the police station, the mistake was cleared up at once.
The chief-of-police telephoned an apology to the university. I believe
the league is out again tonight looking for Alderman Schwefeldampf. But
the leaders assure me there will be no breach of the peace whatever. As
I say, I think their idea is to throw him into the reservoir.”

In the face of such efforts as these, opposition itself melted rapidly
away. The _Plutorian Times_ was soon able to announce that various
undesirable candidates were abandoning the field. “Alderman Gorfinkel,”
it said, “who, it will be recalled, was thrown into a pond last week by
the students of the college, was still confined to his bed when
interviewed by our representative. Mr. Gorfinkel stated that he should
not offer himself as a candidate in the approaching election. He was,
he said, weary of civic honours. He had had enough. He felt it
incumbent on him to step out and make way for others who deserved their
turn as well as himself: in future he proposed to confine his whole
attention to his Misfit Semi-Ready Establishment which he was happy to
state was offering as nobby a line of early fall suiting as was ever
seen at the price.”

* * * * *

There is no need to recount here in detail the glorious triumph of the
election day itself. It will always be remembered as the purest,
cleanest election ever held in the precincts of the city. The citizens’
organization turned out in overwhelming force to guarantee that it
should be so. Bands of Dr. Boomer’s students, armed with baseball bats,
surrounded the polls to guarantee fair play. Any man wishing to cast an
unclean vote was driven from the booth: all those attempting to
introduce any element of brute force or rowdyism into the election were
cracked over the head. In the lower part of the town scores of willing
workers, recruited often from the humblest classes, kept order with
pickaxes. In every part of the city motor cars, supplied by all the
leading businessmen, lawyers, and doctors of the city, acted as patrols
to see that no unfair use should be made of other vehicles in carrying
voters to the polls.

It was a foregone victory from the first–overwhelming and complete.
The cohorts of darkness were so completely routed that it was
practically impossible to find them. As it fell dusk the streets were
filled with roaring and surging crowds celebrating the great victory
for clean government, while in front of every newspaper office huge
lantern pictures of _Mayor McGrath the Champion of Pure Government_,
and _O. Skinyer, the People’s Solicitor_, and the other nominees of the
league, called forth cheer after cheer of frenzied enthusiasm.

* * * * *

They held that night in celebration a great reception at the Mausoleum
Club on Plutoria Avenue, given at its own suggestion by the city. The
city, indeed, insisted on it.

Nor was there ever witnessed even in that home of art and refinement a
scene of greater charm. In the spacious corridor of the club a
Hungarian band wafted Viennese music from Tyrolese flutes through the
rubber trees. There was champagne bubbling at a score of sideboards
where noiseless waiters poured it into goblets as broad and flat as
floating water-lily leaves. And through it all moved the shepherds and
shepherdesses of that beautiful Arcadia–the shepherds in their Tuxedo
jackets, with vast white shirt-fronts broad as the map of Africa, with
spotless white waistcoats girdling their equators, wearing heavy gold
watch-chains and little patent shoes blacker than sin itself–and the
shepherdesses in foaming billows of silks of every colour of the
kaleidoscope, their hair bound with glittering headbands or coiled with
white feathers, the very symbol of municipal purity. One would search
in vain the pages of pastoral literature to find the equal of it.

And as they talked, the good news spread from group to group that it
was already known that the new franchise of the Citizens’ Light was to
be made for two centuries so as to give the company a fair chance to
see what it could do. At the word of it, the grave faces of manly
bondholders flushed with pride, and the soft eyes of listening
shareholders laughed back in joy. For they had no doubt or fear, now
that clean government had come. They knew what the company could do.

Thus all night long, outside of the club, the soft note of the motor
horns arriving and departing wakened the sleeping leaves of the elm
trees with their message of good tidings. And all night long, within
its lighted corridors, the bubbling champagne whispered to the
listening rubber trees of the new salvation of the city. So the night
waxed and waned till the slow day broke, dimming with its cheap prosaic
glare the shaded beauty of the artificial light, and the people of the
city–the best of them–drove home to their well-earned sleep; and the
others–in the lower parts of the city–rose to their daily toil.

END

Humor Seminar: Mr. Punch With the Children

coolhq — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:54:59 +0000

[Illustration]

WITH THE CHILDREN

PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself,
the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of
comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to “Punch,”
from its beginning in 1841 to the present day.

MR. PUNCH WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MUCH ADO.--"Mamma-a-a! Boo-hoo! We's crying! Tum up
'tairs an' see what's de matter wiv us!"]

MR. PUNCH WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

AS PICTURED BY

PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER, CHARLES KEENE,
JOHN LEECH, GORDON BROWNE, L. RAVEN-HILL,
CHARLES PEARS, LEWIS BAUMER, DAVID WILSON, TOM
BROWNE, J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE, C. E. BROCK, TOM
WILKINSON, HILDA COWHAM, AND OTHER HUMORISTS

_IN 175 ILLUSTRATIONS_

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH
THE PROPRIETORS OF “PUNCH”

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

* * * * *

THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_

LIFE IN LONDON
COUNTRY LIFE
IN THE HIGHLANDS
SCOTTISH HUMOUR
IRISH HUMOUR
COCKNEY HUMOUR
IN SOCIETY
AFTER DINNER STORIES
IN BOHEMIA
AT THE PLAY
MR. PUNCH AT HOME
ON THE CONTINONG
RAILWAY BOOK
AT THE SEASIDE
MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
IN THE HUNTING FIELD
MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
WITH ROD AND GUN
MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
BOOK OF SPORTS
GOLF STORIES
IN WIG AND GOWN
ON THE WARPATH
BOOK OF LOVE
WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

* * * * *

EDITOR’S NOTE

[Illustration]

In the order of our Library “Mr. Punch with the Children” comes last,
yet, so continual and sincere has been the interest of the breezy little
man in the children, we might well have placed this volume first. The
_Punch_ pictures, stories and jests that are concerned with the young
folk are almost inexhaustible. The present collection, though containing
the cream of them, comes very far indeed from reproducing them all, or
even fifty per cent. For every notable artist and writer who has been
much associated with _Punch_ since 1841 has had something to say or to
illustrate of the humours of child life. If genius be the power to be a
child again at will, we can understand this abiding interest in the
doings of the children. MR. PUNCH himself resembles Peter Pan, for he
has never grown up. The years roll by, but the jolly little hunchback
remains as young as ever.

The variety of individuality in the children, to whom we are here
introduced, is noteworthy. In the days of Leech, downright impudence
seems to have been a characteristic of the young; to-day it would seem
children are better mannered, even if the _enfant terrible_ is still
thriving and likely to do so. There are nice children here, and naughty
ones; clever and dull children; pretty and ugly children–the
mischievous are chiefly memories of last generation! Phil May’s children
are all clearly of the “gutter snipe” order, in which he delighted, full
of character and a somewhat pathetic humour; but how clean and sweet and
lovable are Du Maurier’s or Mr. Lewis Baumer’s! Mr. Raven-Hill seems to
be attracted somewhat in the same direction as Phil May; but all are
interesting, and their sayings and doings are eminently worthy to be
thus permanently gathered into one volume.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Boy (_looking forward to a party in the evening_). "Oh,
mummy, baby _is_ naughty! He has taken two things off the calendar, and
made it to-morrow!"]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration: A STUDY IN EXPRESSION]

A SERIOUS MATTER.–_Grandfather_ (_to Miss Pansy, who is
somewhat flushed and excited_). What’s the matter, my pet?

_Miss Pansy_ (_aged eight_). Oh, grandpa, me and my kitten have been
having the most awful row. We’ve often quarrelled before and made it up
again, but this time we’re not on speaking terms.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Bobbie_ (_dictating letter to his sister, whom he has
"squared" into writing for him_). "Dear Miss Brown, please xcuse Bobbie
for not bean at school sinse Tewsday has he as add twothake on Tewsday
and on Wednesday he broke is harm and he ad to go to a party yesterday
afternoon. If he does not come to-morrow it will be because a boy thrue
a stoan at is i.--Yours trooly, Bobbie's mother."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PRESENCE OF MIND.--_Little Girl_ (_who has been disturbed
by a mouse, in a stage-whisper to her sleeping sister_). "Wake up! Oh,
wake up and mew, Amy; mew for your life!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNIMAGINATIVE

_Auntie._ "Do you see the hair in this old brooch, Cyril? It was your
great-grandfather's."

_Cyril._ "I say, Auntie, he didn't have much!"]

* * * * *

_Auntie._ Well, Effie, did you enjoy your party last night?

_Effie._ Very much, thank you, auntie.

_Auntie._ And I suppose mamma was there to look after you?

_Effie._ Oh no! Mamma and I _don’t belong_ to the same set!

* * * * *

[Illustration: NICE NEPHEW!

_Tommy._ "Talking of riddles, Uncle, do you know the difference between
an apple and a elephant?"

_Uncle_ (_benignly_). "No, my lad, I don't."

_Tommy._ "You'd be a smart chap to send out to buy apples, wouldn't
you?"]

* * * * *

A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE.–”Now go to school, and be a good boy. And mind
you don’t use any rude words!”

“Rude words! _Tell_ me a few, mummy, and then I shall _know_, you know!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: A "CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR"

_Governess._ "Now, just one more subtraction sum----"

_Dolly._ "Oh, Miss Crawford, I don't fink mummie would let me do any
more of _those_ sums, 'cause in them you borrow _ten_ and pay back only
_one_, and that's cheating!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A GREAT AMBITION

_Little Girl_ (_watching her mother fixing hatpins through her hat_).
"When will _I_ be old enough, mummy, to have holes made in _my_ head to
keep my hat on?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: REHEARSAL FOR PRIVATE THEATRICALS ON BOXING-DAY.--_Master
Brown_ (_leading tragedian, who has been studying a fearful
blood-curdling old melodrama, entering suddenly)_. "Here are the
letters. Two million pounds is the price of my silence!"]

* * * * *

WALKING HOME FROM THE PANTOMIME.–_Little Chris_ (_who usually goes to
bed very early_). Mamma, have all the angels been to Drury Lane
to-night?

_Mamma._ No, darling? Why?

_Little Chris_ (_pointing to the stars_). ‘Cause they’ve kept the lamps
up there lighted so late.

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR CHRISTMAS TEA.--_Unregenerate Youth._ "Pass the seedy
caike!" _Vicar's Daughter._ "If----? If----?" _Unregenerate Youth._ "If
'e don't I'll shove 'im in the faice!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE PROBLEM.

_Samuel._ "Muvver, does a hen lay an egg when it _likes_ or _must_ it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A GRAND-DAUGHTER OF EVE.--_Mamma_ (_to Molly, who has
scratched and bitten her French nurse, and who won't be sorry for her
behaviour_). "Oh, Molly, don't you know who it is puts such wicked
thoughts into your head?" _Molly._ "Ah, yes, the _scratching_! But to
_bite_ Félicie was quite my own idea!"]

* * * * *

ROGUES FALLING OUT.–_Mamma._ What is baby crying for, Maggie?

_Maggie._ I don’t know.

_Mamma._ And what are _you_ looking so ‘ndignant about?

_Maggie._ That nasty, greedy dog’s been and took and eaten my
‘punge-take!

_Mamma._ Why, I saw you eating a sponge-cake a minute ago!

_Maggie._ O–that was baby’s!

* * * * *

A SCIENTIFIC NURSERY DEFINITION.–_Little Algy Muffin._ What’s the
meaning of bric-à-brac, that mamma was talking about to Colonel Crumpet?

_Little Chris Crumpet._ Those things we mustn’t play bricks with, a-fear
we’ll break them.

* * * * *

POETRY FOR SCHOOLBOYS.–Little Tommy Tender, who received a flogging the
week before his holidays, says his feelings were the contrary of those
felt by the poet, when he penned the touching line–

“My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: LOGICAL.--_Little Bobby_ (_whose mamma is very
particular, and is always telling him to wash his face and hands_).
"Mummy dear! I do wish I was a little black boy." _Mamma._ "My dear
Bobby, you generally are." _Little Bobby._ "Oh, I mean _really_ black.
_Then_ you wouldn't see when I was dirty."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EVERYTHING CAN BE EXPLAINED

_Cissie_ (_who has never seen an Archdeacon before_). "Dick, that old
clergyman has got gaiters on. What does it mean when a clergyman wears
gaiters?"

_Dick_ (_who knows everything_). "Oh, it means that he belongs to the
cyclist corps!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WHAT MAISIE KNEW"

_Kind Aunt._ "You needn't be afraid of my little pug, Maisie. He won't
bite you."

_Maisie._ "No, auntie. But he might kick!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration:

_Bobby._ "Do you know what daddy calls you, Mr. Tovey?"

_Mr. Tovey._ "No Bobby. What is it?"

_Bobby._ "He calls you Port Arthur, 'cause you take so long to
surrender!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Little Girl_ (_to mother, who has just read notice_). "I
suppose, mother, it doesn't mention _which_ half of the poor thing we
are to look for?"]

* * * * *

JUVENILE GEOGRAPHY.–_Governess._ The earth moves round the sun … it
takes a whole year to complete the round … and this accounts for the
four seasons. What are the four seasons of the year, Phyllis?

_Phyllis_ (_aged_ five). This year, next year, sometime, never.

* * * * *

“IT’S A WISE CHILD THAT KNOWS ITS OWN FATHER.”–_Grace._ Harold, why did
pa call that Mr. Blowhard a liar?

_Harold._ ‘Cos he’s smaller than pa!

* * * * *

A LITTLE LEARNING.–_Teacher._ And who was Joan of Arc?

_Scholar._ Please, sir, Noah’s wife.

* * * * *

A LITTLE STEPMOTHER.–_Uncle._ Hullo! Dot, got a new doll?

_Little Miss Dot._ Hush, uncle, don’t speak too loud. She is not one of
my own, but belonged to Millie Simpson, who was cruel to her and
‘bandoned her, so I have ‘dopted her; but I don’t want her to know,
because I mean to make no difference between her and my own dollies.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A POSER

_Katie_ (_in consternation_). "Oh, mother, how _will_ Santa Claus do
about that poor man's stockings?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RETURN INVITATION.--"Please, Mrs. Subbubs, mamma says
she'll be glad if you'll come to tea on Monday." "With pleasure, Bessie.
Tell your mother it's really too kind----" "Oh, no! mamma says she'll be
glad when it's over."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Did our hat-rack walk about and have only two pegs,
once, auntie?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: STABLE TALK.--_The General._ "That's a funny sort of
horse you've got there, Cuthbert." _Cuthbert._ "Yes, gran'pa. You see
he's been 'eating his head off' all the winter!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Severe Mother._ "You naughty boy! How dare you tell such
stories? Aren't you ashamed of yourself for being a little liar?"
_Injured Son._ "Well, mother, 't ain't my fault. Father gave me a awful
thrashing the other day for having spoken the truth." _Mother._ "What
_do_ you mean?" _Son._ "Why, when I told you that father had come home
quite drunk the night before!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "IN STRANGE ATTIRE"

"Nurse! Nurse! Bobby's out of bed, and running about in his _bananas_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PROOF

"You won't go in that dark room alone by yourself, Tommy."

"Oh! won't I? You just _come with me_, and see me do it!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: INCONTROVERTIBLE

"And how _old_ are you, my little man?" "I'm not old at all. I'm nearly
_new_!"]

* * * * *

THE FORCE OF CLASSIC TEACHING.–_Master._ Now, boys, what is Hexham
famous for?

_Binks Minor._ Making the hexameter, sir.

[_Waits afterwards._

* * * * *

PROVERBS REVISED.--"_One is better than two._" _Mother._ You are a very
naughty little girl!

_Little Girl_ (_after some thought_). Aren't you glad I wasn't twins,
mummy?

* * * * *

[Illustration: MISUNDERSTOOD

_Mild Old Gentleman rescues a bun which child has dropped in the mud._

_Child_ (_all aglow with righteous indignation_). "That's _my_ bun!"]

* * * * *

TRUE SENTIMENT.–”I’m writing to Mrs. Montague, Georgie–that pretty
lady you used to take to see your pigs. Haven’t you some nice message to
send her?”

“Yes, mummie; give her my love, and say I never look at a little black
pig now without thinking of _her_!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Chemist._ "Pills, eh?" (_Emphasising question_)
"Anti-bilious?"

_Child_ (_readily_). "No, sir; uncle is!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother._ "Now, dear, why don't you run away and give
grandpa a kiss?" _Child_ (_somewhat nonplussed by grandpapa's moustache
and beard_). "I don't see any place for it, mamma!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE," &c.--_Ethel._ "Mummy dear, why did
you tell Richard you 'weren't at home' just now?" (_Pause._) "Mummy, I
mean----" _Mamma._ "When Sir Fusby Dodderidge called? Why, Ethel dear,
because he bores me." _Ethel._ "Oh!" (_After thoughtfully considering
the matter with regard to her governess_). "Then may I say I'm not at
home when Miss Krux calls to-morrow? for _she_ bores _me_ awfully?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AT THE RINK.--_Little Girl._ "Oh, Captain Sprawler, _do_
put on your skates, and show me the funny figures you can make."

_Captain S._ "My dear child, I'm only a beginner. I can't make any
figures." _Little Girl._ "But Mabel said you were skating yesterday, and
cut a _ridiculous_ figure!"]

* * * * *

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE.–_Daisy_ (_who has been studying
Chrysanthemums_).–Maisy, do you know what’s a _Double Begonia_?

_Maisy_ (_who has been studying the Classics_).–”Double Big-onia”? Yes!
Of course, it’s the plural of one big onion.

* * * * *

MAIDENLY ETIQUETTE.–_Little Chris_ (_ætat eight_). I’ve a birthday
party on Thursday, Evie. I should like you to come.

_Little Evie_ (_ætat nine_). I should love to, dear.

_Little Chris._ But I couldn’t, you know, unless you asked me to tea
first.

* * * * *

IN THE LIBRARY.–_Tommy._ How beautifully those books is binded!

_Little Dot._ No, Tommy, that’s wrong. You mustn’t say “binded”; you
should say, “are bounded.”

* * * * *

SUPERLATIVE ASSURANCE.–_Papa_ (To Little Chris). I can’t quite
understand you. Was it Mr. Jones, or Mr. David Jones, or Mr. Griffith
Jones, whom you met?

_Little Chris_ (_stoutly_). All I know is, it was the _third eldest_ Mr.
Jones.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mabel_ (_stroking kitten, a new present_). "Mother,
kitty's so hot! Ought she to sit so near the fire?" (_Kitten purrs._)
"Oh, mother, listen! She's beginning to boil!"]

* * * * *

A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY.–_Aunt Maria._ What a good little boy to leave
your little friends to come with a poor old auntie like me.

_Master Douglas._ Oh, mother always _makes_ us do nasty things and
things we don’t like.

* * * * *

MASTER TOMMY’S RECEIPTS.–(_The Fair Weather Barometer._) This is a
pleasing and simple experiment. The mercury is removed, and divided in
equal portions between the cat, the parrot next door, and the interior
of grandpapa’s forty-guinea repeater. This may cause some local
disturbance, but the barometer, relieved of undue pressure, and set at
“very dry,” may be relied on to indicate, without further attention,
permanent fair weather.

* * * * *

AT THE BOARD SCHOOL.–_Inspector._ Now, can any of you children state
what is likely to be the future of China?

_One Maiden_ (_after a pause_). Please sir, father says that China’s
like him.

_Inspector._ Like him! What do you mean?

_The Maiden._ Sure to be broken by the force of circumstances.

[_Class dismissed immediately._

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN INNOCENT HINT

_Auntie._ "What is Nellie's nose for?"

_Nellie_ (_doubtfully_). "To smell with."

_Auntie._ "And what is Nellie's mouth for?"

_Nellie_ (_cautiously_). "To eat with."

_Auntie._ "And what are Nellie's ears for?"

_Nellie_ (_confidently_). "Ear-rings."]

* * * * *

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE!–_Miss Tomboy._ Mamma, I think those French women
were beastly rude.

_Mother._ You mustn’t speak like that of those ladies, it’s very wrong.
And how often have I told you not to say “beastly”?

_Miss Tomboy._ Well, they _were_ rude. They called me a little cabbage
(_mon petit chou_). The next time they do that I shall call them old
French beans.

* * * * *

SOLILOQUY.–”I should like that engine. Can’t afford it myself. They
won’t buy it for me at home–too soon after Christmas. Must go in and
ask the girl to put it aside for me till next time I have the croup or
something; then mother’ll buy it me!”

* * * * *

“TOO CLEVER BY HALF”

Tommy and Johnnie were boys at school,
Tommy was clever, but Johnnie a fool;
Tommy at lessons was sharp and bright,
Johnnie could never do anything right.
Genius often is known to fail;
Tommy turned forger, and went to jail.
Johnnie, though slow as he well could be,
Plodded away and became M.P.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "CONSERVATION OF TISSUE."--_Uncle._ "Well, Tommy, you see
I'm back; are you ready? What have I to pay for, miss?"

_Miss._ "Three buns, four sponge cakes, two sandwiches, one jelly, five
tarts, and----" _Uncle._ "Good gracious, boy! Are you not ill?" _Tommy._
"No, uncle; but I'm thirsty."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Benevolent Old Gentleman._ "Now then, little boy. What
do you mean by bullying that little girl? Don't you know it's very
cruel?"

_Rude Little Boy._ "Garn! wot's the trouble? _She's my Sweetheart!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Grandpapa._ "Well little lady, will you give me a lock
of that pretty hair of yours?" _Marjory._ "Yes, granpa';
but"--(_hesitating_)--"I don't fink _one_ lock would be enough, would
it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "DADDY'S WAISTCOAT"

(_Sketched from Life in Drury Lane._)]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A STORY WITHOUT WORDS]

* * * * *

THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE.–_Mother._ Oh, Dicky, what terrible things you
do keep in your pockets! Fancy, a dead crab!

_Dicky._ Well, mother, it wasn’t dead when I put it there!

* * * * *

HAPPY THOUGHT.–”Why, my boy, you’ve spelt window without an _N_! Don’t
you know the difference between a _window_ and a _widow_?”

“Yes, sir. You can see through _one_–and–and–you can’t see through
the _other_, sir!”

* * * * *

THE YOUNG IDEA AGAIN.–(SCENE–_Fourth-standard room of an elementary
school. Children reading._) _Inspector_ (_to the Teacher_). What are
they reading about?

_Teacher._ American Indians.

_Inspector._ I will ask them a few questions. (_To children._) What is a
Red Indian’s wife called? (_Many hands up_). Tell me.

_Scholar._ A squaw, sir.

_Inspector._ What is a Red Indian’s baby called? (_Silence. At last a
boy volunteers._) Well, my boy?

_Boy._ Please, sir, a squaker!

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CAUTION TO LITTLE BOYS AT THIS FESTIVE SEASON

_Mamma._ "Why, my dearest Albert, what are you crying for?--so good,
too, as you have been all day!"

_Spoiled Little Boy._ "Boo-hoo! I've eaten so--m-much be-eef and
t-turkey, that I can't eat any p-p-plum p-p-pudding!"

[_Oh, what a very greedy little fellow._]

* * * * *

A MODERN PARIS.–_Schoolmaster._ Now, boys, supposing that the goddesses
Diana, Venus, and Juno were to appear before you, what would you do with
this apple?

_Brown Minimus._ Please sir, I’d eat it before they asked for it?

* * * * *

A POINT UNSETTLED IN HISTORY.–_Lucy_ (_to her elder sister who has just
been relating a thrilling episode in the life of William Tell_). And was
the little boy allowed to _eat_ the apple afterwards?

* * * * *

MASTER TOMMY’S RECEIPTS.–(_Household ginger beer._)–Empty the kitchen
spice-box, two pounds of washing soda, a pint of petroleum, and all the
wine left in the dining-room decanters over night, into the cistern, and
stir freely in the dark with a mop from the staircase window. When the
water comes in in the morning, the whole household will be supplied from
every tap for four-and-twenty hours with capital ginger beer.

* * * * *

IN DISTRESS.–Mummy! Mummy! Come back! I’m frightened. Here’s a horrid
dog _staring at me with his teeth_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Child_ (_in berth of night steamer_). "Mummy, I'm so
sleepy. I want to go to bed." _Mother._ "But you _are_ in bed dear."
_Child._ "No, I'm not. I'm in a chest of drawers!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FORCE OF EXAMPLE.--(_This is the second time that
Madge has pricked her finger--the first time it bled so much that mamma
felt quite faint, and had to drink a glass of sherry; now it's Jack's
turn_). _Mamma._ "Well, what's the matter with _you_, Jack?" _Jack._
"Oh! I feel rather _faint_, that's all. _Is there such a thing as a bun
in the house?_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FESTIVE SEASON.--_Tommy_ (_criticising the menu of
the coming feast_). "Very good! Tray bong! And look here, old man! Mind
you put plenty of rum into the _baba_--Dolly and Molly like it, you
know--and so do I!" _Monsieur Cordonbleu_ (_retained for the occasion_).
"Certainement, mon p'tit ami! But are you and ces demoiselles going to
dine viz de compagnie?" _Tommy._ "Oh nong! But just ain't we going to
sit on the stairs outside, that's all!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AT THE ZOO.--_Little Girl_ (_after seeing many queer
beasts_). "But there aren't _really_ such animals, nurse, are there?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AT THE CHRISTMAS PARTY.--_Uncle George._ "Don't over-eat
yourself, Jimmy, my boy. I never did when I was your age." _Jimmy_
(_sotto voce_). "When did you begin, then?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN EARLY PURITAN

_Bobby_ (_who sees his mamma in evening dress for the first time, and
doesn't like it_). "I'll write and tell papa!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Gertie._ "Oh, Mr. Brown, papa says that Mrs. Brown leads
you by the nose. Is that why it's so long?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AT A CHRISTMAS JUVENILE PARTY.--_Aunt Florence._ "I will
find you a partner, Ethel, dear. Between ourselves, now, have you any
choice?" _Miss Ethel._ "Well, auntie, I should prefer one with a
_moustache_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CRY FROM THE HEART.--_Little Dunce_ (_looking up
suddenly from her history book_). "Oh, mummy, darling, I _do_ so wish
I'd lived under James the Second!" _Mamma._ "Why?" _Little Dunce._
"Because I see here that education was very much neglected in his
reign!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A BIG PILL.--"What is it, my pet?" "Oh, mum--mummy--I
dreamt I'd sw-swallowed myself. Have I?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Hostess._ "What would you like to eat, Effie?" _Effie._
"Cake." _Mother_ (_reprovingly_). "Effie! Effie! What is the word you've
forgotten? Pl----" _Effie._ "Pl--um!"]

* * * * *

OVERHEARD AT THE ZOO.–(_A fact._)–_Small child_ (_pointing to the
hippopotamus_). Oh, mother, look at that big frog going to have a bath!

_Better-informed parent._ That isn’t a frog, yer silly. It’s a
crocydile!

* * * * *

INFANT AGONIES.–_Small boy._ Auntie! Auntie! Has goosegogs got legs?

_Auntie._ No!

_Small boy._ Boo-hoo-hoo! then I’ve been and swollered–a beastie!

* * * * *

INADEQUATE HOSPITALITY.–”Well, Guy, did you enjoy the party?”

“Yes, mummy; but I’m _so_ hungry. There was only a _now and then_ tea,
you know; with no chairs, and no grace!”

* * * * *

NATURE’S LOGIC.–_Papa._ How is it, Alice, that _you_ never get a prize
at school?

_Mamma._ And that your friend, Louisa Sharp, gets so many?

_Alice_ (_innocently_). Ah! Louisa Sharp has got such clever parents!

* * * * *

[Illustration: "FIAT EXPERIMENTUM," &c.--Scene--_A Christmas family
gathering at a country house. Old Bachelor Guest_ (_violently awakened
out of his morning snooze._) "Who'sh there?" _The Grandchildren_
(_shouting in chorus, and banging at his door_). "Oh, Mr.
Bulkley--please--Mr. Bulkley--do get up--and go on the pond--'pa
says--'cause--gran'ma says--we may--if it'll bear you--it'll bear us!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY

_Ada._ "What horrid things _black-beetles_ are, Miss Grimm! The kitchen
is full of them!"

_The Governess._ "I agree with you, Ada! But as they are not _beetles_,
and not _black_, perhaps you will call them _cock-roaches_ for the
future!"

_Ada._ "Certainly, Miss Grimm; although they are not _roaches_, and not
_cocks_!"]

* * * * *

A CONSCIENTIOUS CHILD.–”Is your cold better this morning, darling?”

“I don’t know. I forgot to ask nursey!”

* * * * *

_Tommy._ I can strike a match on _my_ trousers, like Uncle Bob. Can
_you_, auntie?

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother._ "You must put your dolls away to-day. It's
Sunday."

_Little Girl._ "Oh, but, mother, that's all right. We're playing at
Sunday school!"]

* * * * *

CONFUSED ASSOCIATIONS.–”And where did these Druids live, Tommy?”

“They lived in groves of oak.”

“And in what particular ceremony were they engaged once a year?”

“Er–let me see–Oh! in kissing under the mistletoe!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Grandmamma._ "And how did it happen, dear?"

_Master Tom._ "It didn't happen. Ma did it on purpose!"]

* * * * *

MASTER TOMMY’S RECEIPTS.–(_To cure a smoky chimney._) Get out on to the
roof of the house with a good-sized feather bolster and
eighteen-pennyworth of putty. Insert the bolster longways into the
chimney, taking care to plaster it all round tightly with the putty. Now
sit on it. The chimney will no longer smoke.

* * * * *

[Illustration: And it was only yesterday that grandpapa was complaining
to his little grandsons that he never got real winters like he used to
have, with plenty of skating and sliding. (N.B.--Butter-slides are very
effective.)]

* * * * *

THE EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES.–_Mamma._ How _dare_ you slap your sister,
George?

_George._ She kicked me when my back was turned, and hurted me very
much, I can tell you!

_Mamma._ Where did she hurt you?

_George._ Well, I can’t azactly say _where_, because–because my back
was turned, and I was looking another way!

* * * * *

PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE.–_Son and heir_ (_whose inquiring turn of mind is
occasionally a nuisance_). Say, ‘pa, what’s a v’cab’lary?

_Father._ A vocabulary, my boy–what d’you want to know that for?

_Son._ ‘Cause I heard ‘ma say she’d no idea what a tremenjous v’cab’lary
you’d got, till you missed the train on Saturday!

* * * * *

AT THE SUNDAY SCHOOL–_Teacher._ Now, Mary Brown, you understand what is
meant by baptism?

_Mary Brown._ Oh, _I_ know, teacher! It’s what Dr. Franklin did on
baby’s arm last Toosday!

* * * * *

[Illustration: A LITTLE CHRISTMAS DREAM.--Mr. L. Figuier, in the thesis
which precedes his interesting work on the world before the flood,
condemns the practice of awakening the youthful mind to admiration by
means of fables and fairy tales, and recommends, in lieu thereof, the
study of the natural history of the world in which we live. Fired by
this advice, we have tried the experiment on our eldest, an imaginative
boy of six. We have cut off his "Cinderella" and his "Puss in Boots,"
and introduced him to some of the more peaceful fauna of the preadamite
world, as they appear restored in Mr. Figuier's book. The poor boy has
not had a decent night's rest ever since!]

* * * * *

YOUNG, BUT PRACTICAL.–”What! Harry! not in bed yet, and it’s nine
o’clock! What will _papa_ say when he comes home?”

“Oh, papa! _He’ll_ say, ‘Supper! supper! What’s for supper?’”

* * * * *

A REALIST IN FICTION.–”I saw a rabbit run through that hedge!”

“No, dear. It was imagination!”

“Are ‘maginations white behind?”

* * * * *

IMPROVING THE SHINING HOUR.–_The new Governess._ What are the
comparative and superlative of _bad_, Berty?

_Berty_ (_the Doctor’s son_). Bad–worse–dead.

* * * * *

A CAPITAL CHOICE.–_Cousin Amy._ So you haven’t made up your mind yet
what _profession_ you’re going to be when you grow up, Bobby.

_Bobby._ Well, yes! I don’t exactly know what it’s called, you know, but
it’s living in the country, and keeping lots of horses and dogs, and all
that!

[_Bobby's papa is a curate, with £200 a year._

* * * * *

[Illustration: EARLY INGENUITY.

"Whatever _are_ you children doing?"

"Oh, we've found pa's false teeth, and we're trying to fit them on to
the baby, 'cos he hasn't got any!"]

* * * * *

THE SICK CHILD

BY THE HONOURABLE WILHELMINA SKEGGS

A weakness seizes on my mind–I would more pudding take;
But all in vain–I feel–I feel–my little head will ache.
Oh! that I might alone be left, to rest where now I am,
And finish with a piece of bread that pot of currant-jam.
I gaze upon the cake with tears, and wildly I deplore
That I must take a powder if I touch a morsel more,
Or oil of castor, smoothly bland, will offer’d be to me,
In wave pellucid, floating on a cup of milkless tea.
It may be so–I cannot tell–I yet may do without;
They need not know, when left alone, what I have been about.
I long to cut that potted beef–to taste that apple-pie;
I long–I long to eat some more, but have not strength to try.
I gasp for breath, and now I know I’ve eaten far too much;
Not one more crumb of all the feast before me can I touch!
Susan, oh! Susan ring the bell, and call for mother, dear.
My brain swims round–I feel it all–mother, your child is queer!

* * * * *

_Alix_ (_aged five, to parent who has been trying to inspire her with
loyal sentiments_). And was the Queen weally named after me?

* * * * *

[Illustration: A Toothsome Morsel.--

_Distracted Nurse._ "Gracious, children, what _are_ you doing?"

_Children._ "Oh, we've put the meat cover on grandpa's head to keep the
flies off him!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Drat the boy! What have you got that string tied on that
fowl's leg for?"

"'Tain't our fowl, muvver!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Snooks_ (_who fancies himself very much_). "What's she
crying for?"

_Arabella._ "It's all right, sir. She was frightened. When she saw _you_
she thought it was a _man_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BLASÉ

_Kitty_ (_reading a fairy tale_). "'Once upon a time there was a
frog----'"

_Mabel_ (_interrupting_). "I bet it's a princess! Go on!"]

* * * * *

PHYSICS.–”Now, George, before you go and play, are you quite sure you
know the lesson Professor Borax gave you to learn?”

“O, yes, mamma!”

“Well, now, what causes heat without light?”

“Pickles!”

* * * * *

_Mother._ Well, Dorothy, would you like your egg poached or boiled?

_Dorothy_ (_after weighing the question_). Which is the most, mother?

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION

_Small Boy._ "Look 'ere, Mawrd! I reckon the chap as keeps this shop
ain't bin to school lately; 'e spells '_'all_' with a _haitch_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "GETTING ON."

"Well, Tommy, how are you getting on at school?"

"First-rate. I ain't doing so well as some of the other boys, though I
can stand on my head; but I have to put my feet against the wall. I want
to do it without the wall at all!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: LAYING DOWN THE LAW.--

_Lady_ (_entertaining friend's little girl_). "Do you take sugar,
darling?"

_The Darling._ "Yes, please."

_Lady._ "How many lumps?"

_The Darling._ "Oh, about seven; and when I'm out to tea I start with
cake."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Tommy._ "I say, Elsie, if you like, I'll come and see
you every day while you are ill."]

* * * * *

“A SOFT ANSWER,” &c.–_Mamma_. You are very naughty children, and I am
extremely dis-satisfied with you all!

_Tommy._ That _is_ a pity, mamma! We’re all so thoroughly satisfied with
_you_, you know!

* * * * *

COMPREHENSIVE.–_Preceptor._ Now, can any of you tell me anything
remarkable in the life of Moses?

_Boy._ Yes, sir. He was the only man who broke all the commandments at
once!

* * * * *

[Illustration: A BARGAIN.

"I say, Bobby, just give us a shove with this 'ere parcel on to this
'ere truck, and next time yer runs me in, _I'll go quiet_!"]

* * * * *

LITTLE MISS LOGIC.–_Little Dot_ (_to Eminent Professor of Chemistry_).
Are you a chemist?

_Eminent Professor._ Yes, my dear.

_L. D._ Have you got a shop with lovely large, coloured bottles in the
window?

_E. P._ No, my dear; I don’t keep a shop.

_L. D._ Don’t you? Then I suppose you don’t sell Jones’s Jubilee Cough
Jujubes?

_E. P._ No, my dear, I certainly do not.

_L. D._ (_decidedly_). I don’t think I ought to talk to you any more.
You can’t be a respectable chemist.

_E. P._ Why not, my dear?

_L. D._ ‘Cos it says on the box, “Sold by all _respectable_ chemists.”

* * * * *

AT THE SCHOOL TREAT.–_Lady Helper_ (_to Small Boy_). Will you have some
more bread-and-butter?

_Small Boy._ No fear, when there’s kike about.

_Lady Helper_ (_trying to be kind_). Cake, certainly! Will you have plum
or seed?

_Small Boy._ Plum, in course. D’ye tike me for a canary?

* * * * *

[Illustration: A QUESTION OF HEREDITY

_Hal._ "Is there anything the matter with this egg, Martha?"

_Martha._ "Oh no, it's only a little cracked."

_Hal._ "Oh! Then would the chicken that came out of it be a little
mad?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NATURAL HISTORY.--"Oh, _look_, mummie! Now it's left off
raining, he's come out of his kennel!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SENSIBLE CHILD.--"Well, Jacky, and did you hang up your
stocking for Santa Claus to fill?"

"No. I hanged up muvver's!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Look what I've bought you for a Christmas box!"]

* * * * *

HAD HIM THERE.–_Uncle Jim._ Here’s half a mince pie for you, Tommy. I
need hardly remind a person of your classical culture that “_the half is
greater than the whole_!”

_Tommy._ Quite so, uncle. But, as I’m not very hungry, I’ll only take a
whole one.

* * * * *

AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE.–_The Major._ You’re a very nice fellow,
Tommy! Don’t most people tell you so?

_Tommy._ Yes, they does. And they often gives me something!

* * * * *

[Illustration: LOST, OR, LUCID INFORMATION

_Kind-hearted Old Gent._ "There, there, don't cry! What's your name and
where do you live!"

_Chorus._ "Boohoo! We'se Doolie's twins."]

* * * * *

“SANCTA SIMPLICITAS.”–”Auntie, ought Bertie Wilson to have _smiled_ so
often at me in church?”

“No, dear. Where was he sitting?”

“Behind me.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Philanthropic Old Lady_ (_to little boy caressing dog_).
"That is right, little boy, always be kind to animals."

_Little Boy._ "Yes, 'm. I'll have this tin can tied to his tail soon's
I've got him quiet."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Poor likkle doggie--hasn't got any fevvers on!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Master Tom._ "Wish I could catch a cold just before
Christmas."

_Effie._ "Why?"

_Master Tom._ "Well, ma's always sayin', 'feed a cold.' Wouldn't I?
_Just!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "_Please_, auntie, _may_ I have the fairy off the
Christmas tree--_if I don't ask you for it_?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Shocked Mother._ "Oh, Tommy! What have you been doing?"
_Tommy_ (_who has just returned from the first day of a preliminary
course at the village school_). "Fighting with Billy Brown."

_Mother._ "That horrid boy at the farm? Don't you _ever_ quarrel with
him again!"

_Tommy._ "I ain't likely to. He can _lick_ me!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RUDIMENTS OF ECONOMY

"May I _leave_ this piece of bread, nurse?"

"Certainly not, Miss May. It's dreadful wasteful! and the day may come
when you'll _want_ a piece of bread!"

"Then I'd better _keep_ this piece of bread till I _do_ want it, nurse.
Hadn't I?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BLUE FEVER.--_Visitor_ (_after a long discourse on the
virtues of temperance_). "I'm glad to see a little boy here wearing the
blue ribbon. That's a good little fellow. Persevere in your good----"

_Billie Groggins._ "Please, sir, I'm _Hoxford_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Oh! just ain't people proud what have got pairasoles."]

* * * * *

A DISCUSSION ON DIET.–_Little Chris_ (_to little Kate_.) Does your
governess get ill on mince pies?

_Little Kate._ I don’t know! Why?

_Little Chris._ ‘Cause mine does. At dinner to-day she said, “If you eat
any more of that pastry, I know you’ll be ill.” So she _must_ have been
so herself.

[_Conference broken up by arrival of the lady in
question._

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHAT IS IT?

_First Boy_ (_loq._). "I tell yer its 'ed's here!--I seen it move!"

_Second Do._ "I say it's at this end, yer stoopid!--I can see 'is
ears!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Dolly._ "Auntie, that's what I've done for the
cow-drawing competition at school."

_Auntie._ "But it is more like a horse than a cow."

_Dolly._ "It _is_ a horse. But, please, don't tell teacher!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE GENTLE CRAFT"

_Preceptor_ (_after a lecture_). "Now, what are the principal things
that are obtained from the earth?"

_Pupil_ (_and "disciple of Izaak Walton"_). "Worms, sir!"

[_Loses fifty marks!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CONFESSION.--_Day Governess._ "How is it your French
exercises are always done so much better than your Latin ones?"

_Tommy_ (_after considering awhile_). "I don't think auntie knows
Latin."

[_Auntie, who was about to enter, quickly and quietly retires._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "What are you doing in that cupboard, Cyril?"

"Hush, auntie! I'm pretending to be a thief!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RETALIATION

"Tut, tut, my boy! You must not beat that little dog so. Has he bitten
you?"

"No, 'e ain't. But 'e's bin an' swallered my fardin!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A REMINISCENCE OF LENT

"And did you both practise a little self-denial, and agree to give up
something you were fond of?--_sugar_, for instance,--as I suggested?"

"Well, yes, auntie! Only it wasn't exactly _sugar_, you know! It was
_soap_ we agreed to give up!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SUBTLE DISCRIMINATION

_Ethel_ (_to Jack, who has been put into the corner by the new
governess_). "I'm so sorry for you, Jack!"

_Jack._ "Bosh! who cares! This ain't a _real_ corner, you know!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CANDID INQUIRER

"I say, John, is there anything I haven't tasted?"

"No, sir, I think not--except water!"

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Eva._ "Mother says I am descended from Mary Queen o'
Scots."

_Tom._ "So am I then, Eva."

_Eva._ "Don't be so silly, Tom! You can't be. You're a boy!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Gent._ "Is it a _board school_ you go to, my dear?"

_Child._ "No, sir. I believe it be a _brick_ one!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Kitty._ "Is your wound sore, Mr. Pup?"

_Mr. Pup._ "Wound! What wound?"

_Kitty._ "Why, sister said she cut you at the dinner last night!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Little Boy._ "How many steps can you jump, grandma? I
can jump _four_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: INDUCTION

"Is this the _new_ baby, daddy?"--"Yes, dear."

"Why, he's got no teeth!"--"No, dear."

"And he's got no hair!"--"No, dear."

"Oh, daddy, it _must_ be an _old_ baby!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "It's an ill wind blows nobody good."]

* * * * *

_Horrified little girl_ (_seeing her mamma in evening dress for the
first time_). Oh, mummy, you’re _never_ going down like that! You’ve
forgotten to put on your top part!

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Hi, silly! Come 'ere out of the rine!"]

* * * * *

ENGLISH HISTORY.–”And who was the king who had so many wives?”

“Bluebeard!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: HER FIRST WASP

_Poor Effie (who has been stung)._ "First it walked about all over my
hand, and it _was_ so nice! But oh!--_when it sat down_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: VERY NATURAL.--"Vell, and vat to you sink tit happen to
me at Matame Tussaud's de oder tay? A laty dook me for vun of de vax
vickers, and agdually abbollochised vor her misdake!"

"O what fun, Mr. Schmitz! And was it in the Chamber of Horrors?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: TRUE DISTINCTION.--

_Mamma (improving the occasion)._ "I like your new suit immensely,
Gerald! But you must recollect that it's not the coat that makes the
gentleman!"

_Gerald._ "No, mamma! I know it's the _hat_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration:

_Little Montague._ "I was awake when Santa Claus came, dad!"

_Father._ "Were you? And what was he like, eh?"

_Little Montague._ "Oh, I couldn't see him--it was dark, you know. But
when he bumped himself on the washstand he said----"

_Father (hastily)._ "There, that'll do, Monty. Run away and play!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A RARA AVIS.--_Little Girl (finishing her description of
the Battle of Cressy)._ "And ever since then the Prince of Wales has
been born with feathers!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A HEAD FOR BUSINESS.--

_Mamma._ "I meant to give you a threepenny bit this morning, Bobby, but
in my hurry I think I gave you sixpence, so----"

_Bobby._ "Yes, mummy, but I haven't spent it all yet. So will you give
it me to-morrow?"

_Mamma._ "Give you what, dear?"

_Bobby._ "The threepenny bit you _meant_ to give me to-day!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE CHILD OF THE PERIOD

"Why did that policeman touch his hat to you, aunty? Have you got one as
well as nurse?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BEFORE THE HEAD

_Fourth Form Boy (with recollections of a recent visit to the dentist)._
"Please, sir, may I--may I--have gas?"]

* * * * *

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY.–”Mamma, _isn’t_ it very wicked to do behind
one’s back what one wouldn’t do before one’s face?”

“Certainly, Effie!”

“Well, baby bit my finger when I was looking another way!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: "BY AUTHORITY."--_Street Boy (sternly)._ "P'lice-Serge'nt
says as you're t' have your door-way swep' immediat'; an' (_more
meekly_) me an' my mate's willin' to do it, s'!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Gentleman (who has received a present of butter from
one of his tenants)._ "And how does your mother make all these beautiful
patterns on the pats, my dear?"

_Messenger._ "_Wiv our comb, sir!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A FATAL OBJECTION

"Mother, are the Wondergilts very rich?" "Yes, Silvia, very." "Mother, I
hope we shall never be rich?" "Why, darling?" "It must be so very
expensive!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady._ "Have you lost yourself, little boy?"

_Little Boy._ "No--boo-hoo--I've found a street I don't know!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "ENFANT TERRIBLE"

"I've brought you a glass of wine, Mr. Professor. _Please_ drink it!"

"Vat! Pefore tinner? Ach, vy?"

"Because mummy says you drink like a fish, and I want to see you----!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION

"Come and 'ave a look, Marier. They've been and put a chick on a lidy's
'at, and they don't know 'ow to spell it!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WELL OUT OF IT"

_Uncle._ "And you love your enemies, Ethel?"

_Ethel (promptly)._ "Yeth, uncle."

_Uncle._ "And who are your enemies, dear?"

_Ethel (in an awful whisper)._ "The dev----"

[_The old gentleman doesn't see his way further, and drops the
subject._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR CHILDREN

_Nurse._ "You dreadful children! Where _have_ you been?"

_Young Hopeful._ "Oh, nursie, we've been trying to drown those dear
little ducks, but they _will_ come to the top!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Auntie._ "Do you know you are playing with two very
naughty little boys, Johnny?"

_Johnny._ "Yes."

_Auntie._ "You do! I'm surprised. Why don't you play with good little
boys?"

_Johnny._ "Because their mothers won't let them!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: TAKING TIME BY THE FORELOCK

_Gwendoline._ "Uncle George says every woman ought to have a profession,
and I think he's quite right!"

_Mamma._ "Indeed! And what profession do you mean to choose?"

_Gwendoline._ "I mean to be a professional beauty!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EXPERIENTIA DOCET.--_Master George (whispers)._ "I say!
Kitty! Has mamma been telling you she'd give you '_a lovely spoonful of
delicious currant jelly, O so nice, so VERY nice_'?" _Miss Kitty._ "Ess
Cullen' jelly! O so ni', so welly ni'!" _Master George._ "THEN DON'T
TAKE IT!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EVIL COMMUNICATIONS &c.--_Elder of Twins._ "It's _very_
vulgar to say 'you be _blowed_' to each other, like those men do. Isn't
it, Uncle Fred?"

_Uncle Fred._ "I believe it _is_ generally considered so, my dear!"

_Elder of Twins._ "Yes, indeed! Ethel and I, you know, _we_ always say,
'you be _blown_!'"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MENS CONSCIA.--_Inspector_ (_who notices a backwardness
in history_). "Who signed Magna Charta?" (_No answer._)

_Inspector_ (_more urgently_). "Who signed Magna Charta?" (_No answer_.)

_Inspector_ (_angrily_). "Who signed Magna Charta?"

_Scapegrace_ (_thinking matters are beginning to look serious_).
"Please, sir, 'twasn't me, sir!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "TROP DE ZELE!"--(_Tommy, a conscientious boy, has been
told that he must remain perfectly still, as his mamma wants to take a
nap._) (_Tommy in the middle of the nap_). "Mamma! Mamma! what shall I
do? _I want to cough!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: TENDER CONSIDERATION

"Oh, _don't_ make faces at him, Effie! It might _frighten_ him, you
know!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "BY PROXY".

_Humorous Little Boy._ "Plea' sir, will you ring the bottom bell but
one, four times, sir?"

_Old Gent_ (_gouty, and a little deaf, but so fond o' children_).
"Bottom bell but one, four times, my boy?" (_Effusively._) "Certainly,
that I will!"

[_In the meantime off go the boys, and, at the
third peal, the irritable old lady on the ground floor----Tableau!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NEWS FROM HOME.--_Aunt Mary._ "I've just had a letter
from your papa, Geoffrey. He says you've got a little brother, who'll be
a nice companion for you some day!"

_Geoffrey._ "Oh!----does mummy know?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UTILE CUM DULCI

_Arry._ "Ain't yer comin' along with me, Bill?"

_Piscator_ (_the Doctor's Boy_). "No, I _ain't_ a comin' along with you,
I tell yer! I'm a runnin' on a errand."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ZOOLOGY. (_It appears to be coming to that at the Board
Schools._)--_Examiner_ (_to small aspirant to the twenty-fourth
standard_). "Can you tell me anything peculiar about the cuckoo, in
regard to nesting?"

_Student._ "Yes, sir. Please, sir, he don't lay his own eggs hisself,
sir!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THEIR FIRST VISIT TO THE ZOO

_Tommy._ "Them ain't donkeys, Billy?"

_Billy._ "Yus, they is! They're donkeys with their football jerseys
on!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SPOILT STORY.--_Brown_ (_in the middle of tall shooting
story_). "Hardly had I taken aim at the lion on my right, when I heard a
rustle in the jungle grass, and perceived an enormous tiger approaching
on my left. I now found myself on the horns of a dilemma!" _Interested
Little Boy._ "Oh, and which did you shoot first--the lion, or the tiger,
or the d'lemma?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Uncle_ (_about to start for a concert at Marine
Pavilion_). "But, my dear Nora, you don't surely propose to go without
your shoes and stockings?"

_Nora._ "I'm in evening dress, uncle--only it's the other end."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE TERTIUM QUID.--"Do you know, Mabel, I believe if I
weren't here, Captain Spooner would kiss you."

"Leave the room this instant, you impertinent little boy!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CLINCHER.--"Get up, and see the time, Eva. I don't know
how to tell it."

"No more do I."

"O, you horrid story-teller, I taught you myself!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES

"What! _all_ that for grandpa."

"No, darling. It's for you."

"Oh! what a little bit!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BRUSHING PA'S NEW HAT

_Edith._ "Now, Tommy, you keep turning slowly, till we've done it all
round."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother._ "But, Jacky, I don't think a clock-work engine
would be a good toy for you to give baby. He's such a little thing, he'd
only break it."

_Jacky._ "Oh, but, mother, I'd _promise_ you I'd never let him even
_touch_ it!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FESTIVE SEASON

_Precocious Infant._ "Help yourself, and pass the bottle!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW.--_Maud_ (_with much sympathy in
her voice_). "Only fancy, mamma, Uncle Jack took us to a picture gallery
in Bond Street, and there we saw a picture of a lot of early christians,
poor dears, who'd been thrown to a lot of lions and tigers, who were
devouring them!"

_Ethel_ (_with still more sympathy_). "Yes, and mamma dear, there was
_one_ poor tiger that _hadn't got_ a christian!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother_ (_to son, who has been growing rather free of
speech_). "Tommy, if you promise not to say 'hang it!' again, I'll give
you sixpence."

_Tommy._ "All right, ma. But I know another word that's worth
half-a-crown!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BETWEEN THE ACTS

_Governess._ "Well, Marjorie, have you done crying?"

_Marjorie._ "No--I haven't. I'm only _resting_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A WISE CHILD.--_Inspector._ "Suppose I lent your father
£100 in June, and he promised to pay me back £10 on the first of every
month, how much would he owe me at the end of the year? Now think well
before you answer."

_Pupil._ "£100, sir."

_Inspector._ "You're a very ignorant little girl. You don't know the
most elementary rules of arithmetic!"

_Pupil._ "Ah, sir, but you don't know father!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.--_Miss Fitzogre._ "Well, good-bye,
Percival, and be a good boy!"

_Percival_ (_a very good boy, who has just been specially warned not to
make personal remarks about people in their presence_). "Good-bye, I'll
not tell nurse what I think of your nose till you're gone!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Porter._ "Why is the little girl crying, missie?"

_Little Girl._ "'Cos' she has put her penny in there, and no choc'late
nor nuffing's come'd out!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NOT UNLIKELY

"Well, well! And was baby frightened of his daddy den!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Dorothy_ (_who has found a broken nest-egg_). "Oh,
mummy, what a pity! My black hen will never be able to lay any more
eggs. She's broken the pattern!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: WASTED SYMPATHY

_Kind-hearted Lady._ "Poor child! What a dreadfully swollen cheek you
have! Is it a tooth?"

_Poor Child_ (_with difficulty_). "No 'm--it's a sweet!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

"I'll tell you something, Miss Bullion. My sister Maud's going to marry
your brother Dick. But don't say anything about it, 'cos he doesn't know
it himself yet!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Softly._ "Yes, I was b-b-orn with a s-s-s-ilver s-s-poon
in my m-m-m-outh."

_Kitty._ "Oh, Mr. Softly, is that why you stutter?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: WELL UP IN HER MYTHOLOGY.--_Tommy._ "Madge, what's
'_necessitas_,' masculine or feminine?"

_Madge._ "Why, feminine, of course."

_Tommy._ "Why?"

_Madge._ "Why, she was the mother of invention."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHAT TOMMY OVERHEARD

_Mrs. Jinks._ "That's Signor Scrapeski just passed. He plays the violin
like an angel."

_Tommy._ "Mummy, dear, do the angels say 'dam' when a string breaks?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: QUESTION AND ANSWER

_Mamma._ "Who was the first man, 'Lina?"

_'Lina._ "I forget."

_Mamma._ "Already? Why, Adam, to be sure! And who was the first woman?"

_'Lina_ (_after a thoughtful pause_). "Madam!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SHEER IGNORANCE

_Benevolent Person._ "Come, my little man, you musn't cry like that!"

_Boy._ "Garn! 'Ow am I to cry then?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "I say, Billie, teacher says as if we 'angs our stockings
up on C'ris'mas Eve, Santa Claus'll fill 'em with presents!"

"It'll take 'im all 'is time to fill _mine_. I 'aven't got no foots in
'em!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ON HIS DIGNITY.--_Sam._ "Mamma bought me a pair of gloves
yesterday."

_Auntie._ "Really! What are they? Kids?"

_Sam._ "No, they're men's."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Sharp_ (_but vulgar_) _little boy_. "Hallo, missus, wot
are those?"

_Old Woman._ "Twopence."

_Boy._ "What a lie! They're apples."

[_Exit, whistling popular air_.]

* * * * *

A DIFFICULT CASE.–_Mamma._ You’re a very naughty boy, Tommy, and I
shall have to buy a whip, and give you a good whipping. _Now_ will you
be good?

_Tommy_ (_with hesitation_). Shall I be allowed to keep the whip after,
mammy?

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Gent._ "Do you know what a lie is, sir?"

_Little Boy._ "Oh, don't I, jest; I tells lots of 'em."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Lady._ "No, thanks. I don't want any for the garden
today."

_Boy._ "Well, then, can we sing yer some Christmas carols instead?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OVERHEARD IN BOND STREET

"Which of 'em would yer 'ave for a muvver, Billy?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EXPERIENTIA DOCET

"And are _you_ going to give me something for my birthday, aunty Maud?"

"Of course, darling."

"Then _don't_ let it be _something useful_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mamma._ "You mustn't bowl your hoop in the front on
Sunday. You must go into the back garden."

_Tommy._ "Isn't it Sunday in the back garden, mamma?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A PROTEST

"And pray, am I _never_ to be naughty, Miss Grimm?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A NEW TEST

_Aunt_ (_in alarm_). "_Surely_ you've eaten enough, haven't you, Tommy?"

_Tommy_ (_in doubt_). "F-f-f-feel me!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Bilious Old Uncle._ "I'm delighted to see this fall; it
will give that dreadful boy chilblains, and he'll be laid up out of
mischief."]

* * * * *

SUNDAY SCHOOLING.–_Teacher._ What does one mean by “Heaping coals of
fire on someone’s head” now, Harry Hawkins?

_Harry Hawkins._ Givin’ it ‘im ‘ot, teacher!

* * * * *

_Auntie._ Do you love the chickens, dear?

_Dolly._ Yes, Auntie. But I do wish this big one hadn’t such a funny
laugh!

* * * * *

[Illustration: Occupation of "that dreadful boy" at the same period.]

* * * * *

CHRONOLOGY.–_Old Gentleman_ (“_putting a few questions_”). Now,
boys–ah–can any of you tell me what commandment Adam broke when he
took the forbidden fruit?

_Small Scholar_ (“_like a shot_”). Please, sir, th’worn’t no
commandments then, sir!

[_Questioner sits corrected._]

* * * * *

AT A CHILDREN’S PARTY

DURING TEA

Yes, _isn’t_ it a pretty sight…. Oh, they’re _much_ too busy to talk
at present…. Well, if you _would_ take this cup of tea to my little
girl, dear Mr. Muffett, it would be so—-Yes, in the white frock….
_Pray_ don’t apologise–some tea upsets _so_ easily, doesn’t it?… Oh!
I don’t suppose it will show, really, and if it _does_…. Please, will
everybody keep quite quiet for a minute or two; I haven’t said my
grace…. Don’t you think it’s unfair of nurse? She’s handed me
bread-and-butter twice running!… I mustn’t eat sponge-cake, thank you.
Bath buns are better for me than anything…. I was _so_ ill after
Christmas. They took my temperament with the barometer, and it was two
hundred and six!… Oh! that’s nothing. When _I_ was ill, the doctor
said mine was perfectly Norman!… Well, you _might_ lower that
candleshade a _very_ little, perhaps, Mr. Muffett…. Ah! don’t blow
it out…. Throw it into the fire, quick!… It doesn’t matter in the
_least_. No; I wouldn’t trouble about the _other_ shades, thanks….
Mother, will you read me the text out of my cracker?… But if you’re
going to be a soldier, you oughtn’t to shut your eyes when you pull a
cracker…. Oh! when I’m a soldier, I needn’t _go_ to parties.

* * * * *

[Illustration: WELL BROUGHT UP.--"Now then, my little men, didn't you
see that board on that tree?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, can't you read?"

"Yes, but we never look at anything marked 'private.'"]

* * * * *

DURING A PERFORMANCE OF PUNCH AND JUDY

_A Thoughtful Child._ What a dreadful thing it would be to have a papa
like Punch!

_A Puzzled Child._ Mother, why is the man at the side so _polite_ to
Punch? He calls him “Sir”–is Punch _really_ a gentleman?

_A Good Little Girl._ I do wish they would leave all the fighting out;
it must set such a bad example to children.

_An Appreciative Boy._ Oh! I say, _did_ you hear what the clown said
then? He said something had frightened all the hair off his head except
that little tuft at the top, and it turned _that_ sky-blue!

[_He goes into fits of laughter._

_A Matter-of-fact Boy._ Yes, I heard--but I don't believe it _could_.

_The Child of the House._ I _am_ so glad Tip is shut up downstairs,
because I'm afraid, if he'd been up here and seen Toby act, he'd have
wanted to run away and go on the stage himself, and I don't think he's
the sort of dog who would ever be a _success_, you know!

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE JOYS OF ANTICIPATION.--"When are you coming out with
me, mummy?"

"Not this morning, darling. I've too much to do!"

"Oh, but you _must_, mummy. I've already put it in my new diary that you
_did_!"]

* * * * *

DURING THE DANCING

_Jack._ I say, Mabel, you’ve got to dance the “Washington Post” with
_me_.

_Mabel._ I can’t. I’ve promised Teddy Thistledown.

_Jack._ Oh! _that’s_ all right. I swapped with him for a Nicaragua
stamp.

_Mabel_ (_touched_). But aren’t they rare? Didn’t you want it yourself?

_Jack._ Oh! I don’t collect, you know.

_George_ (_to Ethel_). They’ve given us the whole of “Ivanhoe” to mug up
for a holiday task. Isn’t it a beastly shame?

_Ethel._ But don’t you like Scott?

_George._ Oh! I don’t mind _Scott_ so much. It’s having to grind in
the holidays that _I_ bar.

_Hester_ (_to Roland_). Shall you go to the pantomime this year?

_Roland._ I don’t think so. I’m going to lectures at the Royal
Institution instead.

_Hester._ That isn’t as jolly as the pantomime, is it?

_Roland_ (_impartially_). Not while it’s going on, but a lot jollier
after it’s over.

_Mr. Poffley_ (_a middle-aged bachelor, who “likes to make himself
useful at parties,” and is good-naturedly waltzing with little Miss
Chillington_). Have you–er–been to many parties?

_Miss Chillington_ (_a child of the world_). About the usual amount.
There’s generally a good deal going on just now, isn’t there?

_Mr. Poffley._ A–I suppose so. I go out so little now that I’ve almost
forgotten _how_ to dance.

_Miss Chillington._ Then you _did_ know once!

_Mr. Poffley_ (_completely demoralised_). I–er–you would rather stop?

_Miss Chillington._ Oh! I don’t mind going on, if it amuses you.

[_Mr. Poffley feels that "children are not so grateful as they used
to be for being noticed," and that it is almost time he gave up
going to juvenile parties._

* * * * *

[Illustration: RES ANT-IQUÆ.--"Auntie dear, where do these fossil shells
come from?"

"Oh, my dear child, a great many years ago they were washed up here by
the sea."

"How long ago, auntie dear?"

"Ever so long ago, dear child."

"What! Even before _you_ were born, auntie?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EXTREME MEASURES

_Mother._ "If I catch you chasing those hens again, I'll wash your face
_every day next week_!"]

* * * * *

AFTER SUPPER

_The Hostess_ (_returning to the drawing-room to find the centre of the
floor occupied by a struggling heap of small boys, surrounded by
admiring but mystified sisters_). Oh! dear me, what _are_ they doing?
I’m so afraid my two boys are being too rough, Mrs. Hornblower.

_Mrs. Hornblower_ (_one of a row of complacent matrons_). Oh! not at
all, dear Mrs. Honeybun, they’re having _such_ fun. Your Edwin and
Arthur are only trying how many boys they can pile on the top of my
Tommy.

_Mrs. Honeybun._ Is that Tommy underneath? Are you sure he’s not getting
hurt?

_Mrs. Horn._ Oh! he thoroughly enjoys a romp. He’s made himself
perfectly hoarse with laughing. Just listen to him!

_Mrs. Honey._ What a sturdy little fellow he is! And always in such high
spirits!

_Mrs. Horn_ (_confidentially_). He hasn’t seemed quite the thing for the
last day or two, and I was doubting whether it wouldn’t be better to
keep him at home to-night, but he begged so hard that I really had to
give way.

_Mrs. Honey._ So glad you did! It doesn’t seem to have done him any
harm.

_Mrs. Horn._ Quite the contrary. And indeed, he couldn’t help being the
better for it; you understand so thoroughly how to make children happy,
dear Mrs. Honeybun.

_Mrs. Honey._ It’s delightful of you to say so; I try my best, but one
can’t always—-Last year we had a conjurer, and it was only when he’d
begun that we found out he was helplessly intoxicated.

_Mrs. Horn._ How disagreeable for you! But this time everything has been
quite perfect!

_Mrs. Honey._ Well, I really think there has been no—-Good gracious!
I’m _sure_ somebody is being suffocated! _Did_ you hear that?

[_From the core of the heap proceeds a sound at which every mother's
heart quakes--a smothered cough ending in a long-drawn and ominous
"oo-ook."_

_Mrs. Horn._ Depend upon it, that's whooping-cough! Tommy, come here
this minute. (_Tommy emerges, crimson and crowing lustily; the mothers
collect their offspring in dismay_). Oh! Tommy, Tommy, don't tell me
it's _you_! It--it can't be _that_, dear Mrs. Honeybun; he's been
nowhere where he could possibly----You naughty boy, you _know_ you are
only pretending. Don't let me hear that horrid noise again.

_Tommy_ (_injured_). But, mummy, _really_ I wasn't----

[_He justifies himself by producing a series of whoops with an
unmistakably genuine ring_.

_Mrs. Horn._ I think it's only a rather severe attack of hiccoughs, dear
Mrs. Honeybun; but still, perhaps--just to be on the safe side--I'd
better----

[_She departs in confusion, the crowd on the stairs dividing like
Red Sea waves as Tommy proclaims his approach._

_Mrs. Honey_ (_after the last guest has gone_). I knew _something_ would
happen! I must say it was _most_ inconsiderate of Mrs. Hornblower to
bring that wretched little Tommy out and break up the party like
this--it's not as if we were really _intimate_! Still, it was ridiculous
of everybody else to hurry off too, as if whooping-cough was anything to
be so mortally afraid of! I wasn't in the _least_ myself, as they might
have seen. But perhaps it _is_ just as well that Edwin and Arthur had it
last winter.

* * * * *

READY ANSWER.--_Uncle._ Now, how did the mother of Moses hide him?

_Niece._ With a stick, uncle.

* * * * *

[Illustration: ON THE FACE OF IT

_Pretty Teacher._ "Now, Johnny Wells, can you tell me what is meant by a
miracle?"

_Johnny._ "Yes, teacher. Mother says if you dun't marry new parson,
'twull be a murracle!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE DUET

_Fond Mother_ (_to young hopeful, who has been sent upstairs to a room
by himself as a punishment_). "You can come down now, Jacky."

_Young Hopeful._ "Can't. I'se singing a duet!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNCLE'S BANK HOLIDAY

"Oh, uncle, we're so glad we've met you. We want you to take us on the
roundabout, and stay on it till tea-time!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Young Masher_ (_to rival_). "I say, old, chap, I hear
you're an excellent runner. Is that true?"

_Rival_ (_eagerly_). "Rather!"

_Young Masher._ "Well, then, run home!"]

* * * * *

_Aunt._ Why, Tommy, I’ve only just taken a splinter out of your hand,
and now you’ve let pussy scratch you. How did that happen?

_Tommy_ (_who has been tampering with the cat’s whiskers_). Well, I was
only trying to get some of the splinters out of her face!

* * * * *

[Illustration: FINIS]

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE

Humor Seminar: Mr. Punch’s Railway Book

coolhq — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:53:02 +0000

MR. PUNCH’S RAILWAY BOOK

[Illustration]

PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the
cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic
draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to “Punch,” from its
beginning in 1841 to the present day.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "READING BETWEEN THE LINES"]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH’S RAILWAY BOOK

_WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS_

BY PHIL MAY,
GEORGE DU MAURIER,
CHARLES KEENE,
JOHN LEECH,
SIR JOHN TENNIEL,
E. T. REED,
L. RAVENHILL,
J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE,
REGINALD CLEAVER,
AND MANY OTHER HUMOROUS ARTISTS

[Illustration]

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF “PUNCH”

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

* * * * *

PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_

LIFE IN LONDON COUNTRY
LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS
SCOTTISH HUMOUR
IRISH HUMOUR
COCKNEY HUMOUR
IN SOCIETY
AFTER DINNER STORIES
IN BOHEMIA
AT THE PLAY
MR. PUNCH AT HOME
ON THE CONTINONG
RAILWAY BOOK
AT THE SEASIDE
MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
IN THE HUNTING FIELD
MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
WITH ROD AND GUN
MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
BOOK OF SPORTS
GOLF STORIES
IN WIG AND GOWN
ON THE WARPATH
BOOK OF LOVE
WITH THE CHILDREN

* * * * *

A WORD AT STARTING

[Illustration]

ONLY a few years before MR. PUNCH began his long and brilliant career
had passenger trains and a regular system of railway travelling come
into existence. In his early days it was still very much of a novelty to
undertake a journey of any length by train; a delightful uncertainty
prevailed not only as to the arrival at a given destination, but equally
as to getting away from a starting-place. Naturally, the pens and
pencils of his clever contributors were then frequently in use to
illustrate the humours of railway travel, and even down to the present
time MR. PUNCH has not failed to find in the railway and its
associations “a source of innocent merriment.”

It must be admitted that some thirty years ago the pages of PUNCH
literally teemed with biting satires on the management of our railways,
and the fact that his whole-hearted denunciations of the inefficient
service, the carelessness which resulted in frequent accidents, the
excessive charges, the inadequate accommodation, could have been allowed
to pass without numerous actions for libel, is proof of the enormous
advantages which the present generation enjoys in this great matter of
comfortable, rapid and inexpensive transit. Where MR. PUNCH in his
wrath, as voicing the opinion of the public, was wont to ridicule and
condemn the railways and all associated therewith, we to-day are as
ready, and with equal reason, to raise our voice in praise. But ridicule
is ever a stronger impulse to wit than is appreciation, and in these
later days when we are all alive to the abounding merits of our railway
system MR. PUNCH has had less to say about it. If we were to cull from
his pages written in the days of his wrath we might be held guilty of
presenting a gross travesty of the conditions now obtaining. Thus it is
that in one or two cases only have we retained passages from his earlier
chronicles, such as “Rules for the Rail” and “The Third-Class
Traveller’s Petition,” which have some historical value as reminders
that the railway comfort of the present day presents a remarkable
contrast to the not very distant past.

To-day every member of the community may be regarded as a railway
traveller, so large a part does the railway play in modern life; and it
will be admitted that, with all our improvements, the element of humour
has not been eliminated from our comings and goings by train. We trust
it never may. Here, then, is a compilation of the “best things,”
literary and pictorial, that have appeared in MR. PUNCH’S pages on the
subject, and with his cheery presence as our guard, let us set forth
upon our excursion into the Realm of Fun!

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH’S RAILWAY BOOK

RAILWAY JOKES

_As Played Daily on the Principal Lines_

_Turning Business into Pleasure._–Take a traveller pressed for time,
and induce him to enter a train supposed to be in correspondence with
another train belonging to another line, and by which other train the
traveller proposes to proceed to his destination. As the first train
arrives at the junction, start off the second train _en route_ for Town.
The dismay of the traveller when he finds his journey interrupted will
be, to say the least, most mirth-moving.

_The Panic-stricken Passengers._–Allow an express train to arrive at
the station of a rival company two hours behind its time. The travellers
will, of course, be anxious to learn the cause of the delay, and will
(again of course) receive no sort of information on the subject from
the servants of the rival company. Should there be any nervous ladies in
the train, the fun will become fast and furious.

_A Lark in the Dark._–Start a train ten minutes late, and gradually
lose time until it arrives in the middle of a long tunnel, and then stop
the engine. Stay where you are for half an hour, whistling and letting
off steam every now and then, to increase the excitement. Should it be
known in the train that an express is due on the line of rails already
occupied by the carriages, the humour of the situation will be greatly
improved. Before playing this joke, it will be as well to lock the
carriage-doors, and to carefully sever the cord of communication
existing (on some lines) between the passengers and the guard.

_A Comical Meal._–On a long journey promise that the train shall stop
at a stated station ten minutes for refreshments. Lose time in the
customary manner, and allow the train to arrive at the stated station
half an hour late. Permit the passengers to descend and to enter the
refreshment-rooms. The moment they are served, drive them back hurriedly
into the carriages with the threat that if they are not immediately
seated in their places they will be left behind. When the passengers are
once more in their compartments, the carriage-doors should be securely
locked, and the train can then remain waiting beside the platform for
three-quarters of an hour.

_The Strange Companions._–Invite ladies and gentlemen to travel in a
first-class carriage. When the compartment is a third full, over-fill it
with “merry” excursionists holding third-class tickets. The contrast
between the “merriment” of the excursionists and the disgust of the
ladies and gentlemen will be found a source of never-ending amusement.

_A Wholesome Joke (added by Mr. Punch and suggested to the
Passengers)._–Whenever you find yourselves subjected to the “fun” of
the railway officials, write to the newspapers and obtain a summons
against the directors of the company which you believe to be in fault.
_Verb. sap._

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Half third return to Brixton, please."

"Half! What's your age?"

"I'm thirteen at home; but I'm only nine and a half on railways."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Friend (to minor rail official at provincial station)_
"'Ullo Cocky, where 'ave you been all this time?"

_Minor R.O. (with dignity)._ "Oh I had to go up on duty for the Naval
Review at Spit'ead, I 'ad."

_Friend (impressed)._ "Ah! Fine sight I expect it wur?" _Minor R.O._
"Well, I can't say as I _saw much of it. I war taking the tickets at
Vaux'all!"_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN EXCITING TIME

Poor Jones is convinced that his worst fears are at last realised, and
he is left alone with a _dangerous lunatic!!_ (It was only little
Wobbles running anxiously over the points of his coming speech to the
electors of Plumpwell-on-Tyme!!)]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A TRAGEDY ON THE GREAT NORTHERN

SCENE--_A third-class carriage._ TIME--_Three hours before the next
station._ DRAMATIS PERSONÆ--_Jones and Robinson._

"It's the _last!_--and it's a Tändstickor. It'll only strike on the
box!"

"Strike it on the box, then;--but for Heaven's sake, be careful!"

"Yes; but, like a fool, I've just pitched the box out of window!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WHAT'S SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE," &c.

_Passenger (in second class)._ "I think I've got into the wrong
carriage."

_Ticket Inspector (sternly)._ "The difference must be paid!"

_Passenger (triumphantly)._ "Oh, just so! Then I'll trouble you for
three shillings--I've a first-class ticket!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A REMINDER

_Old Lady._ "Now, porter, you're quite sure you've put all my luggage
in?--the big portmantle and----"

_Porter._ "All right, mum."

_Old Lady._ "And you're certain I've not left anything behind----"

_Porter._ "No, mum, not even a copper!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NOTES OF TRAVEL

_The Cunard "Special" full speed for London_

_John Bull (of the World in general)._ "There is nothing to be alarmed
at. Surely your American trains go much faster than this?"

_Jonathan (from the West in particular)._ "Why, yaas. But 'tain't that.
I'm afeard it'll run off your darned little island!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Impatient Traveller._ "Er--how long will the next train
be, portah?"

_Porter._ "Heaw long? Weel, sir ah dunno heaw ah con saay to hauf an
inch. Happen there'll be fower or five co-aches an' a engine or soa."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE LEVEL CROSSING

"Are there no more trains this evening on the up line, porter?"

"No, mum."

"And no more trains on the down line?"

"No, mum."

"Is there no _special_ train?"

"No, mum."

"Nor an _excursion_ train?"

"No, mum. The gates are to for the rest of the evening."

"You're quite sure?"

"Yes, mum."

"Then come, Amelia. We can cross the line!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Maid._ "Is this a smoking compartment, young man?"

_Obliging Passenger._ "No, mum. 'Igher up!"]

* * * * *

THE MISSING SPINSTER

You may boast your great improvements,
Your inventions and your “movements,”
For those who stay at home, and those who travel;
But arrangements for the latter
Are so complex, that the matter
Makes them dotty as a hatter
To unravel.

There was once an ancient lady
Whom we knew as Miss O’Grady,
Who was asked to spend the autumn down at Trew.
So in fear and trepidation
She sought out her destination,
And betook her to the station–
Waterloo.

She took her little ticket
And she did not fail to stick it
With half-a-dozen coppers in her glove.
Another moment found her
With a plenty to astound her–
For she’d notice-boards all round her,
And above!

So she studied every number
On those sign-posts that encumber
All the station; and she learned them one by one;
But she found the indication
Of the platforms of the station
Not much use as information
When she’d done.

In her shocking state of fluster
Little courage could she muster,
Yet of porters she accosted one or two;
But, too shy to claim attention,
And too full of apprehension,
She could get no one to mention
“Which for Trew.”

So she trudged through every station–
“North,” “South,” “Main,”–in quick rotation,
And then she gave a trial to the “Loop”;
Like some hapless new Pandora
She sat down a-gasping for a
Little hope to live on–or a
Plate o’ soup.

* * * * *

‘Mid the bustle and the hissing
An old maiden lady’s “Missing”–
In some corner of the complicated maze;
And round about she’s gliding
In unwilling, hideous hiding,
On the platform, loop, or siding,
In a craze.

And still they cannot find her,
For she leaves no trace behind her
At Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Waterloo;
But she passes like a comet
With the myst’ry of Mahomet–
Her course unknown–and from it
Not a clue!

* * * * *

[Illustration: MOST OFFENSIVE

_Railway Porter._ "If you please, sir, was this your'n?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A RAILWAY COLLUSION--A HINT TO STATION-MASTERS

_Porter._ "Now, then, Bill! are you off?"

_Cab Ruffian._ "No; what sort of fare is it?"

_Porter._ "Single gent, with small bag."

_Ruffian._ "Oh, _he_ won't do! Can't yer find us a old lady and two
little gals with lots o' boxes? I'm good for a pint!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CHANGELINGS; OR, A STORY WITHOUT (POLITE) WORDS.

"Them's the only dogs as come by this train, sir. The guard says as 'ow
there was three sportin' dogs, as 'ad ate their label off, wot's gone on
by the Scotch Express."]

* * * * *

RATHER ‘CUTE.–_Small but Sharp Passenger._ “Look here! You didn’t give
me the right change just now!”

_Clerk._ “Too late, sir! You should have spoken when you took your
ticket!”

_Passenger._ “_Should_ I? Well, it’s of no consequence to me; but you
gave me half-a-sovereign too much! Ta-ta!” _[Exit._

* * * * *

[Illustration:

SMOKING COMPARTMENT

WAIT TILL THE TRAIN STOPS

THIRD CLASS. TO SEAT SIX

UNDERGROUND STUDIES]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS]

_Stoker._ “Wery sorry to disturb yer at supper, ladies, but could yer
oblige me with a scuttle o’ coals for our engine, as we’ve run short of
‘em this journey?”

* * * * *

REPARTEES FOR THE RAILWAY

“No smoking allowed.” Of course, but I am going to enjoy my cigar in
silence.

“Want the window closed.” Very sorry, but I can’t find a cathedral.

“Find my journal a nuisance.” Dear me! was under the impression it was a
newspaper.

“Allow you to pass.” Afraid only the Secretary can manage that for you;
he alone has power to issue free tickets.

“Do I mind the draught?” Not when I am attending to the chessman.

“Do I know the station?” Of the people on the platform? Probably lower
middle class.

“Is this right for Windsor?” Yes, if it’s not left for somewhere else.

“Are we allowed five minutes for lunch?” Think not; but you can have
sandwiches at the counter.

“Isn’t this first-class?” Quite excellent–first-rate–couldn’t be
better!

“I want to go second.” Then you had better follow me.

“I am third.” Indeed! And who were first and second.

“I think this must be London.” Very likely, if it is, it mustn’t be
anywhere else.

* * * * *

THE WAY OF THE WHIRLED.–The rail-way.

* * * * *

“VERY HARD LINES.”–The railways.

* * * * *

[Illustration: RAILWAY AMALGAMATION--A PLEASANT STATE OF THINGS]

_Passenger._ “What’s the matter, guard?”

_Guard (with presence of mind)._ “Oh, nothing particular, sir. We’ve
only run into an excursion train!”

_Passenger._ “But, good gracious! there’s a train just behind us, isn’t
there?”

_Guard._ “Yes, sir! But a boy has gone down the line with a signal; and
it’s very likely they’ll see it!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: METROPOLITAN RAILWAY TYPES.

The party that _never_ says, "Thank | The party that _always_ says,
you!" | "Thank you!"

When you open the door, shut the window, or give up your seat for her.]

* * * * *

THE THIRD-CLASS TRAVELLER’S PETITION

(1845)

Pity the sorrows of a third-class man,
Whose trembling limbs with snow are whitened o’er,
Who for his fare has paid you all he can:
Cover him in, and let him freeze no more!

This dripping hat my roofless pen bespeaks,
So does the puddle reaching to my knees;
Behold my pinch’d red nose–my shrivell’d cheeks:
You should not have such carriages as these.

In vain I stamp to warm my aching feet,
I only paddle in a pool of slush;
My stiffen’d hands in vain I blow and beat;
Tears from my eyes congealing as they gush.

Keen blows the wind; the sleet comes pelting down,
And here I’m standing in the open air!
Long is my dreary journey up to Town,
That is, alive, if ever I get there.

Oh! from the weather, when it snows and rains,
You might as well, at least, defend the poor;
It would not cost you much, with all your gains:
Cover us in, and luck attend your store.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CAUTION

No wonder Miss Lavinia Stitchwort thought the people very rude at the
station when she went for her "water-proof" (which she had lost on the
railway some time before). She found out when she got home she had not
removed the "unclaimed property" label!]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Nervous Party._ "The train seems to be travelling at a
fearful pace, ma'am."

_Elderly Female._ "Yus, ain't it? My Bill's a-drivin' of the ingin, an'
'e _can_ make 'er go when 'e's got a drop o' drink in 'im!"]

* * * * *

THE ORIGIN OF RAILWAYS.–The first idea of railways is of very ancient
date, for we hear of the Great Norman line immediately after the
Conquest.

* * * * *

RAILWAY NEWS.–There is an old lady who says, that she always likes to
travel by a trunk line, because then she feels confidence about the
safety of her luggage.

* * * * *

“RAILWAY COUPLING.”–When the porter marries the young lady in the
refreshment department.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FIRST "BRADSHAW"

A reminiscence of Whitsun Holidays in Ancient Egypt. From an old-time
tabl(e)ature]

* * * * *

RAILWAY REFORM.–Compartments to be reserved for ladies over and under a
certain age.

As there will invariably be compartments for those who smoke, so also
for those who snuff. The former will be labelled as usual “for Smokers,”
the latter “for Snuffers.” The last-mentioned will be tried as far as
Hampton Wick.

The “Sleeping Cars” will be divided into “Snorers” and “Non-Snorers.”
Tickets will be issued subject to these regulations.

It is important to the Shareholders to know that on and after the
abolition of the Second Class, the motto of the Company will be “No
Returns.”

* * * * *

A PLUTOCRAT.–_Swell._ “‘Dyou oblige me–ah–by shutting your
window?–ah—-”

_Second Passenger (politely)._ “Really, sir, if you will not press it,
as yours is shut, the air is so warm I would rather keep this open. You
seem to take great care of yourself, sir—-”

_Swell._ “Care of myself! Should wather think so. So would you, my dear
fel-lah, if you’d six thousand a ye-ar!!”

* * * * *

THE SLOW TRAIN

On Southern lines the trains which crawl
Deliberately to and fro
Make life a burden; of them all
This is the slowest of the slow.
Impatiently condemned to bear
What is indeed an awful bore,
I’ve seemed to be imprisoned there
Three days, or more.

The angry passengers complain;
Of new electric cabs they talk.
They sit and swear at such a train,
And ask, “Shall we get out and walk?”
It’s true the time seems extra long
When spent in such a wretched way,
My calculation may be wrong–
Three hours, say.

The other day I had to come
By this slow train, but facing me
Was no old buffer, dull and dumb;
I chatted with my vis-à-vis.
A pretty smile, a pretty dress,
Gay spirits no fatigue could crush;
With her it was a quick express,
Three minutes’ rush.

For once I sadly left the train,
For once the time too quickly passed.
I still could angrily complain,
Why travel so absurdly fast?
At lightning speed that special went
(I’d paid the ordinary fare),
Now looking back it seems we spent
Three seconds there.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A BANK HOLIDAY SKETCH

_Facetious Individual (from carriage window)._ "Change 'ere, 'ave we?
Then kindly oblige me with a sardine-opener!"]

* * * * *

WEDNESBURY STATION.–_First Collier._ “Trains leave for Birmingham,
10.23 a.m., 6.23 p.m.”

_Second Collier._ “What’s p.m.?”

_First Do._ “A penny a mile, to be sure.”

_Second Do._ “Then, what’s a.m.?”

_First Do._ “Why, that must be a a’penny a mile.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: RAILWAY LUXURIES

_Excursionist._ "I say--'ere! This water's full o'crumbs!"

_Aquarius._ "That ain't crumbs! That's only the sawdust off the hice!"]

* * * * *

RAILWAY AND SOCIAL SYNONYMS

_’Traction Engines._–Too many Girls of the Period.

_Truck-Trains._–Most marriage processions at St. George’s, Hanover
Square.

_Continuous Brakes._–The results of lodging house attendance.

_Changing Lines._–What we often see after the honeymoon.

_Shunted on to a Siding._–Paterfamilias when Baby appears.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A party who is quite in favour of light railways for town
and country.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR COUNTRY COUSINS

_The Gushington girls have just arrived by rail, and are inhaling the
odours of an average London terminus._

_Miss Milly Gushington._ "Wait a bit, uncle." (_Sniff._) "Oh, isn't it
lovely, Hilly? Doesn't it just _smell_ of the season?"

_Miss Hilly Gushington._ "Don't speak about it--only sniff!"]

* * * * *

THE TOURIST’S ALPHABET

(_Railway Edition_)

A is the affable guard whom you square:
B is the _Bradshaw_ which leads you to swear:
C is the corner you fight to obtain:
D is the draught of which others complain:
E are the enemies made for the day:
F is the frown that you wear all the way:
G is the guilt that you feel going third:
H is the humbug by which you’re deterred:
I is the insult you’ll get down the line:
J is the junction where you’ll try to dine:
K is the kettle of tea three weeks old:
L are the lemon drops better unsold:
M is the maiden who says there’s no meat:
N is the nothing you thus get to eat:
O is the oath that you use–and do right:
P is the paper to which you _don’t_ write:
Q are the qualms to directors unknown:
R is the row which you’ll find all your own:
S is the smash that is “nobody’s fault:”
T is the truth, that will come to a halt:
U is the pointsman–who’s up the whole night:
V is the verdict that says it’s “all right.”
W stands for wheels flying off curves:
X for express that half shatters your nerves:
Y for the yoke from your neck that you fling,
and Z for your zest as you cut the whole thing!

* * * * *

[Illustration: STARTLING!

_Constable (to nervous passenger, arrived by the Ramsgate train)._ "I've
got yer"--(_"Ger-acious Heavens!" thinks little Skeery with a thrill of
horror. "Takes me for somebody that's 'wanted'!"_)--"a cab, sir."]

* * * * *

“THE MORE HASTE THE WORSE SPEED”

SCENE–_The Charing Cross Station of the District Railway._

_Country Cousin, bound for Bayswater, to ticket clerk, with scrupulous
politeness._ If you please, I want a first-class ticket to Bayswater.

_Ticket Clerk (abruptly)._ No first-class here. Go to the next
booking-place.

[_Country Cousin retires rebuffed, and finds his way to next
booking-place._

_Country Cousin._ If you please, I want a first-class ticket to
Bayswater.

_Ticket Clerk (explosively)._ Single or return? Look sharp! You're not
the only person in London!

_Country Cousin (humbly)._ Single, please.

[_The ticket and change are slapped down unceremoniously, and Country
Cousin is shoved on from behind by an impatient City man. Rushes
precipitately down brass-bound steps, and presents his ticket to be
snipped._

_Snipper (inspecting ticket)._ Queen's Road, Bayswater? Wrong side! Go
up the stairs, and turn to the right. Look sharp! There's a train just
coming in!

[_Country Cousin, with a deepened sense of humiliation and bewilderment,
hurries upstairs, turns to the right, and reaches entrance to platform
just in time to have gate slammed in his face. The train being gone,
gate is re-opened, and the necessary snipping performed on his ticket._

_Country Cousin (to Snipper, politely)._ If you please--will the next
train take me to Queen's Road, Bayswater?

_Saturnine Official._ Can't tell you till the train comes.

[_Country Cousin paces the platform in moody silence, and wishes he had
taken a cab. Enter train, rushing madly along._

_Stentorian voice (without stops)._ Earl's Court North End and
Hammersmith train first and second-class forward third behind!

[_Country Cousin makes his way towards a carriage, but finds it full.
Tries another with the same result, and is frantically endeavouring to
open the door of a third-class compartment in which there is one vacant
seat next a fat woman with a baby, when train moves on._

_Indignant Official._ Stand away there! Stand away, will you! (_Drags
back Country Cousin._) That ain't your train! What do you want a-tryin
to get in there for?

[_Country Cousin, in deeper humiliation, re-arranges dress, disturbed by
recent struggle and resumes his agitated march._

_Enter another train more madly than the first._

_Stentorian voice._ High Street Kensington Notting Hill Gate and
Bayswater train main line train!

_Country Cousin (to Haughty Official, in an agony of entreaty)._ Is this
train for Queen's Road, Bayswater?

_Haughty Official._ Yes, Queen's Road. Look sharp! She'll be off in a
minute.

[_Country Cousin scrambles through the crowd to a carriage; drops his
umbrella; stoops to pick it up and on rising finds train three parts
through the tunnel. Exit Country Cousin in a rage, to get a cab, having
lost twenty minutes, the price of his unused ticket, his self-respect,
and that of everybody he has come in contact with in the Metropolitan
District Railway Station._

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHEN IN DOUBT--DON'T!

SCENE--_Country Station_

_Gent._ "Are the sandwiches fresh, my boy?"

_Country Youth._ "Don't know, I'm sure, sir. I've only been here a
fortnight!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A DILEMMA

_Station-Master._ "Now then! Look alive with they dougs! Where are
you----"

_Overdriven Porter._ "Hoots! they've a' eaten their tuck'ts, an' dinna
ken fa the're gaen tae!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RISKS

_Shrewd Clerk (with an eye to his percentage)._ "Take an accident
insurance ticket, sir?"

_Passenger (nervously)._ "Wha' for?!"

_Clerk._ "Well, sir, nothing has gone wrong 'twixt this and London for
the last fourteen months; and, by the haverages, the next smash on the
hup line is hoverdue exactly six weeks and three days!!"

[_Old Gent forks out with alacrity._]

* * * * *

TO MY “PUFF PUFF”

Puff me away from the noise and the worry;
Puff me away from the desolate town;
Puff me–but don’t be in too great a hurry;
Puff me, but don’t in a tunnel break down.

Puff me away to my loved Isle of Thanet
Swiftly–or e’en at the pace called the snail’s,
Puff me the sea-breeze, and pleasantly fan it
Into my nostrils–but don’t leave the rails.

Puff me away, far from Parliament’s houses;
For brown moors of Scotland my soul is athirst–
For a smell of the heather, a pop at the grouses;
Puff me, but mind that your boiler don’t burst.

Puff me _en route_ for care-killing Killarney,
Tenderly take me, as bridegroom his bride;
Bear me towards Erin, blest birthplace of Blarney,
Puff, puff, like blazes–but, _please_, don’t “collide!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE

_Customer_ (Time--_Saturday afternoon_). "I don't want all coppers in
change for that shilling. Haven't you got any silver?"

_Newsboy._ "All right, sir. Want a little Sunday money, I s'pose, sir?"]

* * * * *

TO A RAILWAY FOOT-WARMER

At first I loved thee–thou wast warm,–
The porter called thee “‘ot,” nay, “bilin’.”
I tipped him as thy welcome form
He carried, with a grateful smile, in.

Alas! thou art a faithless friend,
Thy warmth was but dissimulation;
Thy tepid glow is at an end,
And I am nowhere near my station!

I shiver, cold in feet and hands,
It is a legal form of slaughter,
They don’t warm (!) trains in other lands
With half a pint of tepid water.

I spurn thy coldness with a kick,
And pile on rugs as my protectors,
I’d send–to warm them–to Old Nick,
Thy parsimonious directors!

* * * * *

DIFFERENT WAYS OF TRAVELLING.–Man travels to expand his ideas; but
woman–judging from the number of boxes she invariably takes with
her–travels only with the object of expanding her dresses.

* * * * *

“THE BEST OF MOTIVES.”–Locomotives.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "A LIBERAL MEASURE"

_Rude Boy (to stout party on weighing-machine, which is out of order,
and won't work)._ "Shove in another penny, guv'nor. It's double fare to
chaps o' your size!"]

* * * * *

FOXHUNTER’S DEFINITION OF A MAIL-TRAIN.–A Post and Rails.

* * * * *

AS A RULE.–”Signal Failures”–Railway accidents.

* * * * *

THREE RAILWAY GAUGES.–Trains are made for the Broad Gauge, the Narrow
Gauge, and the Lug-gage.

* * * * *

[Illustration: ZOOLOGY

_Railway Porter (to old lady travelling with a menagerie of pets)._
"'Station-master say, mum, as cats is 'dogs,' and rabbits is 'dogs,' and
so's parrots; but this ere 'tortis' is a insect, so there ain't no
charge for it!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: LOGIC

_Stout Party._ "What! no room! Ain't that man just got out? If people
can get out, people can get in!"]

* * * * *

THE QUICKEST OF ALL EXPRESS TRAINS.–The train of thought.

* * * * *

STARTLING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.–A punctual train.

* * * * *

KEEP YOUR TEMPER.–Avoid entering into an argument with a deaf man in a
railway carriage, as it is sure to lead to high words.

* * * * *

“DON’T TOUCH ME, OR I’LL SCREAM!” as the engine whistle said to the
stoker.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "A MAN AND A PASSENGER!"

_Sweep._ "'Elp us up with my luggage, mate!"]

* * * * *

VOCES POPULI

I

SCENE–_Interior of Third-Class Smoking Compartment. First Passenger,
apparently a small Suburban Tradesman, of a full and comfortable habit,
seated by window. To him enters a seedy but burly Stranger, in a state
of muzzy affability, with an under-suggestion of quarrelsomeness._

_The Stranger (leaning forward mysteriously)._ Yer saw that gentleman I
was a torkin’ to as I got in? Did yer know ‘oo he _was_?

_First Passenger (without hauteur, but with the air of a person who
sets a certain value on his conversation)._ Well, he didn’t look much
like the Archbishop of Canterbury.

_The S._ He’s a better man than _’im_! That was Brasher, the middling
weight! he giv’ me the orfice straight about Killivan and Smifton, _he_
did!

_First P. (interested, as a lover of the Noble Art of Self Defence)._
Ah! did he, though?

_The S._ He _did_; I went up to him, and I sez, “Excuse me,” I sez,
like that, I sez, “but are you an American, or a German?”

_First P. (with superiority)._ He wouldn’t like that–being taken for a
German.

_The S. (solemnly)._ Those were my very words! And he sez, “No, I’m a
Yank,” and then I knoo ‘oo ‘e was, d’ye see? and so (_hazily_) one word
brought up another, and we got a torkin’. If I was to tell you I’d
_seen_ Killivan, I should be tellin’ yer a lie!

_First P._ Well, I won’t ask you to do that.

_The S. (firmly)._ Nor I wouldn’t. But you’ve on’y to look at Smifton to
see ‘e’s never ‘ad a smack on the ‘ed. Now, there’s Sulton–’e's a
_good_ man, _’e_ is–’e _is_ a good man! Look ‘ow that feller knocks
‘isself about! But if I was to pass _my_ opinion, it ‘ud be
this–Killivan’s _in_ it for science, he ain’t in it to _take_ anything;
you may take that from me!

_First P._ (_objecting to be treated as an_ ingénu). It’s not the first
time I’ve heard of it, by a long way.

_The S._ Ah! and it’s the truth, the Bible truth (_putting his hand on
First P.’s knee_). Now, you b’leeve what I’m a’goin’ to tell yer?

_First P. (his dignity a little ruffled)._ I will–if it’s anything in
reason.

_The S._ It’s this: My opinion of Killivan and Sulton’s this–Sulton
_brought_ Killivan _out_. I’m on’y tellin’ yer from ‘earsay, like; but I
_know_ this myself–one lived in ‘Oxton, and the other down Bermondsey
way. ‘E’s got a nice little butcher’s business there at this present
moment; and ‘e’s a mug if ‘e turns it up!

_First P. (axiomatically)._ Every man’s a mug who turns a good business
up.

_The S._ Yer right! And (_moralising_) it ain’t _all_ ‘oney with that
sort o’ people, neither, I can tell yer! I dessay, now, when all’s put
to the test, you’re not a moneyed man–no more than I am myself?

_First P. (not altogether flattered)._ Well–that’s as _may_ be.

_The S._ But I b’leeve yer to be a man o’ the world, although I don’t
_know_ yer.

_First P. (modestly)._ I used to be in it at one time.

_The S. (confidentially)._ I’m in it _now_. I don’t get my livin’ by it,
though, mind yer. I’m a mechanic, I am–to a certain extent. I’ve been
in America. _There’s_ a country now–they don’t over-tax like they do
‘ere!

_First P. (sympathetically)._ There you _’ave_ touched a point–we’re
taxed past all common sense. Why, this very tobacco I’m smoking now is
charged—-

_The S._ Talkin’ of terbaccer, I don’t mind ‘aving a pipe along with yer
myself.

_First P. (handing his pouch with a happy mixture of cordiality and
condescension)._ There you are, then.

_The S. (afflicted by sudden compunction as he fills his pipe)._ I ‘ope
I’m not takin’ a libbaty in askin yer?

_First P._ Liberty? rubbish! I’m not one to make distinctions where _I_
go. I’d as soon talk to one man as I would another–you’re setting your
coat alight.

_The S._ I set fire to myself once, and I never live in ‘opes of doing
so agen! It’s a funny thing with me, I can smoke a cigar just as well as
I could a short pipe. I’m no lover of a cigar, if you understand me; but
I can go into company where they _are_, d’ye _see_?

_First P. (shortly)._ _I_ see.

_The S. (with fresh misgivings)._ You’ll excuse me if I’ve taken a
libbaty with yer!

_First P. (with a stately air)._ We settled all that just now.

_The S. (after a scrutiny)._ I tell yer what my idear of _you_ is–that
you’re a _Toff!_

_First P. (disclaiming this distinction a little uneasily)._ No,
no–there’s nothing of the toff about _me!_

_The S. (defiantly)._ Well, you’re a _gentleman_, anyway?

_First P. (aphoristic, but uncomfortable)._ We can all of us be that,
so long as we behave ourselves.

_The S. (much pleased by this sentiment)._ Right agen! give us yer
‘and–if it’s not takin a libbaty. I’m one of them as can’t bear to take
a libbaty with no matter ‘oo. Yer know it’s a real pleasure to me to be
settin’ ‘ere torkin’ comfortably to you, without no thought of either of
us fallin’ out. There’s some people as wouldn’t feel ‘appy, not without
they was ‘aving a row. Now you and me ain’t _like_ that!

_First P. (shifting about)._ Quite so–quite so, of course!

_The S._ Not but what if it was to come to a row between us, I could
take _my_ part!

_First P. (wishing there was somebody else in the compartment)._ I–I
hope we’ll keep off that.

_The S. (devoutly)._ So do I! _I_ ‘ope we’ll keep off o’ that. But yer
never know what may bring it on–and there it is, d’ye see! You and me
might fall out without intending it. I’ve bin a bit of a boxer in my
day. Do you doubt my word?–if so, say it to my face!

_First P._ I’ve no wish to offend you, I’m sure.

_The S._ I never take a lie straight from any man, and there you ‘ave me
in a word! If you’re _bent_ on a row, you’ll find me a glutton, that’s
all I can tell you!

_First P. (giving himself up for lost)._ But I’m _not_ bent on a
row–qu–quite otherwise!

_The S._ You should ha’ said so afore, because, when my back’s once put
_up_, I’m–’ello! we’re stopping, I get out ‘ere, don’t I?

_First P. (eagerly)._ Yes–make haste, they don’t stay long anywhere on
this line!

_The S. (completely mollified)._ Then I’ll say good-bye to yer.
(_Tenderly._) P’raps we may meet agen, some day.

_First P._ We–we’ll hope so–good day to you, wish you luck!

_The S. (solemnly)._ Lord _love_ yer! (_Pausing at door._) I ‘ope you
don’t think me the man to fall out with nobody. I _never_ fall out—-

[_Falls out into the arms of a porter, whom he pummels as the train
moves on, and First Passenger settles into a corner with a sigh of
relief._

* * * * *

[Illustration: NOT QUITE UP TO DATE

_Somerset Rustic (on seeing the signal drop)._ "Ar don't know if it'd
make any difference, maister, but thic ther' bit o' board of yourn 'ave
a fallen down!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NOTES OF TRAVEL

_Foreign Husband (whose wife is going to remain longer)._ "Gif me two
dickets. Von for me to come back, and von for my vife not to come
back!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: IN THE UNDERGROUND

_Lady (who has just entered carriage, to friend)._ "Fancy finding you in
the train! Why couldn't I have met you yesterday, now? I had such a
wretched journey! But one never _does_ meet people when one wants to!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: LA BELLE DAME SANS "MERCI"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "TOUT VIENT À QUI SAIT ATTENDRE"

Shouting heard--engine whistles frantically--brakes applied
violently--train stops--accident, no doubt--alarm of first-class
passengers--stout gent flies at communicator--child shrieks--terrified
lady calls out, "Help! guard! What is it? Let us out!"

_Guard._ "Oh, no fear, miss. On'y driver he just see a lot o' fine
mushyroons, miss, and we----he like 'em for breakfast. All right! Away
y' go!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A STATION ON THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE LINE

_Traveller._ "Now then, boy, where's the clerk who gives the ticket?"

_Boy (after finishing an air he was whistling)._ "I'm the clerk."

_Traveller._ "Well, sir! And what time does the train leave for
London?"

_Boy._ "Oh, I don't know. No time in pertickler. Sometimes one time--and
sometimes another."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: TRYING POSITION OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN

He determines to try the automatic photographing machine, the station
being empty. To his dismay a crowd has gathered, and watches the
operation.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Workman (politely, to old lady, who has accidentally got
into a smoking compartment)._ "You don't object to my pipe, I 'ope,
mum?"

_Old Lady._ "Yes, I _do_ object, very strongly!"

_Workman._ "Oh! Then out you get!!"]

* * * * *

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY LONG AFTER STERNE’S

_(A Romance for a “Ladies Only” Compartment)_

SCENE–_Reserved Carriage on the London and Utopian Railway. Female
Traveller in possession. Enter, suddenly, a Male Traveller._

_Male Traveller._ A thousand apologies! I really nearly missed my train,
so was obliged to take refuge in this carriage. Trust I don’t intrude.

_Fem. T. (after a pause)._ As you have no one to present you, I must ask
“if you are any lady’s husband?”

_Male T. (with a sigh)._ Alas, no! I am a wretched bachelor!

_Fem. T. (drily)._ That is nothing out of the common. I have been given
to understand that all bachelors are miserable.

_Male T._ No doubt your husband agrees with the opinion?

_Fem. T. (calmly)._ I have no experience. I am a spinster.

_Male T. (smiling)._ Indeed! And you selected a ladies’ carriage?

_Fem. T. (quickly)._ Because there was no room anywhere else.

_Male T._ Well, well! At the next station I can get into a smoking
compartment.

_Fem. T._ Surely there is no need to take so much trouble.

_Male T._ Why! don’t _you_ object to a cigar?

_Fem. T._ Not in the least. The fact is, I smoke myself!

[_Red fire and tobacco._

_Male T. (after a pause)._ I have it on my conscience to make a
correction. I said just now that I was not somebody's husband.

_Fem. T. (annoyed)._ Then you are married!

_Male T. (with intention)._ Well, not yet. But if you like you can
receive me as somebody's betrothed.

_Fem. T. (regardless of grammar)._ Who's somebody?

_Male T. (smiling)._ Think of your own name.

_Fem. T._ What next?

_Male T._ Why, give it to me; and if you like you shall have mine in
exchange. (_Train arrives at a station._)

_Guard (without)._ All change!

[_And later on they do._

* * * * *

THE PATRON SAINT OF RAILWAYS.-St. Pan-crash.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A NON-SEQUITUR

_Affable Old Gentleman (who has half a minute to spare)._ "I suppose
now, my boy, you take a good sum of money during the day?"

_Shoeblack._ "Yessur, 'cause lots o' gintleman, when they wants to ketch
a train, gives me sixpence!"

[_Old gent finds the sixpence, but in thinking over it afterwards,
couldn't see the connection._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE TWOPENNY TUBE

"Hi, guv'nor, there ain't no station named on this ticket!"

"No; all our tickets are alike."

"Then, 'ow do I know where I'm going?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: HIGHLY ACCOMMODATING

_Stout Party (rather hot)._ "Hope you don't find the breeze too much,
sir?"

_Fellow Passenger._ "Oh! not at all, sir! I rather like it!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SKYLIGHT VIEW--A RAILWAY STATION]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Traveller (to Irish porter labelling luggage)._ "Don't
you keep a brush for that work, porter?"

_Porter._ "No, yer honour. Our tongues is the only insthrumints we're
allowed. But--they're aisy kep' wet, yer honour!" [_Hint taken._]

* * * * *

IN A SLOW TRAIN

“Look out for squalls”–on land or sea–
Where duty or where pleasure calls,
A golden rule it seems to be,
Look out for squalls.

Yet in a train that slowly crawls
Somehow it most appeals to me.
For then sometimes, it so befalls,

An infant on its mother’s knee
In my compartment Fate installs–
Which makes a nervous man, you see,
Look out for squalls!

* * * * *

RAILWAY MAXIMS

(_Perfectly at the Service of any Railway Company_)

Delays are dangerous.

A train in time saves nine.

Live and let live.

After a railway excursion, the doctor.

Do not halloo till you are out of the train.

Between two trains we fall to the ground.

Fire and water make good servants but bad masters.

A director is known by the company he keeps.

A railway train is the thief of time.

There is no place like home–but the difficulty is to get there.

The farther you go, the worse is your fare.

It’s the railway pace that kills.

The great charm about a railway accident is that, no matter how many
lives are lost, “no blame is ever attached to any one.”

A railway is long, but life is short–and generally the longer a
railway, the shorter your life.

* * * * *

A DISTINCTION WITH A DIFFERENCE.–_Disappointed Porter (to Mate)._ I
thought you said he was a gentleman.

_Mate._ No, that’s where you mistook me. _I_ said he was a gent.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Sylvanus._ "Foxes are scarce in my country; but we
manage it with a drag now and then!"

_Urbanus._ "Oh--er--yes. But how do you get it over the fences?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Porter._ "Now, marm, will you please to move, or was
you corded to your box?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THERE BE LAND RATS"

_Jack Ashore._ "Bill, just keep a heye on my jewel-case 'ere while I go
and get the tickets. There's a lot o' sharks always cruisin' about these
railway stations, I've heard!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AFTER AN EASTERTIDE FESTIVITY--ON THE INNER CIRCLE

_Guard._ "Where are you for?"

_Old Gent._ "I'm oright--Edgware Road."

_Guard._ "Well, mind you get out this time. You've been round three
times!"]

* * * * *

RAILWAY SCALE OF MANNERS

We have often been struck with the difference of manner assumed by
railway officials towards different people. Shut your eyes, and you can
tell from the tone of their voices whom they are addressing. The
following examples will best illustrate our meaning. The railway
potentate is calling upon the passengers to get their tickets ready. He
calls:

To the Third Class.–_Fortissimè._–”Tickets, tickets; come get
your tickets ready.”

To the Second Class.–_Fortè._–”Tickets, gents; get your tickets ready,
gents.”

To the First Class.–_Piano._–”Get your tickets ready, gentlemen, if
you please; tickets ready, if you please, gentlemen.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE H GRATUITOUS

_Lady._ "Can I book through from here to Oban?"

_Well-educated Clerk (correcting her)._ "Holborn, you mean. No; but you
can book to Broad Street, and then take a 'bus!"]

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON A LOCOMOTIVE.

_By the sole survivor of a deplorable accident (no blame to be attached
to any servants of the company)_

Collisions four
Or five she bore,
The signals wor in vain;
Grown old and rusted,
Her biler busted,
And smash’d the Excursion Train.
“Her End Was Pieces.”

* * * * *

EPITAPH FOR A RAILWAY DIRECTOR.–”His life was spent on pleasant lines.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: MUDDLEBY JUNCTION

_Overworked Pointsman (puzzled)._ "Let's see!--there's the 'scursion'
were due at 4.45, and it ain't in; then, afore that, were the
'mineral,'--no! that must ha' been the 'goods,'--or the 'cattle.' No!
that were after,--cattle's shunting now. Let's see!--fast train came
through at----Con-found!--and here comes 'the express' afore its time,
and blest if I know which line she's on!!"]

* * * * *

TEA IN TEN MINUTES

(A SONG AT A RAILWAY STATION)

AIR–”_Thee, Thee, only Thee_”

Ten minutes here! The sun is sinking,
And longingly we’ve long been thinking
Of Tea, Tea, fragrant Tea!
The marble slabs we gather round.
They’re long in bringing what is wanted,
The china cup with draught em-brown’d,
Our thirsty souls are wholly haunted
By Tea, Tea, fragrant Tea!

Now then, you waiter, stir, awaken!
Time’s up. I’ll hardly save my bacon.
Tea, Tea, bring that Tea!
At last! The infusion’s rayther dark.
But hurry up! Can’t stay for ever!
One swig! Br-r-r-r! Hang the cunning shark!
Will’t never cool? Nay, never, never!
Tea, Tea, scalding Tea!

More milk; don’t be an hour in bringing!
Heavens! That horrid bell is ringing!
“Take your seats, please!” Can’t _touch_ the Tea!
Cup to the carriage must not take;
Crockery may be lost, or broken;
Refreshment sharks are wide awake.
But–many a naughty word is spoken
O’er Tea, Tea, scalding Tea!

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BEHIND THE SCENES

_Head Barmaid._ "These tarts are quite stale, Miss Hunt--been on the
counter for a fortnight! _Would_ you mind taking them into the
_second-class_ refreshment-room?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A LUSUS MACHINER--Æ

_Chatty Passenger._ "Porter! That's one of those curious tailless Manx
cats, is it not?"

_Crusty Porter (shortly)._ "No, 'taint. Morn'g 'xpress!"

_Passenger (puzzled)._ "E--h--I don't understand----"

_Porter._ "Don't yer? Well, you come and put your toe on these 'ere down
metals about 9.14 a.m. to-morrow, and----"

_Passenger (enlightened)._ "Ah!--I see--jus' so----"

[_Retires under cover of newspaper._

* * * * *

RAILWAY COMPANIONS

(_By a Disagreeable Traveller_)

I.

I have come to the conclusion that the railway train exercises a
sinister influence upon the human race. Persons who are tolerable--or
even welcome--in ordinary daily life, become peculiarly obnoxious so
soon as they enter the compartment of a train. No fairy prince ever
stepped into a railway train--assuming he favoured that means of
locomotion--without being transformed straightway into a Beast, and even
Beauty herself could not be distinguished from her disagreeable
sisters--in a train.

Speaking for myself, railway travelling invariably brings to the surface
all my worst qualities.

My neighbour opposite hazards some remark. I feel immediately a fit of
taciturnity coming over me, and an overpowering inclination to retreat
behind a fortification of journals and magazines. On the other hand, say
that I have exhausted my stock of railway literature--or, no remote
possibility, that the literature has exhausted me--then I make a casual
remark about the weather. The weather is not usually considered a
controversial topic: in railway trains, however, it becomes so.

"Rain! not a bit," says a passenger in the far corner, evidently
meditating a walking tour, and he views me suspiciously as if I were a
rain-producer.

"And a good thing too," remarks the man opposite. "It's wanted badly, I
tell you, sir--very badly. It's all very well for you holiday folk,"
&c., &c.

And all this bad feeling because of my harmless well-intentioned remark.

The window is up. "Phew!... stuffy," says the man opposite. "You don't
mind, I hope, the window--eh?" "Not in the least," I say, and conceive a
deadly hatred for him. I know from experience that directly that window
is down all the winds of heaven will conspire to rush through, bearing
upon them a smoky pall. I resign myself, therefore, to possible
bronchitis and inflammation of the eye. Schoolboys, I may remark by the
way, are the worst window offenders, owing to their diabolical practice
of looking out of window in a tunnel--and, of course, _nothing_ ever
happens to them. What's the use of expostulating after the compartment
is full of yellow, choking vapour. These boys should be leashed together
like dogs and conveyed in the luggage-van.

The window is down. "W-h-oop," coughs an elderly man. "Do you mind, sir,
that window being closed?" Polite mendacity and inward bitterness on my
part towards the individual who has converted the compartment into an
oven.

But there are worse companions even than these, of whom I must speak
another time.

II.

I have known people thoughtlessly speak well of the luncheon-basket. In
my opinion, the luncheon-basket arouses the worst passions of human
nature, and is a direct incentive to deeds of violence. To say this is
to cast an aspersion upon the refreshment contractor, who is evidently a
man of touchingly simple faith and high imagination. Simple faith
assuredly, for does he not provide on the principle that our insides are
hardy and vigorous and unspoilt by the art of cooking? High imagination
most certainly, otherwise he would never call that red fluid by the name
of claret.

No, it is to the social rather than to the gastronomic influence of the
luncheon-basket that I wish to advert.

Once I procured a luncheon-basket and with it came the demon of
discontent and suspicion, converting three neutral people into deadly
enemies.

One was a pale young man who had been scowling over Browning and making
frantic notes on the margin of the book. Personally, I don't think it
quite decent for pale young men to improve their minds in a public
conveyance--but at any rate he had seemed harmless. Now he raised his
eyes and viewed me with undisguised contempt. "Wretched glutton," he
said in effect, and when accidentally I burned my mouth with mustard
(which a sudden swerve had sent meandering in a yellow stream across the
chicken and ham), he gave a sneering, callous smile, which reminded me
that a man may smile and smile and be a--railway companion.

I verily believe that youth to be capable of any crime, even Extension
lecturing.

Then there was a young lady reading a sixpenny Braddon, who viewed me as
if I were some monster; when I shut my eyes and gulped off
some--er--claret, she brought biscuits and lemonade from a small bag and
refreshed herself with ostentatious simplicity, as if to say, "Look upon
_this_ picture and on the wine-bibbing epicurean in the corner." An old
lady with her was more amply provided for (old ladies usually take more
care of their insides than anyone else in creation), but although she
munched sandwiches and washed them down with sherry (probably sweet,
ugh!) luxuriously, she looked with pious horror at my plates and dishes
spread out. I _might_ have said, "Madam, I eat frankly and openly; my
resources may be viewed by all. Your secret and delusive bags have
limitless resources that you are ashamed to show."

I didn't say so; but the restraint placed on myself quite spoilt the
lunch. No more baskets.

* * * * *

[Illustration: À FORTIORI

_Ticket Collector._ "Now, then, make haste! Where's your ticket?"

_Bandsman (refreshed)._ "Au've lost it!"

_Ticket Collector._ "Nonsense! Feel in your pockets. Ye cannot hev lost
it!"

_Bandsman._ "Aw cannot? Why, man, au've lost the _big drum!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "JUST OUT!"--(AT ALL THE LIBRARIES)

_First Young Lady._ "How did you like _Convict Life_, dear?"

_Second Young Lady._ "Pretty well. We've just begun _Ten Years' Penal
Servitude_. Some of us like it, but----"

_Old Lady (mentally)._ "Good gracious! What dreadful creatures! So
young, too!"

[_Looks for the communicating cord!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RATHER SUSPICIOUS

_First Passenger._ "Had pretty good sport?"

_Second Passenger._ "No--very poor. Birds wild--rain in torrents--dogs
no use. 'Only got fifty brace!"

_First Passenger._ "'Make birds dear, won't it?"

_Second Passenger ("off his guard")._ "You're right. I assure you I paid
three-and-sixpence a brace all round at Norwich this morning!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FROM THE GENERAL TO THE PARTICULAR

_Young Lady (who has never travelled by this line before)._ "Do you go
to Kew Gardens?"

_Booking-Clerk._ "Sometimes on a Sunday, miss, on a summer's
afternoon!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A NEW RACE IN AFRICA.
Arrival of the Uganda express.
(Twenty minutes ahead of time.)]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A LITTLE FARCE AT A RAILWAY STATION

_Lady._ "I want one ticket--first!" _Clerk._ "Single?" _Lady._ "Single!
What does it matter to you, sir, whether I'm single or not?
Impertinence!"

[_Clerk explains that he meant single or return, not t'other thing._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF IT

_Brown._ "Shockin' thing! You heard of poor Mullins getting his neck
broken in that collision!"

_Jones._ "Ah!--it's as-tonishing how lucky some fellows are! He told me
'last time I saw him he'd just insured his life for three thous'd
poun's!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: INJURED INNOCENCE

"Hulloa! _You've_ no call to be in here! _You_ haven't got a fust-class
ticket, _I_ know."

"No! I hain't!"

"Well, come out! This ain't a third-class carriage!"

"_Hain't_ it? Lor! Well I thought it _wos, by the look of the
passingers!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Guard._ "Some one been smoking, I think?"

_Passenger._ "What! Smoking! That's very reprehensible. Perhaps it was
the clerical gentleman who has just got out of the next compartment."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "NEM. CON.!"

_Chatty Passenger (on G. W. Railway)._ "How plainly you can see the
lights of Hanwell from the railway!"

_Silent Man (in the corner)._ "Not half so plain as the lights of the
train look from Hanwell!"

[_All change at the next station._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RECIPROCAL

_Sporting Gentleman._ "Well, sir, I'm very pleased to have made your
acquaintance, and had the opportunity of hearing a Churchman's views on
the question of tithes. Of course, as a country landowner, I'm
interested in Church matters, and----"

_The Parson._ "Quite so--delighted, I'm sure. Er--by the bye, could you
tell me _what's won to-day_?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RAILWAY LITERATURE

_Bookstall Keeper._ "Book, ma'am? Yes, ma'am. Here's a popular work by
an eminent surgeon, just published, 'Broken Legs: and How to Mend Them':
or, would you like the last number of _The Railway Operator_?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SATISFACTORY

_Bumptious Old Gent (in a directorial tone)._ "Ah, guard--what are
we--ah--waiting for?"

_Guard (with unconcern)._ "Waiting for the train to go on, sir!"
[_Old Gent retires._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN UNDERGROUND SELL

_First Passenger._ "They say they've put on detectives 'ere, to catch
coves as travels without tickets."

_Second Passenger._ "'Ave they? Well, all I can say is, _I_ can travel
as often as I like from Cannon Street to Victoria, and not pay a
'apenny!"

_Detective._ "See here, mate; I'll give you half-a-crown if you tell me
how you do it."

_Second Passenger (after pocketing the half-crown)._ "Well,--when I
wants to git from Cannon Street to Victoria without payin'--_I walks!_"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: QUITE UP TO DATE

_Cousin Madge._ "Well, good-bye, Charlie. So many thanks for taking care
of us!"

_Charlie._ "_Not at all!_"]

* * * * *

VOCES POPULI

II.

ON THE PLATFORM

_A Lady of Family._ Oh, yes, I do travel third-class sometimes, my dear.
I consider it a duty to try to know something of the lower orders.

[_Looks out for an empty third-class compartment._

EN ROUTE

_The seats are now all occupied: the Lady of Family is in one corner,
next to a Chatty Woman with a basket, and opposite to an
Eccentric-looking Man with a flighty manner._

_The Eccentric Man (to the Lady of Family)._ Sorry to disturb you, mum,
but you're a-setting on one o' my 'am sandwiches.

_The L. of F._???!!!

_The E. M. (considerately)._ Don't trouble yourself, mum, it's of no
intrinsic value. I on'y put it there to keep my seat.

_The Chatty W. (to the L. of F.)._ I think I've seen you about
Shinglebeach, 'ave I not?

_The L. of F._ It is very possible. I have been staying with some
friends in the neighbourhood.

_The C. W._ It's a nice cheerful place is Shinglebeach; but
(_confidentially_) don't you think it's a very sing'ler thing that in a
place like that--a fash'nable place, too--there shouldn't be a single
'am an' beef shop?

_The L. of F. (making a desperate effort to throw herself into the
question)._ What a very extraordinary thing, to be sure! Dear, _dear_
me! No ham and beef shop!

_The C. W._ It's so indeed, mum; and what's more, as I dare say you've
noticed for yourself, if you 'appen to want a snack o' fried fish ever
so, there isn't a place you could go to--leastways, at a moment's
notice. Now, 'ow do you explain such a thing as that?

_The L. of F. (faintly)._ I'm afraid I can't suggest any explanation.

_A Sententious Man._ Fried fish is very sustaining.

[_Relapses into silence for the remainder of journey._

_The Eccentric Man._ Talking of sustaining, I remember, when we was
kids, my father ud bring us home two pennorth o' ches'nuts, and we 'ad
'em boiled, and they'd last us days. (_Sentimentally._) He was a kind
man, my father (_to the L. of F., who bows constrainedly_), though you
wouldn't ha' thought it, to look at him. I don't say, mind yer, that he
wasn't fond of his bit o' booze--(_the L. of F. looks out of
window_)--like the best of us. I'm goin' up to prove his will now, I
am--if you don't believe me, 'ere's the probate. (_Hands that document
round for inspection._) That's all reg'lar enough, I 'ope. (_To the L.
of F._) Don't give it back before you've done with it--I'm in no 'urry,
and there's good reading in it. (_Points out certain favourite passages
with a very dirty forefinger._) Begin there--_that's_ my name.

[_The L. of F. peruses the will with as great a show of interest as she
can bring herself to assume._

_The Eccentric Man._ D'ye see that big 'andsome building over there?
That's the County Lunatic Asylum--where my poor wife is shut up. I went
to see her last week, I did. (_Relates his visit in detail to the L. of
F., who listens unwillingly._) It's wonderful how many of our family
have been in that asylum from first to last. I 'ad a aunt who died
cracky; and my old mother, she's very peculiar at times. There's days
when I feel as if I was a little orf my own 'ed, so if I say anything at
all out of the way, you'll know what it is.

[_L. of F. changes carriages at the next station. In the second carriage
are two Men of seafaring appearance, and a young Man who is parting from
his Fiancée as the L. of F. takes her seat._

_The Fiancé._ Excuse me one moment, ma'am.

(_Leans across the L. of F. and out of the window._)

Well, goodbye, my girl; take care of yourself.

_The Fiancée (with a hysterical giggle)._ Oh, I'll take care o' _my_
self.

[_Looks at the roof of the carriage._

_He (with meaning)._ No more pickled onions, eh?

_She._ What a one you are to remember things! (_After a pause._) Give my
love to Joe.

_He._ All right. Well, Jenny, just one, for the last (_they embrace
loudly, after which the F. resumes his seat with an expression of
mingled sentiment and complacency_). Oh, (_to L. of F._) if you don't
mind my stepping across you again, mum. Jenny, if you see Dick between
this and Friday, just tell him as----

[_Prolonged whispers; sounds of renewed kisses;_

_Final parting as train starts with a jerk which throws the Fiancé upon
the L. of F.'s lap. After the train is started a gleam of peculiar
significance is observable in the eyes of one of the Seafaring Men, who
is reclining in an easy attitude on the seat. His companion responds
with a grin of intelligence, and produces a large black bottle from the
rack. They drink, and hand the bottle to the Fiancé._

_The F._ Thankee I don't mind if I do. Here's wishing you----

[_Remainder of sentiment drowned in sound of glug-glug-glug; is about to
hand back bottle when the first Seafarer intimates that he is to pass it
on. The L. of F. recoils in horror._

_Both Seafarers (reassuringly)._ It's _wine_, mum!

[_Tableau. The Lady of Family realises that the study of third-class
humanity has its drawbacks._

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Our Artist (who has strolled into a London terminus)._
"What's the matter with all these people? Is there a panic?"

_Porter._ "Panic! No, this ain't no panic. These is excursionists. Their
train leaves in two hours, so they want to get a seat!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE BRANCH STATION

_Miss Tremmles (who is nervous about railways generally, and especially
since the late outrages)._ "Oh, porter, put me into a carriage where
there are ladies, or respectable people, or----"

_Porter._ "Oh, you're all safe this mornin', miss; you're th' only
passenger in the whol' tr'ine, except another old woman."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A COOL CARD

_Swell (handing "Sporting Life" to Clerical Party)._ "Aw--would
you--aw--do me the favour to wead the list of the waces to me while
we're wunning down?--I've--aw--forgotten my eyeglass. Don't mind waising
your voice--I'm pwecious deaf!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THAT IT SHOULD COME TO THIS!

_Boy._ "Second-class, sir?"

_Captain._ "I nevah travel second-class!"

_Boy._ "This way third, sir!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ART!

_Chatty Passenger._ "To show yer what cheats they are, sir, friend o'
mine,--lots o' money, and fust-rate taste,--give the horder to one of
'em to decorate his new 'ouse in reg'lar slap-up style!--'spare no
expense!--with all the finest 'chromios' that could be 'ad! You know
what lovely things they are, sir! Well, sir, would you believe
it!--after they was sent, they turned out not to be 'chromios' at
all!--but done by 'and!"--(_with withering contempt_)--"done by 'and,
sir!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PERMISSIVE SLAUGHTER

(_Five Thousand Shunting Accidents in Five Years!_)

_First Shunter (with coupling-link, awaiting engine backing)._ "I saw
poor Jack's wife and kids last night, after the funeral. Poor things,
what will be done for 'em?" _Second Shunter (at points)._ "Oh, the usual
thing, I s'ppose--company's blessin', and a charity mangle!----Look
out, mate! She's backin'!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BEHIND TIME

_Ticket Collector._ "This your boy, mum? He's too big for a 'alf
ticket!" _Mother (down upon him)._ "Oh, is he? Well, p'rhaps he is now,
mister; but he wasn't when we started. This 'xcursion's ever so many
hours be'ind time, an' he's a growin' lad! So now!"

[_Exit in triumph._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "FORCE OF HABIT"

_Our Railway Porter (the first time he acted as deputy in the absence of
the beadle)._ "T'kets r'dy! All tick-ets ready!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHY TAKE A CHILL?

If your train is not heated by pipes, get plenty of foot-warmers, as
Algy and Betty did. Sit on one, put your feet on another, a couple at
your back, and one on your lap, and you'll get to your destination as
they did--warm as muffins!]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Railway Porter._ "Now then, sir! by your leave!"]

* * * * *

IN THE HOT WEATHER TOO!

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

A Choleric Old Gentleman. A Cool Young Party.

SCENE.–A Richmond Railway Carriage.

TIME.–About 12 noon.

_Choleric Old Gentleman (panting, puffing, perspiring)._ Hot, sir,
tremendously hot.

_Cool Young Party._ It is warm.

_C. O. G._ Warm, sir! I call it blazing hot. Why the glass is 98° in the
shade!

_C. Y. P._ Really! is that much?

_C. O. G._ Much, sir! Immense!

_C. Y. P._ Well, then, the glass is perfectly right.

_C. O. G._ Right, sir! I don’t understand you, sir. What do you mean by
saying it is right, sir?

_C. Y. P._ I mean that the glass is quite right to be as much in the
shade as it can in this warm weather.

[_Choleric Old Gentleman collapses._

* * * * *

[Illustration: QUITE UNIMPORTANT.

_Thompson (interrogatively, to beauteous but haughty damsel, whom he has
just helped to alight)._ "I beg your pardon?"

_Haughty Damsel._ "I did not speak!"

_Thompson._ "Oh--I thought you said 'Thanks'!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID

"I'm afraid we shan't have this compartment to ourselves any longer,
Janet." "Oh, it's all right, aunty darling. If you put your head out of
window, I dare say nobody will come in!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SCENE AT A RAILWAY STATION

_Groom._ "Beg pardon, sir,--but wos your name Tomkins?" _Tomkins._
"Yes!" _Groom._ "If you please, sir, master says he wos werry sorry
as he couldn't send the feeaton--but, as his young 'oss wanted
exercise, he thought you wouldn't mind ridin' of 'im!"

[_Tomkins bursts into a cold perspiration._]

* * * * *

SUBURBAN HOSPITALITY.

SCENE–_A mile and a half to the railway
station, on a bitter winter’s night._

_Genial Host (putting his head out of doors)._ Heavens! what a night!
Not fit to turn a dog out! (_To the parting guest._) Well, good-night,
old chap. I hope you find your way to the station.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A LUXURIOUS HABIT

_Philanthropist (to railway porter)._ "Then what time do you get to
bed?"

_Porter._ "Well, I seldom what yer may call gets to bed myself, 'cause
o' the night trains. But my brother, as used to work the p'ints further
down the line, went to bed last Christmas after the accident, and
never----"

[_Train rushes in, and the parties rush off._]

* * * * *

HARD LINES ON INDIVIDUALS.–The compulsory purchase of land by a
railway company is insult added to injury. The buyers take a site in the
seller’s face.

* * * * *

“THE ROLL OF THE AGES.”–The penny roll at railway refreshment-rooms.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE OTHER WAY ABOUT"

_Irate Passenger (as train is moving off)._ "Why the ---- didn't you put
my luggage in as I told you--you old ----"

_Porter._ "E--h, man! yer baggage es na sic a fule as yersel. Ye're i'
the wrang train!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Railway Porter._ "Dogs not allowed inside the carriages,
sir!"

_Countryman._ "What not a little tooy tarrier? Wall, thee'd better tak'
un oot then, young man!"]

* * * * *

THE PORTER’S SLAM

[A meeting at Manchester raised a protest against the nuisance caused by
the needlessly loud "slamming" of railway carriage doors.]

The porter has a patent “slam,”
Which smites one like a blow,
And everywhere that porter comes
That “slam” is sure to go.
It strikes upon the tym-pa-num
Like shock of dynamite;
By day it nearly makes you dumb–
It deafens you at night.
When startled by the patent “slam”
The pious “pas-sen-jare,”
Says something else that ends in “am”
(Or he has patience rare).
Not only does it cause a shock,
But–Manchester remarks–
“Depreciates the rolling stock,”
Well, that is rather larks!
_That’s_ not the point. The porter’s slam
Conduces to insanity,
And, though as mild as Mary’s lamb,
Drives men to loud profanity.
If Manchester the “slam” can stay
By raising of a stir,
All railway-travellers will say,
“Bully for Man-ches-ter!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849

A raylway statyon. Showynge ye travellers refreshynge themselves.]

MR. PIPS HIS DIARY

_Tuesday, July 31, 1849._–Prevailed upon by my wife to carry her to
Bath, as she said, to go see her aunt Dorothy, but I know she looked
more to the pleasure of her trip than any thing else; nevertheless I do
think it necessary policy to keep in with her aunt, who is an old maid
and hath a pretty fortune; and to see what court and attention I pay her
though I do not care 2_d._ about her! But am mightily troubled to know
whether she hath sunk her money in an annuity, which makes me somewhat
uneasy at the charge of our journey, for what with fare, cab-hire, and
vails to Dorothy’s servants for their good word, it did cost me
altogether _£_6 2_s._ 6_d._ To the Great Western station in a cab, by
reason of our luggage; for my wife must needs take so many trunks and
bandboxes, as is always the way with women: or else we might have gone
there for 2_s._ 6_d._ less in an omnibus. Did take our places in the
first class notwithstanding the expense, preferring both the seats and
the company; and also because if any necks or limbs are broken I note it
is generally in the second and third classes. So we settled, and the
carriage-doors slammed to, and the bell rung, the train with a whistle
off like a shot, and in the carriage with me and my wife a mighty pretty
lady, a Frenchwoman, and I did begin to talk French with her, which my
wife do not well understand, and by and by did find the air too much for
her where she was sitting, and would come and take her seat between us,
I know, on purpose. So fell a reading the _Times_, till one got in at
Hanwell, who seemed to be a physician, and mighty pretty discourse with
him touching the manner of treating madmen and lunatics, which is now by
gentle management, and is a great improvement on the old plan of chains
and the whip. Also of the foulness of London for want of fit drainage,
and how it do breed cholera and typhus, as sure as rotten cheese do
mites, and of the horrid folly of making a great gutter of the river. So
to Swindon station, where the train do stop ten minutes for refreshment,
and there my wife hungry, and I too with a good appetite,
notwithstanding the discourse about London filth. So we out, and to the
refreshment-room with a crowd of passengers, all pushing, and jostling,
and trampling on each others’ toes, striving which should get served
first. With much ado got a basin of soup for my wife, and for myself a
veal and ham pie, and to see me looking at my watch and taking a
mouthful by turns; and how I did gulp a glass of Guinness his stout!
Before we had half finished, the guard rang the bell, and my wife with a
start, did spill her soup over her dress, and was obliged to leave half
of it; and to think how ridiculous I looked, scampering back to the
train with my meat-pie in my mouth! To run hurry-skurry at the sound of
a bell, do seem only fit for a gang of workmen; and the bustle of
railways do destroy all the dignity of travelling; but the world
altogether is less grand, and do go faster than formerly. Off again, and
to the end of our journey, troubled at the soup on my wife’s dress, but
thankful I had got my change, and not left it behind me at the Swindon
station.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NARCISSUS

_Little Podgers (who considers himself rather a lady-killer)._ "Oh, I'm
not going into that empty carriage; put me into one with some pretty
gals."

Porter. "You jump in, sir, and put yer 'ead out of the winder, you'll
soon have a carriage-full."

[Podgers sees it immediately, and enters.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lionel (to his rich uncle's coachman, who has driven him
over to the station)._ "And look here, Sawyer, give the governor this
accidental insurance ticket with my love. I haven't forgotten him, and
if anything happens to me, there's a thousand pounds for him!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON"

_Guest._ "It's very kind of you to----"

_Hosts._ "Oh, we should not have felt comfortable unless we'd come with
you, and--seen the last of you----!!"]

* * * * *

SMALL POTATOES.–_Q._ Why are regular travellers by the Shepherd’s Bush
and City Railway like certain vegetables?

_A._ Because they’re “Tubers.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: INOPPORTUNE

_Newsboy (to irritable old gent who has just lost his train)._ "Buy a
comic paper, sir?"

[_Luckily, the old gentleman was out of breath from his hurry._]

* * * * *

THE TYMPANUM

(_A Remonstrance at a Railway Station_)

The tympanum! The tympanum!
Oh! who will save the aural drum
By softening to some gentler squeak
The whistle’s shrill _staccato_ shriek?
Oh! Engine-driver, did you know
How your blast smites one like a blow,
An inward shock, a racking strain,
A knife-like thrust of poignant pain,
Whilst groping through the tunnel murk
You would not with that fiendish jerk
Let out that _sudden_ blast of steam
Whose screaming almost makes _us_ scream
Thy whistle weird perchance may be
A sad and sore necessity,
But cannot Law and sense combine
To–well, in short to draw the line?–
Across the open let it shrill
From moor to moor, from hill to hill,
But in the tunnel’s crypt-like gloom,
The station’s cramped reverberant room,
A gentler, _graduated_ blast!
_Do_ let it loose, whilst dashing past,
So shall it spare us many a pang;
That dread explosive bursting “bang”
Which nearly splits the aural drum,
The poor long-suffering tympanum!

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE BLOCK SYSTEM"

_Affable Old Lady (to ticket clerk--morning express just due)._ "No, I'm
not going up this morning, but one of your penny time-tables, if you
please; and can you tell me"--(_Shouts from the crowd_, "Now then,
mum!")--"if the 10.45 stops at Dribblethorp Junction, and if Shandry's
'bus meets the trains, which it always does on market days, I know,
'cause my married sister's cousin, as is a farmer, generally goes by it.
But if it don't come o' Toosday as well as Wednesday, I shall have to
get out at Shuntbury and take a fly, which runs into money, you know,
when you're by yourself like. If you'll be good enough to look out the
trains--and change for half a sovereign, if you please. Oh no, I'm in no
hurry, as I ain't a goin' till next week. Fine morn----"

[_Bell rings. Position stormed._]

* * * * *

WONDERS OF MODERN TRAVEL

Wonder whether accidents will be as numerous as usual during this
excursion season.

Wonder if a train, conveying third-class passengers, was ever known to
start without somebody or other exclaiming, “_Now_ we’re off!”

Wonder why it is that foreigners in general, and fat Germans in
particular, always will persist in smoking with the windows shut.

Wonder whether anybody was ever known to bellow out the name of any
station in such a manner that a stranger could succeed in understanding
him.

Wonder whether it is cheaper to pay for broken bones, or for such
increase of service as, in very many cases, might prevent their being
broken.

Wonder how a signalman can by any means contrive to keep a cool head on
his shoulders, while working as one sees him in a signal-box of glass,
and the temperature of the tropics.

Wonder if upon an average there are three men in a thousand who have
never been puzzled by the hieroglyphics in _Bradshaw_.

Wonder whether any railway guard or porter has ever been detected in the
very act of virtuously declining to accept a proffered tip, on the
ground that money, by the bye-laws, is forbidden to be taken by servants
of the company.

Wonder how many odd coppers the boys who sell the newspapers pocket in a
week by the benevolence of passengers.

Wonder what diminution there would be in the frequency of accidents,
supposing directors were made purse-onally liable.

Wonder whether people take to living at Redhill because it is so
redhilly accessible by railway.

TO THE STATION.

Wonder if my watch is right, or slow, or fast.

Wonder if that church clock is right.

Wonder if the cabman will take eighteenpence from my house to the
station.

THE STATION.

Wonder if the porter understood what I said to him about the luggage.

Wonder if I shall see him again.

Wonder if I shall know him when I _do_ see him again.

Wonder if I gave my writing-case to the porter or left it in the cab.

Wonder where I take my ticket.

Wonder in which pocket I put my gold.

Wonder where I got that bad half-crown which the clerk won’t take.

Wonder if that’s another that I’ve just put down.

Wonder where the porter is who took my luggage.

Wonder where my luggage is.

Wonder again whether I gave my writing-case to the porter, or left it in
the cab.

Wonder which is my train.

Wonder if the guard knows anything about that porter with the
writing-case.

Wonder if it _will_ be “all right” as the guard says it will be.

Wonder if my luggage, being now labelled, will be put into the proper
van.

Wonder if I’ve got time to get a sandwich and a glass of sherry.

Wonder if they’ve got the _Times_ of the day before yesterday, which I
haven’t seen.

Wonder if _Punch_ of this week is out yet.

Wonder why they don’t keep nice sandwiches and sherry.

Wonder if there’s time for a cup of coffee instead.

Wonder if that’s our bell for starting.

Wonder which is the carriage where I left my rug and umbrella, so as to
know it again.

Wonder where the guard is to whom I gave a shilling to keep a carriage
for me.

Wonder why he didn’t keep it; by “it,” I mean the carriage.

Wonder where they’ve put my luggage.

THE JOURNEY.

Wonder if my change is all right.

Wonder for the second time in which pocket I put my gold.

Wonder if I gave the cabman a sovereign for a shilling.

Wonder if that was the reason why he grumbled less than usual and drove
off rapidly.

Wonder if any one objects to smoking.

Wonder that nobody does.

Wonder where I put my lights.

Wonder whether I put them in my writing-case.

Wonder for the third time whether I gave my writing-case to the porter
or left it in the cab.

Wonder if anybody in the carriage has got any lights.

Wonder that nobody has.

Wonder when we can get some.

Wonder if there’s anything in the paper.

Wonder why they don’t cut it.

Wonder if I put my knife in my writing-case.

Wonder for the fourth time whether I gave, &c.

Wonder if I can cut the paper with my ticket.

Wonder where I put my ticket.

Wonder where I _could_ have put my ticket.

Wonder where the deuce I put my ticket.

Wonder how I came to put my ticket in my right-hand waistcoat pocket.

Wonder if I can read by this lamp-light in the tunnel.

Wonder (to myself) why they don’t light the carriages in a better way.

Wonder (to my fellow-passengers) that the company don’t provide better
lights for their carriages. Fellow-passengers say they wonder at that,
too. We all wonder.

Wonder what makes the carriages wiggle-waggle about so.

Wonder if we’re going off the line.

Wonder what station we stop at first.

Wonder if there will be a refreshment-room there.

Wonder (for the fifth time) whether I gave my writing-case to the
porter, or left it in the cab.

Wonder if I left the key of my writing-case in the lock.

Wonder what the deuce I shall do if I’ve lost it.

FIRST STATION.

Wonder if this is Tringham or Upper Tringham.

Wonder if it’s Tringham Junction.

Wonder if we change here for Stonnhurst.

Wonder if any one understands what the guard says.

Wonder if any one understands what the porter says.

Wonder where the refreshment-room is.

Wonder if I run across eight lines of rail, and over two platforms, to
where I see the refreshment-room is, whether I shall ever be able to get
back to my own carriage.

Wonder (while I am crossing) whether any of the eight trains, on any of
the eight lines, will come in suddenly.

REFRESHMENT-ROOM.

Wonder what’s the best thing to take.

Wonder whether soup’s a good thing.

Wonder whether the waiter heard me ask for soup, because I’ve changed my
mind, and will have some tea.

Wonder if the young lady at the counter knows that I’ve asked for tea,
twice.

Wonder if those buns are stale.

Wonder if tea goes well with buns.

Wonder what _does_ go with buns.

Wonder, having begun on buns, whether it wouldn’t have been better to
ask for sherry.

Wonder if this tea will ever be cool.

Wonder if that’s our bell for starting.

Wonder if the young lady at the counter is deceiving me when she says
I’ve got exactly a minute and a half.

Wonder if anybody’s looking at me while I put my tea in the saucer.

Wonder if that _is_ our bell.

Wonder if I shall have time to get back to my carriage.

Wonder how much tea and buns come to.

Wonder where I put my small change.

Wonder, having nothing under half-a-crown, if I could get off without
paying.

Wonder they don’t keep change ready.

Wonder as I’m recrossing the lines whether any train will come in
suddenly.

THE PLATFORM.

Wonder which is my carriage.

Wonder (to guard familiarly) why they don’t provide better lights for
the carriages. Guard says, he wonders at that, too. Every one seems to
wonder at that.

Wonder (to guard again) if I can get a hot-water bottle for my feet
anywhere. Guard wonders they don’t keep ‘em.

Wonder (to guard once more) if I’ve time to go across the line, get my
change out of the half-crown for buns and tea, and return to my
carriage.

Wonder if the guard is right in saying that we shall start directly.

Wonder I forgot to ask the guard all about my luggage.

THE CARRIAGE.

Wonder, being safely in my seat, that there are not more accidents from
people crossing the rails in a large station.

Wonder why there’s not a refreshment-room on either side.

Wonder why they always come for your tickets after you’ve made yourself
comfortable.

Wonder where the dickens I put my ticket.

Wonder, supposing I can’t find it, whether the man will believe I ever
had one.

Wonder, on this matter being settled satisfactorily, which is the best
pocket for keeping tickets in.

Wonder why they can’t shut the carriage-doors without banging them.

THE JOURNEY (CONTINUED).

Wonder if anybody thought of getting any lights.

Wonder if I should have had time to cross over to the refreshment-room
and get the change out of my half-crown.

Wonder (to my opposite neighbour) what county we’re passing through. He
wonders, too. We both look out of our own side windows, and go on
wondering.

Wonder if that protracted shrill steam-whistle means danger. Opposite
neighbour wonders if it does.

Wonder why we’re stopping; ’tisn’t a station.

Wonder what’s the matter.

Wonder what it is.

Wonder what it _can_ be.

Wonder if it’s dangerous to put one’s head out of window.

Wonder if the engine has broken down.

Wonder if there’s anything on the line.

Wonder if the express is behind us.

Wonder if that man on the line is making a danger signal.

Wonder (as we are moving again) what it was.

Wonder passengers can’t have some direct means of communicating with a
guard.

Wonder how long we shall be before we get to Stonnhurst.

THE JOURNEY (CONCLUDED).

Wonder if that’s my portmanteau that that elderly gentleman is taking
away with him.

Wonder if they’ll send to meet me at the station.

Wonder (if they don’t send) whether there’s a fly or an omnibus.

Wonder where their house is.

Wonder if the station-master knows where their house is.

Wonder what a fly will charge.

Wonder what I shall do if they don’t send, and there isn’t a fly or an
omnibus.

Wonder what time they dine.

Wonder if I shall have time to write a letter before dinner.

Wonder, for the sixth time, whether I gave my writing-case to the guard,
or left it in the cab.

Wonder if I _did_ leave it in the cab.

Wonder if this is where I get out.

SMALL STATION.

Wonder if the guard is right in saying that, as I’m going to Redditon,
it doesn’t matter whether I get out at the next station, Stonnhurst, or
Morley Vale, the next but one.

Wonder for which place my luggage was labelled.

Wonder whether after getting out at Stonnhurst I shall have to go back
for my luggage to Morley Vale.

Wonder if I do right in deciding upon getting out at Stonnhurst.

STONNHURST.

Wonder if my luggage has gone on to Morley Vale.

Wonder if I left my umbrella in the carriage, or forgot to bring it.

Wonder how far it is from Stonnhurst to Morley Vale.

Wonder if they’ve sent a trap to meet me at Morley Vale.

Wonder why, when people invite one to come down to some out-of-the-way
place, they don’t tell one all these difficulties in their letter.

Wonder if they’ll have sense enough to drive to Stonnhurst from Morley
Vale.

Wonder if I shall meet them on the road if I walk there.

Wonder which _is_ the road.

Wonder, in answer to demand at the station-door, where I put my ticket.

Wonder if I dropped it in the carriage.

Wonder what I can have done with it.

Wonder if I put it into the side pocket of my overcoat when I took out
my lights.

Wonder where the deuce my overcoat is.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SCENE--_Chancery Lane "Tube" Station._

_First Lift Man._ "A good time comin' for me, mate. What O, for a bit of
a chinge!"

_Second Lift Man._ "What's up, then?"

_First Lift Man (in impressive tones)._ "Got shifted to the
_Bank_--beginnin' Monday!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FOND DELUSION

_First Tourist (going north)._ "Hullo, Tompk----"

_Second Ditto (ditto, ditto)._ "Hsh----sh! Confound it, you'll spoil
all. They think in the train I'm a Highland chief!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FOR LADIES ONLY

"RESERVED CARRIAGES." (_See "Day by Day" in "Daily News"_)

"If you travel in one, you run greater risks than in travelling in the
ordinary carriages. I have known railway officials allow men to jump
into them at the last moment before the train starts, with a mutual wink
at each other and a very objectionable grin."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A DISENCHANTMENT

_Northern Croesus._ "Oh! I'm so glad to meet you here, Mr. Vandyke
Brown. The fact is, I've a _commission_ for you!"

_Our Youthful Landscape Painter (dissembling his rapture)._ "All
right--most happy--what is it to be?"

_Northern Croesus._ "Well--my aged grandmother is going to London by
this train--and I want to put her under your protection."

[_Our Youthful Landscape Painter dissembles again._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PATENT FIRST-CLASS COSTUME FOR THE COLLISION SEASON

_Traveller._ "Yes, it's decidedly warm, but there's a feeling of
security about it I rather like." (_Yawns._) "Any chance of a smash
to-day!?"

[_Drops off to sleep!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: JUDGING BY APPEARANCES

_Undersized Youth._ "Now then, first return, Surbiton, and look sharp!
How much?"

_Clerk._ "Three shillings. Half-price under twelve!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: COLD COMFORT

_Traveller (waiting for train already twenty minutes late)._ "Porter,
when do you expect that train to come in?"

_Porter._ "Can't say, sir. But the longer you waits for it, the more
sure 'tis to come in the next minute."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE NURSERY SALOON ON THE RAILWAY"

OUR ARTIST'S NOTION OF WHAT WE MAY EXPECT IF THE SUGGESTION WERE ADOPTED

The saloon is Patent swing Rattles can Efficient nurse The saloon
fitted with sleeping cradles be obtained guards, to look is fitted
refreshment can be secured at most of after the with amusing
bar, replete by wire or the large babies, travel toys, to
with all baby letter. stations. by all trains. beguile
delicacies. the tedium
of long
journeys.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: RAILWAY PUZZLE

To find the name of the station.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: VICARIOUS!

(_On the Underground Railway_)

_Irascible Old Gentleman (who is just a second too late)._ "Confound and
D----!"

_Fair Stranger (who feels the same, but dare not express it)._ "Oh,
thank you, _so_ much!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

_Old Lady._ "Well, I'm sure no woman with the least sense of decency
would think of going down _that_ way to it."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: REGULAR IRREGULARITY

_Passenger (in a hurry)._ "Is this train punctual?"

_Porter._ "Yessir, generally a quarter of an hour late to a minute!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Perspiring Countryman (who has just, with the utmost
difficulty, succeeded in catching train)._ "Phew! Just saved it by
t'skin o' my _teeth_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "'TIS BETTER NOT TO KNOW"

_Impudent Boy (generally)._ "Try yer weight--only a penny!" (_To lady of
commanding proportions in particular._) "'Tell yer 'xact weight to a
hounce, mum!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: APPALLING DISCLOSURES OVERHEARD BY AN OLD LADY IN THE
CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO RUFFIANS IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE.

_First Artist._ "Children don't seem to me to sell now as they used."

_Second Artist (in a hoarse whisper)._ "Well, I was at Stodge's
yesterday. He'd just knocked off three little girls' heads--horrid raw
things--a dealer came in, sir--bought 'em directly--took 'em away, wet
as they were, on the stretchers, and wanted Stodge to let him have some
more next week."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NECESSITIES OF LIFE

"Yes, my lady. James went this morning with the hunters, and I've sent
on the heavy luggage with Charles. But I've got your pencil-case, the
bicycle, your ladyship's golf clubs and hunting crop and billiard cue,
the lawn tennis racket, the bezique cards and markers, your ladyship's
betting book and racing glasses and skates and walking-stick--and if
I've forgotten anything I can easily wire back for it from the first
station we stop at."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A STRIKING ATTITUDE

Patience on a trunk waiting for a cab]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RAILWAY JUGGERNAUT OF 1845]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AFTER A DERBY-WINNER-DINNER

_Diner._ "Ticket."

_Clerk._ "What station?"

_Diner._ "Wha-stashun ve-you-got?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM"

_Mr. Foozler (who, while waiting for the last train, has wandered to the
end of the platform, opened the door of the signal-box, and watched the
signalman's manipulations of the levers for some moments with hazy
perplexity, suddenly)._ "Arf o' Burt'n 'n birrer f' me, guv'nor!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Third-class single to Ruswarp, please, and a dog ticket.
How much?"

"Fourpence-halfpenny--threepence for the dog, and three-halfpence for
yourself."

"Ah! you reckon by _legs_ on this line."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE QUESTION SETTLED

_Mrs. M-l-pr-p._ "The fact is, my love, that these terrible collusions
would never occur if the trains was only more punctilious!"]

* * * * *

A NEEDLESS PANIC.–Mrs. Malaprop is puzzled to know what people mean
when they talk of the present alarming Junction of affairs. She hopes it
has nothing to do with the railways, in which she has some Deference
shares.

* * * * *

THOUGHT BY A RAILWAY DIRECTOR.–Britannia used to rule the waves. She
now rules the land–with lines.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE OLD HALL]

(_A Story of Delusive Aspirations_)

1. Jones was a tuft-hunter. One day, in a train, he encountered an
elderly gentleman who aroused great interest in his bosom. “Porter,”
said that elderly gentleman, “‘ave you seen my old hall?” “Got an old
hall!” murmured Jones to himself. “Rich man–probably duke! Should like
to cultivate him!”

2. The stranger was affable. “Did you ever ‘ave an old hall?” he said.
“Why–er–n-no,” said Jones. “Very convenient thing to ‘ave,” said the
stranger. “I’ve got all manner o’ things in my old hall.” “Ah–armour,
and ancestors, and tapestry, and secret doors, no doubt,” thought Jones
to himself.

3. “You must see my old hall,” said the stranger. “I’ll show you all the
ins and outs of it. I can put you up—-” “Really very good of you!”
exclaimed Jones. “Shall be delighted to accept—-” “Put you up to no
hend of wrinkles about old halls,” continued the stranger.

4. They alighted at the terminus. “There–there’s my old hall! Hain’t it
a beauty?” said the stranger. Jones sank slowly to the earth, without a
groan. That ungrammatical stranger’s vaunted possession was a hold-all.

* * * * *

RULES FOR THE RAIL

A REMINISCENCE OF THE BAD OLD DAYS

The President of the Board of Trade having sent a circular to the
railway companies with reference to making provisions for the prevention
of accidents and the enforcement of punctuality, especially in
connection with the running of excursion trains at this period of the
year, the following regulations will probably come under consideration.

1. In future one line will be kept (when feasible) for up trains, whilst
the other is reserved for the use of down-trains. This rule will not
apply to luggage and mineral trains, and trains inaccurately shunted on
to lines on which they (the trains) have no right to travel.

2. Station-masters should never permit a train to start more than forty
minutes late, except when very busy with the company’s accounts.

3. As complaints have been made that signalmen are overworked, these
officers in future will occupy their boxes during the morning only.
During the rest of the day the boxes will be closed. That the public may
suffer no inconvenience by this arrangement, the trains will continue
running by day and by night as heretofore.

4. A pointsman will be expected to notice all signals and to obey them.
He will be required, before leaving his post (when on duty), to order
one of his children to look after the points during his absence. The
child he selects for this office should be at least three years old.

5. The driver and stoker in charge of an engine should never sleep at
the same time unless they have taken proper precautions beforehand to
prevent an excessive consumption of the company’s fuel.

6. When a luggage train is loading or unloading beside the platform of a
station, it will be desirable to recollect the time at which an express
is due, as unnecessary collisions cause much damage to the rolling
stock, and not unfrequently grave inconvenience to first-class
passengers.

7. The _débris_ of a train should be removed from the rails before an
express is permitted to enter the tunnel in which an accident has taken
place. As non-compliance with this rule is likely to cause much delay to
the traffic, it should be obeyed when feasible.

8. As guards of excursion trains have been proved to be useless, their
places will in future be filled by surgeons. Passengers are particularly
requested to give no fees to the surgeons accompanying these trains, as
the salaries of these officials will be provided for in the prices
charged to the public for excursion tickets.

9. In future, contracts from surgeons and chemists will be accepted on
the same terms as those already received from refreshment caterers.

10. The public having frequently experienced inconvenience in having to
leave the station when requiring medical attention, in future the
waiting-rooms of the third-class passengers will be converted into
surgeries for first-class passengers. As these saloons will be fitted
with all the latest inventions in surgical instruments, a small extra
charge will be made to passengers using them.

11. The directors (in conclusion) fully recognising the responsibility
conferred upon them by the shareholders, if not by the public, will
expel from their body in future (as a person evidently of unsound mind)
any director convicted of travelling by any railway.

* * * * *

[Illustration: ABOLITION OF SECOND-CLASS CARRIAGES

"Are there any second-class carriages on this line, Rogers?"

"No, my lord."

"Ah! then take two first-class tickets, and two third."

"Beg pardon, my lord! But is me and Mrs. Parker expected to go third
class?"

"Gracious heavens! No, Rogers! not for the world! The third-class
tickets are for my lady and me!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: The old lady is supposed (after a great effort) to have
made up her mind to travel, just for once, by one "of those new fangled
railways," and the first thing she beholds on arriving at the station,
is the above most alarming placard.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "TIME BY THE FORELOCK"!

_Dodger._ "Hullo, how are you! Can't stop, though, or I shan't miss my
train!"

_Codger._ "Catch it, you mean."

_Dodger._ "No, I don't. I always used to miss my right train, so now I
always miss the one before it, and get home in time for dinner! Ta,
ta!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: APRIL 1

_Mamma._ "Oh, I am so glad to meet you, professor. You _know
everything_. Do tell me what time the train that stops nowhere starts."
[_For once the professor is not ready._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNNECESSARY REMARKS

"What! Have you missed it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "OVERCAST"

They were out for a day in the country--were late at the station--he
left it to her to take the tickets--a horrid crowd--frightfully hot--and
she was hustled and flustered considerably when she reached the
carriage.

_He (cool and comfortable)._ "How charming the yellow gorse----"

_She (in a withering tone)._ "You didn't 'xpect to see it blue, I
s'ppose!"

[_Tacet!_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A DELIGHTFUL REMINISCENCE OF THE BOAT-RACE

_Sweep (to a carriage full of light blue ribbons)._ "Won't yer make room
for a little 'un, ladies and gents? I'm for the Cambridge lot!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PRIVILEGES OF HIGH RANK

_Railway Gatesman._ "It's agin the rules, my lady, openin' o' the gate
like this; but it ain't for the likes o' me to keep yer _ladyship_ a
waitin'."

_Noble Countess._ "Why is it against the rules, my good man?"

_Railway Gatesman._ "Well, my lady, the 5.17 down express has been doo
these ten minutes!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE NEWS"

_Season-Ticket Holder (airily)._ "'Morning, station-master. Anything
fresh?"

_Station-Master ("bit of a wag")._ "N-no, sir, not that I've----
ah!--yes--now I think of it, sir--that's fresh paint you're leaning
agai----!"

[_Violent pas seul, with language to match._]

* * * * *

BLACKFRIARS TO SLOANE SQUARE

The man who got in at Blackfriars
Was smoking the foulest of briars,
But it went out all right–
Could I give him a light?–
Hadn’t got one–well, all men are liars.

I’ve frequently noticed the Temple
Is a place there are not enough rhymes to;
And that’s why I’ve made
This verse somewhat blank,
And rather disregarded the metre.

How _do_ you pronounce Charing Cross?
It’s a point where I’m quite at a loss.
Some people, of course,
Would rhyme it with “horse,”
But I always rhyme it with “hoss.”

A woman at Westminster Bridge
Had got just a speck on the ridge
Of her Romanesque nose.
“It’s a black, I suppose,”
She observed. Then it flew–’twas a midge.

One man from the Park of St. James,
Had really the loftiest aims;
In the hat-rack he sat,
Used my hair as a mat,
And when I demurred called me names.

I bought from the stall at Victoria
A horrible sixpenny story, a
Book of a kind
It pained me to find
For sale at our English emporia.

I found when I got to Sloane Square
That my ticket was gone; my despair
Was awful to see,
Till at last to my glee
I looked in my hat–it was there!

* * * * *

[Illustration: A REAL GRIEVANCE

_Porter at Junction._ "Phew! All this luggage registered in advance and
not a bloomin' tip do I get for handling it."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SO LIKELY!

SCENE--_Bar of a railway refreshment-room._

_Barmaid._ "Tea, sir?"

_Mr. Boozy._ "Tea!!! ME!!!!"]

* * * * *

AS SHYLOCK SAID.–_Railway shareholder, with shares at a discount._
“Give me my principal, and let me go.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SPEEDY RETRIBUTION

_Small Boy._ "'Arf ticket ter Baker Street."

[_Pays, and awaits delivery of ticket_

_Clerk._ "It's a shameful thing, a kid like you smoking!"

_Small Boy (indignantly)._ "Who are yer callin' a kid? I'm fourteen!"

_Clerk._ "Oh, are you? Then you pay full fare to Baker Street!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A HINT TO RAILWAY TRAVELLERS

By breathing on the glass--and holding a speaking doll by way of baby to
the window--you may generally keep your compartment select.]

* * * * *

SOMEBODY’S LUGGAGE

If you see half-a-dozen new patent leather covered basket-trunks with a
name written upon all of them, in staring white characters, accompanied
by a gigantic portmanteau and three hat-boxes, you may know that the
Honourable Lionel and Rowena Silverspoon have started on their
wedding-tour.

If you see a weather-beaten portmanteau, accompanied by a neat little
trunk and a pretty little birdcage, you may know that Edwin and Angelina
Dovecot are going to Ventnor for the honeymoon.

If you see a big carpet-bag, accompanied by a large white umbrella and a
tin colour-box, you may know that Daub, A. R. A., is going to Brittany in
search of subjects.

If you see an overcrowded portmanteau, accompanied by a double-locked
despatch-box, you may know that urgent private affairs have induced
Captain Bubble (Promoter of Public Companies) to leave the City
hurriedly for Spain.

If you see a small bundle, accompanied by a pair of handcuffs, you may
know that urgent public affairs have induced Sergeant Smart (of the
Detective Police) to follow the same _route_ taken by Captain Bubble _en
voyage_ for Spain.

If you see twenty-four patent reversible extra waterproof holdalls, with
all the latest improvements, painted blue, green, yellow, and red, and
covered with hotel labels, accompanied by thirty-seven deal packing
cases, you may know that Colonel Jerusalem R. X. E. Squash, U.S.A., and
family are engaged in “doing” Europe.

If you see fifteen trunks, all more or less damaged, accompanied by an
old portmanteau and a double perambulator, you may know that Mr. and
Mrs. Paterfamilias and children are going to Herne Bay for a month.

If you see, in conclusion, a neat knapsack and a spiked walking-stick,
you may know that _Mr. Punch_ is off to Switzerland to enjoy himself.

* * * * *

[Illustration: ADJUSTMENT

_Our Station-Master (to old Jinks, whom he had kindly provided with a
foot-warmer on a journey down the line to see his sick daughter)._
"Well, did you find the benefit of it, Master Jinks?"

_Old Jinks._ "Oh, aye, thankee, Mr. Green! Tha' there box o' hot water
tha' wor uncommon' comfor'able, sure-ly! I sat on 'm the whol' o' the
way, an' tha' did warm me up to-rights, I can tell 'ee!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Passenger._ "Well, you say you've put all my luggage
safe, what are you waiting for?--I thought you were forbidden to take
money!"

_Porter._ "So we is, sir. We never 'takes' it--it's 'given to us!'"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE LIMITED MALE.]

* * * * *

SONG FOR ENGINE-DRIVERS BEFORE A COLLISION.–”Whistle–and I’ll come to
you, my lad.”

* * * * *

“READING between the lines” is a dangerous occupation–when there’s a
train coming.

* * * * *

THE HIGH-METALLED RACER.–A locomotive engine.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A DEFINITION WANTED

"Beg pardon, sir, but don't you see the notice?"

"Yes, my good fellow, but I never said I was a gentleman!"]

* * * * *

MY SEASON TICKET

Ever against my breast,
Safe in my pocket pressed,
Ready at my behest,
Daintily pretty
Gilt-printed piece of leather,
Though fair or foul the weather,
Daily we go together
Up to the City.
Yet, as I ride at ease,
Papers strewn on my knees,
And I hear “Seasons, please!”
Shouted in warning:
Pockets I search in vain
All through and through again;
“Pray do not stop the train–
Lost it this morning.
No, I have not a card,
Nor can I pay you, guard–
Truly my lot is hard,
This is the reason,
Now I recall to mind
Changing my clothes, I find
I left them all behind,–
Money, cards, ‘season.’”

* * * * *

MOTTO FOR THE SOUTH-EASTERN COMPANY’S REFRESHMENT ROOMS.–”O Swallow,
Swallow, flying, flying south!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN INQUIRING MIND

"Is this _our_ train, aunty?"

"No, dear."

"Whose train is it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ["An 'Imperial Railway Administration' is now a part of
Chinese bureaucracy."--_Daily Paper._]

If China is to have railways, of course the dragon must enter into the
design of the locomotives, &c., as above.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MASHONALAND RAILWAY

["Sir Charles Metcalfe, the engineer, is now busy at Umtali arranging
for the station at that place."--_Daily Telegraph._]

Umtali station in the near future. The Boo-Boola express just due.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FLYING SCOTCHMAN]

* * * * *

AT A RAILWAY STATION

Never the time and the train
And the station all together!
My watch–set “fast” in vain!
Slow cab–and foggy weather!
I have missed the express again.
It was all the porter’s fault, not mine,
But his mind is narrow, his brain is bleak,
His slowness and red tape combine
To make him take about a week
To label my bag–and he dared to speak,
When I bade him hurry, bad words, in fine!
O epithet all incarnadine,
Leave, leave the lips of the working-man!
It is simply past
All bounds–aghast
My indignation scarce hold I can.
My watch may have helped to thus mislead,
My cab by the fog have been stayed indeed;
But still, however these things may be,
Out there on the platform wrangle we–
Oh, hot and strong slang I and he,
–I and he!

* * * * *

[Illustration: SYMPATHY

_Passenger (in a whisper, behind his paper, to Wilkins, who had been
"catching it" from the elder lady)._ "Mother-'n-law?"

_Wilkins (in still fainter whisper)._ "Ye'"

_Passenger._ "'Got just such 'nother!"

[_They console together at the next buffet._]

* * * * *

THE ROUGH’S RAILWAY GUIDE

[Illustration]

The ready rough may always regard a third-class carriage, or indeed, any
carriage he can make his way into with or without a ticket, on the
Underground Railway as a sort of travelling Alsatia, where brutal
blackguardism finds “sanctuary.”

The one duty of a guard–as of a watch–is to “keep time.” He is not
expected to keep anything else, except tips. For instance he is not
bound to keep his temper, or to keep on the look out for roughs.

No one has a legal right to get into a carriage which is full, but then
a third-class carriage never is full so long as one more brawny brute
can violently force his way into it.

When bent upon enjoying the exceptional privileges and immunities
reserved for blackguardism by the Underground Gallios, it is only
necessary for a few hulking ruffians, big of course, and half drunk by
preference, to thrust themselves violently in some compartment
containing no less than twice its legal complement. In doing this they
will, of course, rudely trample the toes of weak women, and insolently
dislodge the hats of inoffensive men; thus paving the way pleasantly for
future operations.

Having squeezed themselves in somehow, they can then further indulge in
the lesser amenities of travel by puffing rank tobacco smoke in the
faces of their fellow-passengers, expectorating at large with not too
nice a reference to direction, and indulging in howling, chaff, and
horse-play of the most offensive character.

The addition of blasphemy, especially if there should be women and
children present, may probably provoke a mild remonstrance from some
one, and then the rough’s opportunity has arrived at last.

To particularise the rough’s rules for dealing with such an objector and
his sympathisers–if any–would be as tedious as superfluous; but the
combined arts of the low pugilist, the intoxicated wife-beater, and the
Lancashire “purler,” may be called into play, with much enjoyment and
perfect safety, until the object of his wrath is beaten into
unconsciousness or kicked into convulsions. On reaching a station, the
frightened passengers may perhaps dare to appeal to the guard! That
autocratic official will of course, with much angry hustling and
holloaing, declare that _he_ can’t stop to interfere, _his_ business
being, not to stay actual violence or prevent possible homicide, but to
“keep time,” and the ruffianly scoundrels go off shouting and singing
“_Rule Britannia_” and telling their pals “what a bloomin’ lark they’ve
had in the Hunderground.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Ticket Clerk._ "Where for, ma'am?"

_Old Lady._ "There! Lawk a mercy if I haven't forgot. Oh! mister, please
run over a few of the willages on this railway, will yer?"

[_Bell rings--Old Lady is swept away._]

* * * * *

[Illustration: YE RAILWAY STATION DURING YE HOLIDAY TIME IN YE ROMAN
PERIOD

(From a rare old frieze (not) in ye British Museum)]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WAR'S ALARMS"

_Timorous Old Lady (in a twitter)._ "Are those cannon balls,
station-master?"

_Station-Master (compassionately)._ "Oh no, mu'm, they're only Dutch
cheeses, 'm', come by the Rotterdam boat last night--that's all, mu'm!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE MAIDEN'S PRAYER

A sketch at Aldersgate Street Station]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OBSTRUCTIONISTS IN A SMOKING CARRIAGE]

* * * * *

[Illustration]

TERMINUS TRIOLETS

_At Charing Cross._

To Paris by the tidal train.
Here, register this luggage, quick!
Why, all the world seems going, Jane,
To Paris by the tidal train.
It’s blowing quite a hurricane;
I hope, my love, you won’t be sick.
To Paris by the tidal train.
Here, register this luggage, quick!

_At Euston._

By Jove, I’ve run it precious near,
Was ever “hansom”-horse so slow!
Look sharp, now, porter, for it’s clear,
By Jove, I’ve run it precious near.
Holloa!–that gun-case–hand it here,
The hat-box in the van can go.
By Jove, I’ve run it precious near!
Was ever “hansom”-horse so slow!

_At Liverpool Street._

Six wholes, three halves, all second class.
The baby, mind, you might have killed her.
Oh, policeman, please to let us pass!
Six wholes, three halves, all second class,
To Yarmouth. What a madd’ning mass
Of people. Do come on, Matilda.
Six wholes, three halves, all second class.
The baby, mind, you might have killed her.

_At Victoria._

Two first, return, to Brighton, please.
Oh, yes–we’ll go in Pullman’s car.
I like to travel at my ease;
Two first, return, to Brighton, please.
We’re running down to breathe the breeze,
I can’t from business go too far.
Two first, return, to Brighton, please.
Oh, yes–we’ll go in Pullman’s car.

_At Paddington._

Guard, mark “Engaged” this carriage, pray;
Now, why on earth’s the fellow grinning?
How could he know we’re wed to-day?
Guard, mark “Engaged” this carriage, pray.
My darling, hide that white bouquet;
My head with champagne fumes is spinning.
Guard, mark “Engaged” this carriage, pray.
Now, why on earth’s the fellow grinning?

_At Waterloo._

Good-bye my boy; just one kiss more;
You’ll write to mother now and then?
A sign from sea is sweet on shore,
Good-bye, my boy; just one kiss more.
Nay, don’t you cry, dear, I implore,
Red eyes are never meant for men.
Good-bye, my boy; just one kiss more;
You’ll write to mother now and then?

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "The last link is broken that bound me to thee"]

* * * * *

BRADBURY, AGNEW & CO. LD., PRINTERS LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

Humor Seminar: Mr. Punch on Tour

coolhq — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:50:52 +0000

MR PUNCH ON TOUR.

PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR.

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON.

Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the
cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic
draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to “Punch,” from its
beginning in 1841 to the present day.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. JONES'S WALKING TOUR.--(_At the Shakspeare
Hotel_). _Voice from the office_: "Porter, take this lady and gentleman
to the Romeo and Juliet room."]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH ON TOUR

THE HUMOUR OF TRAVEL AT HOME AND ABROAD

[Illustration]

DEPICTED BY

PHIL MAY, CHARLES KEENE, GEORGE DU MAURIER, L. RAVEN-HILL, BERNARD
PARTRIDGE, F. H. TOWNSEND, DUDLEY HARDY, REGINALD CLEAVER, GORDON
BROWNE, LEWIS BAUMER, G. D. ARMOUR, A. WALLIS MILLS, LANCE THACKERAY,
AND OTHERS

_WITH 153 ILLUSTRATIONS_

PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF “PUNCH”

[Illustration]

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

* * * * *

THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo. 192 pages fully illustrated_

LIFE IN LONDON
COUNTRY LIFE
IN THE HIGHLANDS
SCOTTISH HUMOUR
IRISH HUMOUR
COCKNEY HUMOUR
IN SOCIETY
AFTER DINNER STORIES
IN BOHEMIA
AT THE PLAY
MR. PUNCH AT HOME
ON THE CONTINONG
RAILWAY BOOK
AT THE SEASIDE
MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
IN THE HUNTING FIELD
MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
WITH ROD AND GUN
MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
BOOK OF SPORTS
GOLF STORIES
IN WIG AND GOWN
ON THE WARPATH
BOOK OF LOVE
WITH THE CHILDREN

[Illustration]

* * * * *

THE HUMOUR OF TRAVEL

[Illustration]

There is nothing insular about MR. PUNCH. Judging by his features,
familiar though these be and long as they have been typical of English
humour, he is not without some trace of foreign origin. Indeed, we fancy
that were a very searching enquiry to be made into his ancestry we might
find he had a far-off forebear who was, let us say, Italian! Perhaps we
have here the explanation of his breadth of mind and wide sympathy
which, however deeply rooted in the good soil of old England, are by no
means absolutely delimited by our coast line.

It is thus that we find him consistently the best of travelling
companions, for there is none he is more ready to castigate with the
whip of his satire than the insular Englishman abroad. This is as it
should be, and in these days of the _entente cordiale_ especially, when
the inducements to Continental travel are steadily increasing, all
patriotic Englishmen are anxious that their fellow-countrymen should
give as good an account of themselves as possible when visiting the fair
lands of our friends across the silver streak.

[Illustration]

MR. PUNCH, while always ready to stand for English ideals of right and
fair-dealing, has equally endeavoured throughout his long career to show
that all the good manners of Europe are not to be found on the
Continent. But above all, wherever he goes, let his travels be within
those green isles where he reigns as king of fun or as far afield as the
land of the Sphinx, he diffuses that good humour which is the essential
characteristic of the Englishman and adds so much to the joy of life.
The present collection, illustrative of the humours of travel at home
and abroad, certainly does not bear out the ancient criticism as to the
English taking their pleasures sadly. Like many another book in this
same library it proves rather that they take their misadventures
joyously.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH ON TOUR

[Illustration]

MRS. RAMSBOTHAM IN ROME.–When Mrs. R. was in Rome she insisted on the
guide taking her and her party to see the Papal Bulls of which she had
always heard so much. “I suppose,” she said, “they’re kept on some farm,
and are exhibited for prizes just like the King’s or the Prince of
Wales’.” The worthy lady added that she couldn’t help laughing to think
what a mistake she made in Holland when she was taken to see “Paul
Potter’s Bull,” which turned out to be only a picture.

* * * * *

A CURIOUS LANDSCAPE FEATURE OBSERVABLE AT MONTE CARLO IN THE EARLY
SPRING.–Blue Rocks.

* * * * *

HINTS TO TOURISTS

If you are put with a friend in a double-bedded room, bear in mind that
inside walls are only lath and plaster, and that every word you say will
be heard in the next room. Therefore carry on your conversation at the
tip-top of your voice, and make as much noise as you can in packing, and
in splashing, and in stumping round your room.

Always give to beggars who waylay you on the road, and if you know their
language, accompany your gift with a little stagey speech to the effect
that all we English have more money than we know how to spend, and it is
our duty when we travel to succour the distressed. This will mightily
encourage the impostors in their trade, and engender a great nuisance
for tourists who are poorer or less foolish than yourself.

* * * * *

SHE MEANT NOTHING WRONG.–_Curate to American Visitor._ How do you like
our church, Mrs. Golightly? It is very generally admired.

_Mrs. Golightly._ Yes, it’s very pretty, but if it only had a clock
fitted on the tower, it would be _useful_ as well as ornamental.

* * * * *

[Illustration: TACTFUL SYMPATHY

_Genial Friend._ "Hullo, old man, getting on all right?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Our artist, while staying in the country, thinks it would
be a good opportunity for studying _calves_.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Yachting Man._ "Well, I always said you were a plucky
fellow, Splinter; but really, now, I did not give you credit----"

_Splinter_ (_not displeased_). "How do you mean?"

_Yachting Man._ "Why, with your spars, to put out in such a gale o' wind
as this."]

* * * * *

TRAVELLERS’ TALES

_First Traveller_ (_in the smoking-room_). I think the most marvellous
sight I ever saw was when I was crossing the Bight of Benin. You know
the Bight?

_Second Traveller._ Perfectly. Shot two sea-serpents there last year.

_Third Traveller._ I landed hard by when I cycled across Africa.

_First Traveller._ Well, it was there we sighted a man who had crossed
from Buenos Ayres on a hen-coop, with a cotton umbrella for a sail,
and—-

_Other Travellers_ (_jealously in chorus_). Oh! Come, I say!

_Quiet Man_ (_in corner_). Oh, I’ll vouch for the truth of the
assertion.

_First Traveller_ (_nettled_). How’s that?

_Quiet Man._ Why, _I_ was the man.

[_Company disperses._

* * * * *

NEXT BEST THING TO THE PERSIAN LOCOMOTIVE CARPET OF EASTERN FABLE.--The
"Travelling Rug" of Western fact.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Brown, who has had a hard day sight-seeing, in Tunis,
goes to a café for a quiet drink and rest. Result!]

* * * * *

A HAPPY HOLIDAY

Now I really do not care a
Hang about the Riviera,
In the daytime you’ve a gay time,
But the nights are very cold.
And for any kind of touring,
Which I used to find alluring,
I for biking had a liking,
But I now have grown too old.

Then the constant change of weather
To my thinking, altogether
Knocked the notion of an ocean
Trip completely on the head;
I’ve a horror, too, of “trippers,”
‘Arrys, ‘Arriets, and “nippers,”
So a jolly quiet holi-
Day I spent at home in bed.

* * * * *

NO DIFFERENCE.–_English Customer_ (_to Manager of restaurant_). I see,
Signor Maraschino, that the American gentleman and his wife who have
just left drank nothing but water with their dinner. Does that make much
difference in their bill?

_Signor Maraschino._ Noting, sir. They pay same as yourself and lady,
who ‘ave champagne. Oderwise ‘ow should we live?

* * * * *

“THE GREAT LOAN LAND.”–Russia.

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHAT DID MR. PUNCH DO IN THE EASTER RECESS?--Volunteer
review! Not a bit of it! He just popped over, and had a few days of
delightful _dolce far niente_ at Venice.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Papa, Maman, et Bébé s'en vont à la pêche aux crevettes.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FIN DE LA SAISON.--(_At a Cercle Anglais. "Le Fiv'
o'clock," i.e., Afternoon Tea._)

_Britisher._ "_Coming to the ball to-night, Count?_"

_Monsieur le Comte._ "Moi, mon cher? Ah, non. I am tired. I have the
ache everywhere. I have play the football!"

_Britisher._ "Good! What?--Forward, half-back?"

_Monsieur le Comte._ "Forward! Half-back! Par exemple, I am
'Arbitre'--how you say it?--Referee!"]

* * * * *

IMPRESSIONS FROM ABROAD

(_By Our Susceptible Subscriber_)

Impressions on my hat after going down the salt mine at Berchtesgaden.

Impressions on my alpenstock after looking at the Alpine Peaks from
below with an opera-glass.

Impressions on my nose and forehead by the mosquitoes, when I would be
poetical and stay all the evening on the Rialto at Venice.

Impressions on my ears by the bad language of my guide, when I refused
to pay for the echoes awakened on the Rhine by an ancient howitzer.

Impressions on my heart by memories of that pretty little Frenchwoman I
travelled with from Turin.

Impressions on my feet by her sweet little _bottines_.

Impression on my mind, after Mrs. P. detected those _bottines_ too near
my boots, that it would be better not to be so susceptible another time.

* * * * *

THOUGHT BY A TOURIST.–Too many Cook’s Excursionists spoil the _table
d’hôte_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RULING PASSION

_Customs Official._ "Have you anything to declare?"

_Absent-minded Traveller_ (_Bridge-player, just catching last word_).
"Oh, leave it to you!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration:: INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

_Henri Dubois_ (_who can speak English_) _to his friend 'Arry Smith_
(_who can't_). "Pardon me, mon ami! You are very pretty boy, you dress
in ze most perfect 'chic'; but vy do you speak your own language so
ungrammaticallé?"

'_Arry._ "Why do I speak my hown langwidge so hungrammatical? 'Ang it,
yer down't suppowse as I were hedgerkited at Heton or 'Arrow like a
bloomin' swell, do yer?"

_Henri._ "Voyez donc ça! Now in France zere is no Eton, no Harrow: all
ze public schools are ze same, and ze butcher and baker's little boys go
zere, and ze little candlestick-makers, and ze little boys of ze
merchants of cheese like you and me!"

'_Arry._ "Come, I s'y, Walker, yer know! And where do their customers'
little boys go?"

_Henri._ "Parbleu! Zey go zere too!!"

['_Arry, suddenly conscious of his deficiencies, feels
bitterly towards his country._

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES"

_Old Gentleman._ "Are you certain that these life-belts are cork, and
not half sawdust?"

_Storeman._ "They are the best quality. We have sold hundreds, and never
had a complaint!"]

* * * * *

HAPPY GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT (_when crossing the Channel in exceptionally
rough weather_).–”Oh dear! What a pity that the sea everywhere can’t be
the Pacific Ocean!”

* * * * *

“THE TRAVELLERS’ CLUB.”–An alpenstock.

* * * * *

[Illustration: FOREIGN HOTELS.--"WHAT!--NO SOAP!"--"Oh--er--juste
regardez ici, mademoiselle! Vous nous avez chargé pour le _savon_--et
nous ne l'avons pas _usé_, vous savez, car----"

"Oh, mamma! How _can_ you!"

[_Poor things! they had brought their own._

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE LAST THING OUT.--Sensation created every morning at
Crevetteville-sur-Mer by Colonel F---- (of the Guards) and the lovely
Lady Magnolia D----.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE PERSONAL EQUATION.--_Ducal Butler_ (_showing art
treasures of Stilton Castle_). "The three Graces--after Canova!"

_Mrs Ramsbotham._ "How interesting! And pray, which is the _present_
Duchess?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Her Husband_ (_going on the Continent_). "Look here,
Arabella, from now you and I will speak nothing but French."

_Arabella._ "_Oui._"

_Her Husband._ "What did you say?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "EASIER SAID THAN DONE"

_Stout Traveller_ (_in the Eastern Counties_). "My lad--which is
the--quickest way--for me to get to the station?"

_Street Arab._ "Wh' run bo'! 'th' else yeow'll sartain'y lewse th'
tr'ine! There goo th' bell!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: DESPAIR!

Brown has locked his portmanteau with one of those letter padlocks and
forgotten the word that opens it.

[_Only ten minutes to dinner!_

]

* * * * *

VIATOR’S VADE MECUM

(_Or Compendious Weather-Guide for the British Tourist_)

When the wind is in the North,
Gingham take if you go forth.
If to Eastward veer the wind,
Gingham do not leave behind.
If to West the wind should tend,
Gingham is your surest friend.
If it seek the South, of course,
Gingham is your sole resource.
Intermediate points demand
Gingham constantly in hand.
If there be no wind at all,
Gingham take, for rain will fall.
At all other times, no doubt,
Gingham you may do without,
Yet e’en then an hour may bring ‘em,–
Showers I mean,–so take your Gingham!

* * * * *

_English Tourist_ (_in the far North, miles from anywhere_). “Do you
mean to say that you and your family live here all the winter? Why, what
do you do when any of you are ill? You can never get a doctor!”

_Scotch Shepherd._ “Nae, sir. We’ve just to dee a natural death!”

* * * * *

_The_ PLACE IN HOT WEATHER.–Lazistan.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE WATER CURE

_Young Lady._ "So you've been on the Continent, Professor?"

_The Professor._ "Yes, I've been to Marienbad, taking the baths, you
know."

_Young Lady._ "Really? That _was_ a change for you, wasn't it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Oh! con-found these country looking-glasses, though!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE HOT WEATHER

_Traveller_ (_bedtime, thermometer 100°!_). "Waiter, go' sh'ch a thing
as a warmin'-pan?"

_Waiter_ (_astounded_). "A warming-pan, sir!"

_Traveller._ "And got any ice?"

_Waiter._ "Ice, sir? Yessir!"

_Traveller._ "Then tell 'chamb'maid to run a pan of ice through my bed,
and let me have my candle. I'll turn in!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SCENE--_An Indian Station, on the eve of a Fancy
Ball._--_Globe-trotting "Bounder"_ (_newly arrived_). "You're running
this ball, ain't you? Is fancy dress _de rigueur_?"

_Choleric Colonel_ (_who is Ball Secretary_). "Fancy dress, sir, is not
_de rigueur_, but an invitation _is_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UP COUNTRY JOYS IN INDIA.--_The Mem Sahib_ (_with a view
to seasonable festivities_). "I wonder if you have got such a thing as
lemon peel or candied peel in your shop?"

_"Europe Shop" Keeper._ "Ah, no, Mem Sahib. Onlee got it 'cockle' peel
and 'beesham' peel!"]

* * * * *

THE TRAVELLERS’ PROTECTION LEAGUE

The T. P. L. commenced operations last week with regard to the
unpunctuality of certain railway companies, and should be encouraged to
go a little farther. We want protection against:–

1. Passengers who try to keep us out of carriages by fictitiously
placing hats and wraps on more seats or corners than they will
themselves occupy.

2. Passengers who endeavour to enter carriages when we have fictitiously
placed hats and wraps on more seats or corners than we shall ourselves
occupy.

3. People who smoke bad tobacco in compartments where there are ladies.

4. Ladies who ride in compartments where we smoke bad tobacco.

5. Parties who insist upon having the window open when we wish it shut.

6. Parties who insist upon having the window shut when we wish it open.

7. Persons who try to squeeze in when our carriage is full.

8. Persons who try to keep us out when their carriage is full.

9. Objectionable babies.

10. Objectors to babies.

And a job lot of grievances, viz.:–

11. The British landscape, now consisting of pill advertisements.

12. Clapham Junction.

13. Bank Holiday traffic and excursionists, racing and football crowds.

14. The weather.

15. Nasty smelling smoke.

16. Irritatingly uncertain lamps.

17. The increase in the income-tax.

18. The cussedness of things in general.

19. And, lastly, the Billion Dollar Trust.

If the T. P. L. will abate or abolish any or all of these nuisances we
shall be very greatly obliged.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A TIGHT FIT

_Chorus of Girls_ (_to popular party on bank_). "Oh, do come with us,
there's _plenty_ of room!"]

* * * * *

MRS. RAMSBOTHAM was asked if she liked yachting, and she replied that
she preferred _terra-cotta_. She probably meant _terra-firma_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WHEN A MAN DOES NOT LOOK HIS BEST"

When, after lunching sumptuously at a strange hotel in a strange part of
the country, it suddenly occurs to him that he has left his purse, with
all his money in it, in the mail train going North.]

* * * * *

AT MUNICH.–_Mr. Joddletop_ (_to travelling companion at Bierhalle_).
What they call this larger beer for I’m blessed if I know! Why, it’s
thinner than what I drink at home.

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH’S COUNTRY RAMBLES

(_With acknowledgments to the “Daily Chronicle”_)

A memorable afternoon may be spent by taking the train to Muggleton, and
walking from there by way of Mudford, Sloppington,
Stickborough-in-the-Marsh, Drencham, St. Swithuns, and Swillingspout to
Poddleton-on-the-Slosh. The whole district is full of memories of the
great Hodge family (before it migrated into the towns). Quite a number
of mute, inglorious Miltons are buried in Poddleton churchyard, but a
few people may still be seen in the market-place on Saturdays.

_Route of Ramble._–Alighting at Muggleton Station (too much
reliance should not be placed upon the elocution of the local
railway porter) leave the refreshment room resolutely on the left
(as you will need to keep your intelligence clear), and proceed in a
north-north-east-half-northerly direction along a winding lane, until
Mudford Beacon appears in the rear. Then turn back across six meadows
and a ploughed field, following alternately the bed of a stream and the
right bank of the canal until Sloppington is reached. From there follow
the boundary line between the counties of Mudshire and Slopshire as far
as Stickborough: from two to seven miles further on (according to the
best local computation) lies Drencham, where is a remarkable pump.
Leaving this landmark south-west-by-west, veer sharply to the left
twice, and pursue a zig-zag course. If, at the twenty-second field, you
are not within easy reach of Swillingspout it will be because you are
incapable of following this brief chronicle. From the last-named place
the nearest way to Poddleton is through the railway tunnel. It is not
public, but persons have sometimes succeeded in getting through.
Poddleton is nine miles from a station, but an omnibus walks the
distance occasionally, when the horse is not required for funerals or
other purposes.

_Length of Ramble._–Doubtful. Has only been done in sections.

* * * * *

MISS-GUIDED FOLKS IN PARIS.–Evidently those who are personally
conducted by “Lady Guides.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: "BY THE CARD"

_Pedestrian._ "How far is it to Sludgecombe, boy?"

_Boy._ "Why, 'bout twenty 'underd theausan' mild 'f y' goo 's y'are
agooin' now, an' 'bout half a mild 'f you turn right reaound an' goo
t'other way!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Traveller._ "Can you direct me to Hollow Meadows?"

_Hodge_ (_who stutters frightfully_). "Ye-ye-ye-yes. You t-t-t-t-take
the f-f-f-first t-t-t-t-turning on th-the right, and ku-ku-ku-keep
straight on ower th' b-b-b-brig. Bu-bub-bub-but you'd bub-bub-bub-better
be gu-gu-gu-gangin' on. You'll gu-gu-get there quicker th-th-th-than I
can t-t-t-tell you!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MUCH PLEASANTER FOR ALFRED

_Constance_ (_adding the last straw_). "There, darling! I hope I've
forgotten nothing. And oh, Alfred! how much, _much_ pleasanter to carry
our things ourselves, and be alone together, than to have a horrid
servant trotting behind us, and listening to every word we say!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SOMETHING FROM THE PROVINCES

_Excursionist_ (_politely_). "Can you kindly direct me the nearest way
to Slagley?"

_Powerful Navvy._ "Ah can poonch th' head o' thee!"

_[Excursionist retires hastily._

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ON THE COLONIAL TOUR

_Famous Pianist._ "Himmel! how hot it is! I really think I might just
have half an inch cut off--just round the nape of my neck you know. Just
_thinned_ a little----"

_His Agent._ "Out of the question, my boy. Remember clause seven in the
agreement--'Your hair not to be cut till the last concert in Australia
is over'!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: EVOLUTION EXTRAORDINARY

_British Tourist_ (_who has been served with a pig's foot_). "What's
this? I ordered quail!"

_Negro Waiter._ "Wall--y'ev got quail!"

_British Tourist._ "Quail! Why a quail's a bird!"

_Negro Waiter._ "_Not here!_"]

* * * * *

THE IDEAL HOLIDAY

Come, Phyllis, for the season is already on the wane,
And the question of our holiday perplexes once again;
Now every jaded Londoner fresh stores of vigour seeks,
Our problem is how best to pass these few and fleeting weeks.

As one by one each watering-place we call to mind in turn
As promptly some objection to each one we discern;
Thus Scarborough’s too chilly, and Ilfracombe too hot,
And this too near, and that too dear, that sandy and this not.

The Alps are always overrun and crowded as Cheapside,
And the garlic-reeking South I own I never could abide;
The _Bads_–Aix, Vichy, Taunus, Homburg, Carlsbad, Neuenahr,
Are either vulgar, crowded, dull, expensive, or too far.

Oh, for some new and lone retreat, nor far away nor near,
With lovely sights to charm the eye, soft sounds to soothe the ear;
Where vexed and wearied spirits, such as yours and mine, might rest,
And find in life new purpose, in its joys unwonted zest;

Some Aidenn, some Elysium of rapturous delight,
Where peace should reign unbroken from the dawn to fall of night!
Yet since for the impossible in vain we yearn, ’tis clear,
It will end no doubt as usual, in “Good old Margate,” dear.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE _VALET_ OF THE NILE"

Much talked about, but very seldom seen!]

* * * * *

“A railway from Joppa to Jerusalem” sounds like a Scriptural line. In
future, “going to Jericho” will not imply social banishment, as the
party sent thither will be able to take a return-ticket.

* * * * *

SO NICE AND SYMPATHETIC.–A gentleman, whose one glass eye had served
him for years, had the misfortune to drop it. It smashed to atoms. This
happened when he was far away in the country. He inquired of a friend
where was the nearest place for him to go and get refitted.

“Why don’t you call upon the girl you were flirting with all last
night?” his friend inquired. “She has a first-class reputation for making
eyes.”

* * * * *

BALLOONERY.–”We went spinning through the air!” said an enthusiastic
aeronaut, describing his recent trial trip.

“Indeed!” observed his companion, meditatively. “Judging by your
description it sounds as if you had been in an ‘heir-loom’ instead of an
‘air-ship.’”

* * * * *

AT BRUSSELS.–_Mrs. Trickleby_ (_pointing to an announcement in grocer’s
window, and spelling it out_). _Jambon d’Yorck._ What’s that mean, Mr.
T.?

_Mr. T_. (_who is by way of being a linguist_). Why, good Yorkshire
preserves, of course. What did you suppose it was–Dundee marmalade?

* * * * *

[Illustration: "CAUTION! THIS HILL IS DANGEROUS!"]

* * * * *

TO ABSENT FRIENDS.

(_By a Fox without a Tail._)

Dear Brown and Jones and Robinson and many thousands more,
Now spending dismal holidays on some dank sea-girt shore,
You, who affect to pity those compelled in town to stay,
Should rather envy us, because we cannot get away.

While you are hiring tiny rooms at many pounds a week,
And huddle there and watch parades that run with rain, and reek,
Contrast my cheerful aspect with your discontented looks,
As here I stay at ease among my pictures and my books.

Here in the trains the traveller can now find ample space,
Enjoying elbow-room without a struggle for a place:
The choicest dishes are not “off” at half-past one to lunch,
And no one spoils our appetite with–”After you with _Punch_!”

The dainty shops of Regent Street teem with their treasures still,
The Park with all its beauties we can now enjoy at will;
No longer do the jostling crowds provoke an angry frown,
But leisurely we relish the amenities of town.

Thus basking in the keen delights that empty London owns
(Though from my heart I pity you–Brown, Robinson and Jones),
So long as you may care to stay, and business is slack,
I cannot honestly declare I long to see you back.

* * * * *

[Illustration: TRIPPERS

_Tommy_ (_his first visit_). "Will it be like this all d-d-d-day
daddy?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Billiard Enthusiast_ (_having mistaken his room at the
hotel, holding on to knobs of bed_). "Which do you prefer, sir? Spot or
plain?"]

* * * * *

When the chairman of a railway company speaks of “the diversion of
traffic,” may it be understood that “pleasure trips and excursions” are
covered by this expression?

* * * * *

[Illustration: ENGLAND AND GERMANY

_British Nimrod_ (_who has shot tigers in India, and lions in South
Africa_). "The fact is, Herr Muller, that I don't care much for sport
unless it contains the element of danger."

_German Nimrod._ "Ach zo? you are vont of _taincher_? Den you should gom
ant shood mit _me_! Vy, only de oder tay I shoodet my broder-in-law in
de shdômag!"]

* * * * *

CUTTING A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.–_Major Longi’th’Bow._ I met a Brahmin once
with “John Smith, London,” carved on his back. You see he was standing
motionless in one of those pious trances which nothing is allowed to
interrupt. In this state he was found by a cheap-tripper, who took him
for a statue and cut his name as usual.

* * * * *

AT FLORENCE.–_First Tourist._ Hullo! Barkins, what brought you here?

_Second Tourist_ (_facetiously_). The railway, of course. And you?

_First Tourist_ (_getting mixed, but thinking he has his friend_). My
wife’s wish to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

* * * * *

SUITABLE SPOTS.–_Gainsborough_–for greedy tradesmen; _Gnosall_–for
wiseacres; _Gravesend_–for sextons; _Great Barr_–for constant topers;
_Grind-on_–for crammers; _Halt-whistle_–for football umpires;
_Hastings_–for wasps; _Hawkshead_–for falconers; _Honi-ton_–for busy
bees; _Hoot-on_–for owls.

* * * * *

CRY OF THE TRAVELLING SMOKER.–_En_ briar root!

* * * * *

[Illustration: SNUB FOR A SNOB

_English Tourist._ "Aw--that buttermilk was very nice, my dear. What
payment do you expect for it?"

_Cottage Girl._ "We wouldn't be after asking any payment. Sure we _give_
it to the pigs!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MISPLACED SYMPATHY

(_The "Boots" at the Shadow of Death Hotel, in the back block of
Australia, on seeing a pair of boot-trees for the first time._)

"I say, Billy, that poor bloke in the bed-room must 'ave ad a terrible
accident. He's got two wooden feet!"]

* * * * *

_Mrs. Tripper_ (_examining official notice on the walls of Boulogne_).
What’s that mean, Tripper, “Pas de Calais”?

_Tripper_ (_who is proud of his superior acquaintance with a foreign
language_). It means–”Nothing to do with Calais,” my dear. These rival
ports are dreadfully jealous of one another.

* * * * *

[Illustration: WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS, &c.

_Jones._ "I say, what's the exact meaning of 'voilà'?"

_Brown._ "Well, I should translate it as 'behold,' or 'there you are,'
or something like that."

_Jones._ "Confound it! I've been using it for the last month and
thinking I've been swearing in French!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BASHAN, NEAR BARMOUTH

The worst of Wales is, the wild beasts are so numerous and inquisitive.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: GEOLOGY.--_Scientific Pedestrian._ "Do you find any
fossils here?"

_Excavator._ "Dunno what you calls 'vossuls.' We finds nowt here but
muck and 'ard work!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MUSIC ON THE WATERS.--_Parker._ "Beg pardon, my lady, but
the band can't play the selection your ladyship asked for."

_Her Ladyship_ (_astonished_). "But it's in their programme!"

_Parker._ "Yes, my lady, but they can't play it till we get into still
water, and _then they'll try_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE COMFORTER.--"I say, old man, I've just been down in
the saloon, and they give you the finest half-crown lunch I've ever
struck!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A MOOT POINT.--_Mrs. Brown_ (_on her honeymoon_). "Oh,
aren't you glad, darling, we have come this delightful tour, instead of
going to one of those stupid foreign places?"

[_Darling is not quite sure about it, as the hills are of terrible
frequency, and, naturally, he tows his bride up every one._

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: BAD HABITS GROW APACE.--_Traveller_ (_whose train is
due_). "Look here, I'm going to get out and walk. That brute will make
me miss my train!"

_Jarvey._ "Kape still, surr. For the love av' Moses, kape still. Sure
an' if the ould blayguard bates us, I'll niver get him up to the station
no more!"]

* * * * *

THE TRAVELLERS TRICKED

(_An à propos Duologue_)

_She_ (_with resolution_). Charlie, I want to ask your pardon. I have
made a mistake.

_He._ Yes, dear; which of them?

_She._ You shall not put me out by sneering. Yes, I have made a mistake;
and when I make a mistake, I do not fail to acknowledge it.

_He._ Quite right, dear. Nothing like having a congenial occupation.

_She._ Charlie, we came back to town prematurely.

_He._ Yes, dear; we certainly curtailed our stay in Paris a little to
allow of your purchasing that pretty bonnet.

_She._ It cost a lot of money, Charlie.

_He._ It did, dear; but I did not grudge it, as you and the shop girl
said it was of the first mode and the greatest novelty in Paris.

_She._ Yes, Charlie; and I believed her.

_He._ Well, I am sure that the three or four days we cut off were well
worth it, to buy the bonnet.

_She._ How good, how noble of you to say so!

_He._ Not at all; I was really glad to get back to the club. And you
have your bonnet–a real genuine French bonnet! And the most Parisian
shape imaginable.

_She_ (_with an effort_). The shape is not Parisian.

_He._ Not Parisian! Where does it come from?

_She._ I see from a ticket in the lining it was made in the Edgware
Road.

[_Tears and curtain._

* * * * *

AT WINDSOR.--_American Traveller_ (_to Waiter at the "Blue Stag"_). Say,
is it true that you've got a real live ghost here?

_Waiter._ Yessir. Believed to be either Cardinal Garnet Wolseley, 'Erne
the 'Untsman, Queen Elizabeth, or the late King of the Belgiums.

_American Traveller._ Thanks. Send for the local reporter, if off duty
in any one capacity.

* * * * *

SUITABLE SPOTS.--_Ware-ham_--for abstainers from pork;
_Whits-table_--for facetious gourmets; _Wig-more_--for bald men;
_Wig-ton_--for perruquiers; _Winfarthing_--for small gamblers;
_Wo-burn_--for firemen.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NOSÉ IN EGITTO; OR, AUTOMOBILITY IN THE LAND OF THE
SPHINX.

"One touch of _Punch_ makes the whole world kin."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A QUESTION OF PROPORTION.--_Colonel Peppercorn_ (_who is
touring in France with a hired chauffeur and car, which has broken
down_). "Confound it all, you say it's nothing? Then why don't you
repair it?"

_Alphonse Legros._ "Mais, monsieur, pas possible, he break below! I
cannot arrive there! He is only quinze centimètres from ze ground; but
me--voilà--I have one mètre round ze chest!"]

* * * * *

THE SKELETON TOURIST’S VADE MECUM

_Question._ What is your object this year?

_Answer._ To follow the precedent of former Summers, and get over as
much ground as possible.

_Q._ How do you manage this?

_A._ With the assistance of a ticket guaranteed to make distance a
greater consideration than scenery.

_Q._ Is it necessary to examine the places _en route_ with much careful
consideration?

_A._ Certainly not, as the Guide-book of the place visited will supply
the compulsory omissions.

_Q._ What are compulsory omissions?

_A._ Objects of interest left out for want of time to give them an
inspection.

_Q._ How long would you give St. Peter’s at Rome?

_A._ A quarter of an hour, and the Colosseum at the same place ten
minutes.

_Q._ Could you not spare more time than this from your holiday?

_A._ No; for luncheon and dinner have to be taken into consideration in
the touring table.

_Q._ What object of interest would you examine in the Land of the
Midnight Sun?

_A._ The sun at midnight, if it happened to be shining.

_Q._ And if you visited the Rhine by the railway, what object of
interest would chiefly attract your attention?

_A._ The interior of the compartment in which you happened to be
travelling.

_Q._ What advantage would you derive from your tour?

_A._ The satisfaction of explaining to non-tourists where you had been
rather than what you had seen.

_Q._ Do you consider that your mind would derive much benefit from your
rapid locomotion?

_A._ Not much, nor my body either.

_Q._ But I presume your outing would justify the title of this Vade
Mecum?

_A._ Most certainly; because, by the end of your journey, you might
accurately describe your condition as one who had been reduced to a
skeleton.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Nervous Tourist._ "Stop, driver, stop! There's something
wrong! I am sure a wheel's coming off!"

_Driver._ "Arrah, be aisy then, yer honour. Sure, it's the same one's
been comin' off thin these three days back!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: (_Sketched on the pier just after the arrival of the
boat._)

_'Arry_ (_viewing stormy sea in a mutoscope_). "My eye, Maria, come an'
'ave a look 'ere. The motion of the waives is simply grand!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A CONTINENTAL TRIP.--_First Man_ (_tasting beer_).
"Hullo! I ordered lager. This isn't lager!"

_Second Man_ (_tasting_). "No; but it's jolly good, all the same!"

_Third Man_ (_tasting_). "C'est magnifique! mais ce n'est pas
lager-r-r!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ON THE GRAND TOUR.--Scene--_Staircase of the Palazzo
Bianco._--(_Enter the Joneses of London._) _Chorus of Maidens._ "O, ma,
dear! O, papa! do look! _Isn't_ this charming? _Isn't_ it delightful?
Only fancy--the _Bragginton Smiths_ were here last month!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FAULT OF THE FOWL

SCENE--_Coffee-Room, Hotel, Guernsey._

_Visitor_ (_gazing at a guinea-fowl's egg_). "Waiter! Can you tell me
what egg this is?"

_Waiter._ "Oh, sir, it's a Guernsey egg. They sometimes lays them like
that. It's not done in the boiling!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CORRECTED.--_Lady Tourist_ (_doing the cathedrals of
Scotland_). "This is _Gothic_, isn't it, John?"

_Juvenile Vendor of "Guides"_ (_severely_). "No, mem, _this is
Presbyterian_."]

* * * * *

At HOMBURG-V.-D.-H.–_Colonel Twister_ (_in the hotel smoking-room_).
Yes! I once played a game of pool at Senecarabad, holding the cue in my
teeth, and captured all the loot!

_Captain Longbow._ Pooh! That’s nothing! About a month ago I matched
myself at shell-out against Fred Fandango, and clutching the cue between
my toes, walked in lying on my back!

_Colonel Twister_ (_taken unawares_). But how the deuce did you manage
to see the table?

_Captain Longbow._ See the table? Why, had the cloth lighted with
Röntgen rays, of course! Saw through the slate!

[_The Colonel abruptly says "Good Night" to the company, and leaves
for Schlangenbad next morning._

* * * * *

FORCE OF HABIT.--Recently two bankers met abroad. They at once began to
compare notes.

* * * * *

NEW NAME FOR SEA-SICKNESS.--_Mal de Little Mary._

* * * * *

MRS. RAMSBOTHAM wants to know whether the inhabitants of the Fiji
Islands are called the Fijits.

* * * * *

[Illustration: YOUNG AUSTRALIA

SCENE--_Highland Gathering in the Antipodes._

"Well, my little man, so you're Scotch, eh?"

"Nae, nae, a'am nae Scotch, but ma pairents is."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SENSATIONAL DRAMA IN THREE ACTS AND FIVE TABLEAUX.

(_Showing how he got in for it and how he came out of it rather the
worse for "wear"._)

MR. JOGGLES HAVING CAREFULLY SELECTED A RETIRED SPOT DEPOSITED HIS
CLOTHES IN A CAVE SEES A LITTLE WAY BELOW HIM A SPARKLING POOL FED BY A
TORRENT FROM ABOVE--A NATURAL SHOWER BATH, INTO WHICH HE WILL JOYFULLY
DESCEND.

THIS IS WHAT HE EXPECTED BEFORE TAKING A DIP.

BUT A PICNIC PARTY HAVING TERMINATED THEIR LUNCHEON, UNWITTINGLY
REARRANGE MATTERS.

MR. JOGGLES IS COMPELLED TO REMAIN OVER HIS USUAL TIME IN HIS BATH.

IN THE MEANTIME THE GOATS HAVE BEEN BUSY WITH HIS CLOTHES.]

* * * * *

FOR A CHANGE

Fagged and jaded, Daphne mine,
For our annual change I pine.
Once again the problem’s here,
Whither we shall go this year.
Let who will seek lake or moor,
“_Bad_” or hydro, spa or “_kur_,”
Switzerland and Germany
Have no charms for you and me.
There while restless tourists haste,
“Good old Margate” suits our taste.
On its old familiar ground
We will make the usual round.
Meet Smith, Robinson and Brown,
Whom we daily see in town;
Hear the niggers or the bands
On the pier, the fort, the sands;
Revel in each well-known joy,
Then, when these enchantments cloy,
And for change again we yearn,
Why, then, Daphne, we’ll return.

* * * * *

THE number of stowaways who secrete themselves in big vessels is
becoming a growing evil. A Norwegian barquantine reached Plymouth on
Friday with an entire cargo of hides.

* * * * *

A VERY REVOLTING PLACE.–Brazil.

* * * * *

[Illustration: French Tourist, on a visit to London for the first time,
makes a note in his pocket-book of the name of the street in which his
hotel is situated.]

* * * * *

À BERLIN.–Although Berlin is “on the Spree,” its cheerfulness is
considerably discounted by “the Oder” in its vicinity.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "JOINT OCCUPATION"

(_Suggested by Cook's Tourist in Egypt._)]

* * * * *

OVERHEARD AT CHAMONIX.–_Stout British Matron_ (_in a broad British
accent, to a slim diligence driver_). Êtes-vous la diligence?

_Driver._ Non, madame, mais j’en suis le cocher.

_Matron_ (_with conviction_). C’est la même chose; gardez pour moi trois
places dans votre intérieur demain.

* * * * *

[Illustration: PHILLIPOPOLIS

_Toper Major_ (_over their third bottle of a Grand Vin_). "I shay, ol'
f'ler, neksh year thinksh'll go see ex'bishun at Ph-Phipp at
Philup-popple----"

_Toper Minor._ "I know, ol' f'ler. You mean Philipoppoppo--poppo----"

_Toper Major._ "Thatsh it--shame place. Have 'nother bo'l!"

[_They drink._

]

* * * * *

NOT SO PRETTY IN ENGLISH

(_Three Friends meet at Monte Carlo._)

_First Friend._ No, I’m not staying here. Just run over from Canes.

_Second F._ And I from Fat.

_Third F._ And I’m with my people at Chin.

[We presume the travellers referred to Cannes, Grasse, and
Menton.--ED.]

* * * * *

A WHITSUN HOLIDAY.

(_A Page from a Modern Diary._)

_Monday._–Up with the lark. Breakfast not ready. Spent my spare time in
closing the boxes. Got the family into the train with difficulty.
Devoted the day to travelling. Reached our destination tired out. Glad
to get to bed.

_Tuesday._–Up with the lark. Did the sights. Had no time to look at
anything, as I had to attend to the tickets. Saw all the museums. My
party coming out when I had got the catalogues. So managed our visits
that there was no opportunity of discussing meals. Got back in time for
_table d’hôte_, but preferred sleep to food. Went to bed.

_Wednesday._–Up with the lark. Off again travelling. On the road all
day. Having to fit in the corresponding trains, had no leisure for
meals. Arrived at our new resting-place late at night. So off as quickly
as possible to bed.

_Thursday._–Up with the lark. Spent the morning in sight-seeing under
the customary conditions. Waited upon the family. Looked after the
catalogues and umbrellas. Food again at a discount. Dispensed with
dinner. Glad to get to bed.

_Friday._–Up with the lark. Time to return. Back again by a train. No
food. No rest. Halfway home. Arrived in time to see the lights being put
out. Off to bed.

_Saturday._–Up with the lark. Continued my journey post-haste. Wrote up
my diary. Find that I have got over several hundreds of miles; but for
the life of me cannot remember anything that I have seen. Don’t
recollect any square meal. Back again, tired, and only pleased to be in
bed.

_Sunday._–Sleeping.

_Monday._–Up with the lark. Recovered from my week’s “rest,” and glad
to get back again to work.

* * * * *

BY A SEA-SICK PASSENGER

_MARE! Mare_!
Most contrary,
Why do you tumble so?
While you heave and swell
One can’t feel well,
And–I think I’ll go below!

* * * * *

MOTTO FOR AMERICAN MILLIONAIRESSES.–

“Marry, come up!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Scientific and Nervous Visitor at Country Hotel._ "I
suppose there's no 'ptomaine' in this pie?"

_Waiter_ (_equal to the occasion_). "No, sir. We never puts that in
unless specially ordered!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: DARTMOOR WAY.--_Tourist_ (_in background_). "I say!
Percy! We'd better be going now--unless you can see anything striking
from where you are!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SCENE--_Railway Refreshment Room. Thermometer 90° in the
Shade._

_Waiter_ (_to traveller taking tea_). "Beg pardon, sir, I shouldn't
recommend that milk, sir; leastways not for _drinking_ purposes."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: HALCYON PROSPECTS.--_Romantic Bride_ (_ecstatically_).
"Such a waste of waters almost appals me!"

_Prudent Husband_ (_fondly_). "What a dear little economist it is!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Tourist._ "Wasn't there a great battle fought about
here?"

_Village Dame._ "Ah, I do mind it when I were a gell, I do. They
was----"

_Tourist._ "But, my good woman, that was nearly six hundred years ago!"

_Village Dame_ (_unabashed_). "Dear, dear! How time do fly!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "And she only charged eight-and-a-half guineas,
and"--(_Interruption from Husbands._ "Isn't the view marvellous!"

_General chorus in reply._ "Oh--er--_Yes!_")--"and now I simply go there
for everything!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FRENCH AND ENGLISH (_as zey are spoke at ze country
'ouse_).--_Hostess._ "Oh--er--j'espair ker voos avvy troovy
votre--votre--er--er--votre _collar stud_, barrong?"

_M. le Baron._ "Oh, I zank you, yes! I find 'eem on my _chest of
trowsers_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PERAMBULATORS NOT ADMITTED

A DISAPPOINTMENT. [To _perambulate_; v.n., in German, _spazieren_; in
French, _se promener_; in Italian, _passeggiare_.]–_Johann Schmidt._
“Ach! vat a bitty, Mister Chones! Zen ve must not go therein to
berampulate?”]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Chatty Tourist._ "Beautiful specimen of a Roman camp,
this, isn't it?"

_Grim Stranger._ "_No_, sir, _no_! I decline to admit that there can be
_any_ true beauty about anything _Roman_!"]

* * * * *

TWO LAST WORDS TO SWITZERLAND

(_By a British Tourist and Family Man_)

On Uri’s lake, in Küsnacht’s dell,
What is the thought can almost quell
Thy patriot memory, oh TELL?
_Hotel!_

Whether by blue crevasse we reel,
Or list the avalanche’s peal,
What question blends with all we feel?–
_Wie Viel?_

* * * * *

[Illustration: LUSUS NATURÆ

_Excursion Tourist._ "Most extr'or'nary cre'char!"

_Facetious Rustic._ "Ah! that a be, measter, bred on this 'ere wery
fa-arm he wor, tew!"]

* * * * *

MORE ENGLISH AS SHE IS WROTE.–At an hotel at Socrabaja in Java is this
notice:–

“From the hours fixed for meals on no account will be deviated. For
damage to furniture the proprietor will avenge himself on the person
committing the same.”

* * * * *

“TIRED NATURE.”–A yawning gulf.

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR BORES, NATIVE AND FOREIGN

"Ach! I schbeague Enklish not vell, not vell at all! Pot, py a leadle
bractice, I imbrove ver kvick! Vait till I haf talk to you for a gopple
of hours, and you shall see!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SCENE AT THE "LUCULLUS"

_Mrs. Blunderby._ "Now, my dear Monty, let me order the luncheon
ar-la-fraingsy. Gassong! I wish to begin--as we always do in Paris, my
dears--with some _chef-d'oeuvres_--you understand--some
_chef-d'oeuvres_."

[_Emile, the waiter, is in despair. It occurs to him, however,
presently that the lady probably meant "Hors d'oeuvres,"
and acts accordingly._

]

* * * * *

TO A WELSH LADY

(_Written at Clovelly_)

The reason why I leave unsung
Your praises in the Cymric tongue
You know, sweet Nelly;
You recollect your poet’s crime–
How, when he tried to sing “the time,”
He made “the place” and “loved one” rhyme,
You and Dolgelly!

But now, although a shocking dunce,
I’ve learnt, in part, the Welsh pronunc-
iation deathly.
I dream of you in this sweet spot,
And for your sake I call it what
Its own inhabitants do not–
That is “Clovethly”!

* * * * *

AT WHITBY.–_Visitor_ (_to Ancient Mariner, who has been relating his
experiences to crowd of admirers_). Then do you mean to tell us that you
actually reached the North Pole?

_Ancient Mariner._ No, sir; that would be a perwersion of the truth. But
I seed it a-stickin’ up among the ice just as plain as you can this
spar, which I plants in the sand. It makes me thirsty to think of that
marvellous sight, we being as it were parched wi’ cold.

[_A. M.'s distress promptly relieved by audience._

* * * * *

THE WALKING ENGLISHWOMAN ON THE ALPS

[Illustration]

You who look at home so charming–
Angel, goddess, nothing less–
Do you know you’re quite alarming
In that dress?

Such a garb should be forbidden;
Where’s the grace an artist loves?
Think of dainty fingers hidden
In those gloves!

Gloves! A housemaid would not wear them,
Shapeless, brown and rough as sacks,
Thick! And yet you often tear them
With that axe!

Worst of all, unblacked, unshiny–
Greet them with derisive hoots–
Clumsy, huge! For feet so tiny!
Oh, those boots!

* * * * *

[Illustration: SCENE--_Verandah of Swiss Hotel_

_Brown_ (_finishing very lengthy account of Alpine adventure_).

"And then, Miss Jones, then, just as dawn was breaking, I heard the
voices of the guides above me, and I knew that I was saved--actually
saved! My feelings, as I realised this, may be more easily imagined than
described!"

_Miss Jones_ (_fervently_). "Thank Heaven!"

[_And Brown fondly imagined she was alluding to his escape_.

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CAUTIOUS

_Visitor_ (_at out-of-the-way Inn in the North_). "Do you know anything
about salmon-poaching in the neighbourhood?"

_Landlady_ (_whose son is not above suspicion_). "Eh--no, sir. Maybe
it's a new style of cooking as we haven't heard of in these parts, as
you see, sir, we only do our eggs that way; and"--(_brightening
up_)--"if you like 'em, I can get you a dish at once!"]

* * * * *

THE SEVEN AGES OF LUGGAGE

_Baby._ Perambulator, bottle, robe, fingerless gloves and woollen shoes.

_Schoolboy._ Bat, ball, and aids to education.

_Lover._ Guitar, music-book, writing materials, and fur-lined overcoat.

_Justice._ Capon in basket, robes, and treatise upon ancient saws and
modern instances.

_Soldier._ Sword, uniform case, standard work upon Reputation.

_Pantaloon._ Sausages, property red-hot poker, costume of motley,
slippers and spectacle case.

_Veteran._ Travels without luggage.

* * * * *

A GREAT TRAVELLER.–Dr. Watts was evidently in the habit of making
pedestrian excursions on the Continent, for in one of his noblest lines,
he expressly says–

“Whene’er I take my walks abroad.”

* * * * *

INNOCENT ABROAD.–You are misled in your view that the _Cours de
Cuisine_, mentioned in the prospectus of a French school, means the run
of the kitchen.

* * * * *

[Illustration: IN THE SWISS HIGHLANDS.--_Brown._ "This is rather a
pretty figure. You start on the left foot, cut a drop three--then----"
(_Bump_)

_Little Girl_ (_unmoved_). "Oh, _that's_ why it's called a drop three,
Mr. Brown!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Photographer_ (_on tour, absent-mindedly_). "Now smile,
please!"]

* * * * *

AT THE CELESTIAL RESTAURANT.–_Customer_ (_indignantly_). Hi! waiter,
what do you call this soup?

_Waiter_ (_meekly_). I not know, sir, but ze padrone tell me to describe
‘im Cockstail!

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Traveller_ (_snap-shotting tropical river, suddenly
confronted by hippopotamus_). "Just keep like that one moment, please!"
(_Rapturously_) "Such a delightful expression!"]

* * * * *

NOTE BY OUR TRAVELLER–At a station on the Elham Valley Line, “Kentish
Pianos” are advertised. Are these adapted for playing only dance tunes,
and therefore specially serviceable in a “Hop” county?

* * * * *

EASTER HOLIDAYS

(_By One who has tried them_)

Must really decide where to go for five or six days at Easter. Weather
always awful. Usual Springtime. North-east wind, frost, snow and dust.
Something like last week. Can’t stop in London. One Sunday or Bank
Holiday in London mournful enough. But four of them consecutively!
Impossible!

Innocent persons go to the south coast of England, thinking that fifty
miles nearer the equator one is in quite a different climate.
Bournemouth? Bosh! All sandy dust and depressing invalids. Torquay?
Twaddle! Probably rain all the time, if not snow. England no good.
Scotland or Ireland? Worse!

Must go, as people say vaguely, “abroad.” How about Paris? North-east
wind, frost, snow and dust, worse than here. Streets windy, theatres
draughty, cafés and restaurants suffocating. Brussels? Nothing but rain.
Aix-les-Bains? Probably snow. Nice? That might do. No frost or snow,
but very likely a north-east wind and certainly lots of dust. Besides,
thirty hours’ journey out and thirty hours’ journey back, would only
leave about sixty hours there. No good. Rome, Seville, Constantinople,
Cairo? Still farther. Should have to leave on the return journey before
I arrived. Where can I go to at Easter to be warm and comfortable,
without so much trouble? I know. To bed!

* * * * *

REGARDLESS OF THE TEMPERATURE.–_Facetious Australian_ (_off Calshot
Castle, to indisposed friend_). What arm of the sea reminds one of a
borrowed boot?

_The “I. F.”_ (_feebly_). Give it–anything–up.

_F. A._ Why, the _Sole-lent_, to be sure.

[_The "I. F." is promptly carried below._

* * * * *

AT BATH.--_Wiffling_ (_sympathetically_). Here on account of the waters?

_Piffling._ No, unhappily. Here on account of the whiskies.

* * * * *

"A QUESTION OF THE HOUR."--Asking a railway porter the time of the next
train's departure for your holiday resort.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Scene--_The Summit of Vesuvius_

_American Tourist_ (_to the world at large_). "Great snakes, it reminds
me of hell!"

_English Tourist._ "My dear, how these Americans _do_ travel!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Friend_ (_below_). "All you've got to do when I throw
you the rope is to make it fast to that projection over your head, and
lower yourself down!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE CHURCH-GOING BELL"

Sunday morning, coast of Norway. (_By our Yachting Artist._)]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Parson._ "Yes, on one occasion I married four couples in
a quarter of an hour. Quick work, wasn't it?"

_Nautical Young Lady._ "Yes, rather! Sixteen knots an hour!"]

* * * * *

TO MY AIRSHIP

[_The poet is being piloted on his aerial flight by a prosaic
mechanician. It is to the latter that the interpolations are due._]

Thou elfin Puck, thou child of master mind!
(Look out! the ballast’s slipping off behind.)
Thou swanlike Siren of the blue sublime!
(Screw up that nut, and never mind the rhyme.)

Thine ’tis to fathom Æther’s highest pole!
(This wind will fairly get us in a hole.)
Thine to explore the azure-vaulted dome!
(I wonder how the deuce we’re going home.)

Up, up, thou speedest, flaunting, flaunting high,
Thy glist’ring frame emblazon’d ‘gainst the sky;
And myriad-minded fancies still pursue
Thy gliding–(Blow! the anchor’s fouled the screw!)

Thou stormy petrel, kissing heaven’s height,
(Petrol! The rotten stuff declines to light)
Onward thou soarest o’er the City’s dust
Shimmering, triumphant. (Gad! The motor’s bust!)

* * * * *

_Q._ Give the French for “a policeman’s beat.” _A._ _Un tour de Force._

* * * * *

_Q._ What is the difference between a traveller and a popular vegetable?

_A._ One has been abroad and the other’s a broad bean.

[_Exit Querier rapidly._

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE AMERICAN RUSH.--_American Tourist._ "Say, how long
will it take to see over the ruins?"

_Caretaker._ "About an hour, sir."

_American Tourist._ "And how long will it take you to tell us about
it?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Is this your favourite view, poppa darling?"

"Why, certainly. But--ahem!--I prefer it _unframed_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: COLD COMFORT.--_Visitor to the West Indies_ (_who has
been warned against bathing in the river because of alligators, but has
been told by the boatman that there are none at the river's mouth_). "By
jove, this is ripping! But, I say, how do you know there are no
alligators here?"

_Boatman._ "Well, you see, sah, de alligator am so turr'ble feared ob de
shark!"]

* * * * *

OVER THE SEA.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,–I read that two new cures for sea sickness have just
been discovered: the one the eating of bananas; the other, found out by
Professor Heinz, of Erlangen, who declares that the malady proceeds from
the lobe of the brain, and that to avert it one has only to breathe
freely. As to the Professor’s theory about breathing freely, I can
safely assert that I never open my mouth so wide as when crossing the
Channel, but the experiment is an unpleasant failure.

Your obedient servant,

DIONYSIUS DABELRISK.

_Peckham Rye._

* * * * *

AT THE GRAND HOTEL, PARIS.–_Blithers_ (_of romantic turn of mind, to
Smithers, after observing a young couple in close conversation in the
court yard_). I’m sure they’re engaged. I heard her call him Harry!

_Smithers_ (_a matter-of-fact man_). What of that? I call my housemaid
Emily! He’s most probably her footman.

[_Smithers calls for absinthe._

* * * * *

[Illustration: WELL MEANT, BUT----. _Motorist_ (_with heated
cylinders_). "Where can I get some water?"

_Rustic._ "There beant noo watter hereaboots--but ye can have a sup at
my tea!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A difficult pass]

[Illustration: A kneesy climb]

[Illustration: A smiling valley]

[Illustration: A magnificent gorge]

* * * * *

BY THE SILVER SEA.–_Seaside. Tripper–none too clean in
appearance–charters bathing machine. Smart-looking schoolboy_ (_about
to enter next machine_), _loq._ I say, ma, I wish that dirty fellow
wouldn’t bathe here.

_Mamma._ Why, Tommy? If people of that sort were to bathe, they’d be as
clean as you, you know.

_Tommy_ (_eyeing Tripper closely_). Not in once, mamma!

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN APPRECIATION

(_Train entering Venice_)

_Fair American._ "Waal, I guess this is where the Adriatic slops over!"]

* * * * *

SUMMER RESORTS

DREARDON-CUM-SLOOZE.

Spring weather, in pleasing variety of sun and snow-shower, now prevails
in this highly fla–favoured locality. Mr. Josiah Jorker, Chairman of
the Rural District Council here, has bought four black Berkshire pigs,
and to lean over the yard gate and inspect them is now a regular
afternoon occupation. Discussion as to their merits runs high amongst
our local magnates. Situate as this health-giving village is, it offers
to the tired brain-worker complete rest, as there is no railway station
within six miles, and only the day-before-yesterday’s newspaper is
obtainable.

CHAWBOODLECUM.

A fine bracing N.E. wind has dried the roads, and, amongst the aged and
sick, made a clearance, thoroughly in accord with the “survival of the
fittest” doctrine. Trade has never been more brisk with the local
undertaker and the much-respected sexton. The cricket club opens its
season to-day with a match against the neighbouring village of Sludgely.
A “Sing-Song,” or “Free and Easy,” is held every Saturday night at the
“Pig and Puppy-Dog,” at which well-known hostelry visitors can find
every accommodation.

SLACKINGTON.

In this genial and mild air, where a steady, gentle rain falls on very
nearly every day in the year, the Londoner, fleeing from the trying east
winds of Spring, may find a welcome refuge. It is quite a pretty sight
on Sundays to watch the people with their different coloured waterproofs
stream out of church. There is a rumour that the present supply of cabs
will shortly be augmented by one, if not two, fresh vehicles. On Monday
last a German band played a charming selection of music in the market
place, and there was a dog-fight in the High Street.

PORKBURY.

This charming spot only requires to be known, to insure plenty of
patronage from visitors. The new pump is being pushed forward rapidly,
and the Vicar intends to hold jumble sales once a week throughout the
summer. This, in itself, will, it is expected, prove a great attraction.

Police-Constable Slummers, whose urbanity and great consideration for
the inhabitants (especially on Saturday nights) have always been so
conspicuous, is about to leave, and some of the more prominent townsmen
have taken the opportunity of marking their sense of his valuable
services by presenting him with a handsome pewter pot, engraved with his
name and the date.

A piano-organist now regularly attends the weekly market, and his music
is greatly appreciated by those engaged in buying and selling.

At the Farmer’s Eighteenpenny Ordinary, last week, Mr. Chumpjaw stated
that his mangolds were “the whackin’est big ‘uns” grown in the county.

* * * * *

AT BOULOGNE.–_Mrs. Sweetly_ (_on her honeymoon_). Isn’t it funny,
Archibald, to see so many foreigners about? And all talking French!

* * * * *

PATRON SAINT OF MESSRS. COOK.–St. Martin of “Tours.”

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Englishman_ (_to friend_). "There goes that awful liar,
who says he has climbed everything under the sun."

_Friend._ "Don't call him a liar. Rather say he has a great talent for
exaggerating things that never happened."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A PLEASANT UNCERTAINTY.--_Gigantic Guide._ "Ze last party
zat was 'ere--no one knew whezzer zey _shumped_ over or was _thrown_
over!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SLIGHT "MALONGTONGDEW"

_Angelina._ "There are to be illuminations and fireworks, and they're to
finish up with an 'ombrasmong général.' What can that be?"

_Edwin._ "Well, 'ombasser' means to 'kiss'; so I suppose it means a kind
of a sort of a general kissing all round."

_Angelina._ "Horrid idea! I won't go near the place, and I'm sure you
shan't, Edwin!"

[Our readers, who know French better than E. and A., are aware that
embrasement, with only one "s," has a totally different meaning.

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: HONEYMOONING IN PARIS.--_Mrs. Jones._ "Am I not an
expensive little wifie?"

_Jones_ (_who has spent the morning and a small fortune at the Magasin
du Louvre_). "Well, you _are_ a little dear!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: QUID PRO QUO.--_Madame Gaminot._ "Oh yes, Monsieur Jones,
J'_adore_ les Anglais! Zey understand bisnesse! For example, zey pay me
sixty pound--fifteen 'undred franc--to sing 'La Blanchisseuse du
Tambour-Major' at a evening party! It seem a great deal! But zey laugh,
and zey say, 'Oh, sharmong! Oh, ravissong!' and it mek everybody sink
zat everybody else know French--it almost mek zem sink zat zey know it
zemselfs!!! Ça vaut bien quinze cents francs, j'espère!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Tourist_ (_at small Irish inn, miles from anywhere_).
"Look here, what does this mean? I left my boots out last night, and
they haven't been touched."

_Landlord_ (_with honest pride_). "Thrue for ye, sorr! An' begorr', if
ye'd left your _gowld watch an' chain_ out, div'l a sowl wud 'a touched
them nayther!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: 'ARRY ABROAD.--_Guide._ "Monsieur finds eet a vairy
eenteresting old place, ees eet not?" _'Arry_ (_who will speak French_).
"Pas demi!"]

* * * * *

BY THE SILVER SEA

DRAINSMOUTH.

This popular health resort is now filled to over-flowing. The
entertainments on the pier include animated photographs of a procession
to the Woking Crematorium, and other cheerful and interesting subjects.
The smells of the harbour may still be enjoyed to perfection at low
water.

SHRIMPLEY.

The question of mixed bathing here has at length been set at rest by the
Town Council issuing an order that nobody is to bathe at all. A decision
so impartial as between the rival factions cannot fail to give
satisfaction to all except the captious. Professor De Bach, with his
performing dogs, gives an exhibition twice each day at the Pier
Pavilion.

LODGINGTON-ON-SEA.

Warm and sunny weather still continues in this favoured spot. People
wait half the morning for a bathing-machine and then look rather
disappointed when they get it. The Simperton-Swaggeringtons arrived
yesterday, travelling first-class from the junction, two miles off (up
to which point they had come third). This has excited some unfavourable
comment in the town.

SMELLINGTON-SUPER-MARE.

Large numbers of tripp–visitors, I mean, continue to pour into the town
from Saturdays to Mondays, benefiting greatly by their small change. The
lodging-house keepers also derive considerable benefit from their (the
visitors’) small change, especially when left lying about on the
mantelpiece. No one could complain of dulness here now, for as I write,
twenty-three barrel-organs, eleven troupes of nigger minstrels and four
blind beggars with fiddles are amusing and delighting their listeners on
the sands. The place is thoroughly lively, hardly an hour of the day
passing without at least two street rows between inebriated
excursionists taking place. The police force has been doubled, and the
magistrates have given notice that, for the future, they will give no
“option,” and that all sentences for assaults in the streets will be
with hard labour.

* * * * *

[Illustration: PHILOLOGICAL.--_First English Groom_ (_new to Paris_).
"And the French gent as he drives round the corner, he pulls up quick,
and calls out 'Woa!'"

_Second ditto_ (_who has been in Paris some time_). "He couldn't have
said _'Woa!'_ as there ain't no 'W' in French."

_First ditto._ "No 'W' in French? Then 'ow d'yer spell 'wee'?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Alarming appearance of a harmless guana just as he has
found a nice corner of Sydney Harbour for a sketch.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Mr. Townmouse takes lodgings for his family at a
farmhouse in a remote district. Delightful spot; but they weren't so
well off for butcher's meat as they could wish.

_Farmer._ "Now, if your lady 'ud like some nice pork--Oh! she does like
pork?--Well, then, we shall kill a pig the week arter next."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A NICE PROSPECT.--_Traveller_ (_benighted in the Black
Country_). "Not a bed-room disengaged! Tut-t-t-t!"

_Landlady_ (_who is evidently in the coal business as well_). "Oh, we'll
accommodate you somehow, sir, if me and my 'usband gives you up our own
bed, sir!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID.--_Professor
Chatterleigh._ "By George! I'm so hungry I can't _talk!_"

_Fair Hostess_ (_on hospitable thoughts intent_). "Oh, I'm _so_ glad!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ÆSTHETICS

_Indiscreet Sister._ "Why, Harry, your legs are getting more
_Chippendale_ than ever!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE JOYS OF TOURING

_Traveller._ "I say, your razor's pulling most confoundedly!"

_Local Torturer._ "Be it, zur? Wull, 'old on tight to the chair, an'
we'll get it off zummow!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CHEERING.--_First Artist_ (_on a pedestrian tour_). "Can
you tell which is the best inn in Baconhurst?"

_Rustic_ (_bewildered_). "Dunno."

_Second Artist_ (_tired_). "But we can get beds there, I suppose? Where
do travellers generally go?"

_Rustic._ "Go to the union moostly!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MIND AND MATTER-OF-FACT

_Cotton-Man_ (_fro' Shoddydale_). "What dun yo' co' that wayter?"

_Coachman._ "Ah, ain't it beautiful? That's Grassmere Lake, that is----"

_Cotton-Man._ "Yo' co'n 'um all la-akes an' meres i' these pa-arts. We
co'n 'um rezzer-voyers where ah com' fro'!!"]

* * * * *

Would the epigrammatic translation of “_sede vacanti_” as “Not well and
gone away for a holiday” be accepted by an examiner?

* * * * *

WINTER RESORT FOR BRONCHIALLY-AFFECTED PERSONS.–Corfe Castle.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Visitor._ "And so you've never been to London! Oh, but
you must go. It's quite an easy journey, you know."

_Gaffer Stokes._ "Ah, Oi'd main loike to see Lunnon, Oi wud. Reckon Oi
must go afore Oi'm done for. _Now which moight be their busy day there,_
mister?"]

* * * * *

TO INTENDING TOURISTS–”Where shall we go?” All depends on the “coin of
‘vantage.” Switzerland? Question of money. Motto.–_”Point d’argent
point de Suisse.”_

* * * * *

SCENE–_On the Quay. Ocean liner’s syren fog-horn emitting short,
sharp grunts._

_Little Girl._ Oh, mamma, that _poor_ ship must have a drefful pain in
its cabin!

* * * * *

WASTED SYMPATHY.–SCENE–_Interior of Railway Carriage. Lady_ (_to
gentleman who has just entered and is placing one of his fellow
passenger’s bags on the floor where there is a hot-water bottle_). Oh!
Excuse me, sir, but, _please_ don’t put _that_ near the hot-water
bottle. I’ve got a little bird in the bag.

_Elderly Gentleman_ (_who is an enthusiastic Anti-Vivisectionist and
prominent member of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals_).
Good Heavens, madam! a bird in there! Please consider! How cruel! how
inhuman! how—-(_gasps for words_).

_Lady._ Not at all, my dear sir. _It’s a roast partridge, cold, for
lunch._

[_Collapse of Enthusiast._

* * * * *

UNPLEASANTLY SUGGESTIVE NAMES OF "CURE" PLACES ABROAD.--_Bad Gastein._
Which must be worse than the first day's sniff at Bad-Eggs-la-Chapelle.

* * * * *

ROTATORY KNIFE (AND FORK) MACHINES.--Pullman dining cars.

* * * * *

THE LINE WHICH IS OFTEN DRAWN.--The Equator.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THOROUGH BUT NOT PEDANTIC. (_Overheard at the
Louvre._)--_American Tourist_ (_suspiciously_). "Say, guide, haven't we
seen this room before?"

_Guide._ "Oh no, monsieur."

_Tourist._ "Well, see here. We want to see everything, but we don't want
to see anything twice!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: MODERN ACCOMPLISHMENTS.--_Captain Brown_ (_narrating his
trip to the Continent_). "Then, of course, we ran down to Granada, and
saw the Alhambra----"

_Captain Jinks_ (_untravelled athlete_). "No!! What, have they got one
there too!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: FILIAL ANXIETY. "Going to Paris to-morrow, Tom!"

"How's that?"

"My poor old governor's taken ill there!"

"Going by Dieppe or Boulogne?"

"Rather think I shall go _via Monaco_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OVERDOING IT

_Sympathiser._ "Sorry you look so seedy after your holiday, old chap!"

_Too Energetic Sight-seer._ "Well, I am a bit done up, but the doctor
says that with rest and great care I may be well enough to have a
run-round as usual next year."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Gushing Young Lady_ (_to Mr. Dunk, who has just returned
from Rome_). "They say, Mr. Dunk, that when one sets foot in Rome for
the first time, one experiences a profound feeling of awe. The chaos of
ruined grandeur, the magnificent associations, seem too much for one to
grasp. Tell me, oh tell me, Mr. Dunk, what did _you_ think of it all?"

_Mr. Dunk_ (_deliberately, after considering awhile_). "_Very_ nice!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Carry your trunk, sir?"]

* * * * *

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE.–_Miss Tomboy._ Mamma, I think those French women
were beastly rude.

_Mother._ You mustn’t speak like that of those ladies, it’s very wrong.
And how often have I told you not to say “beastly”?

_Miss Tomboy._ Well, they _were_ rude. They called me a little cabbage
(_mon petit chou_). The next time they do that I shall call them old
French beans.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE TOURIST SEASON. HOTEL BRIGANDAGE]

* * * * *

DE GUSTIBUS—-

I am an unadventurous man,
And always go upon the plan
Of shunning danger where I can.

And so I fail to understand
Why every year a stalwart band
Of tourists go to Switzerland,

And spend their time for several weeks,
With quaking hearts and pallid cheeks,
Scaling abrupt and windy peaks.

In fact, I’m old enough to find
Climbing of almost any kind
Is very little to my mind.

A mountain summit white with snow
Is an attractive sight, I know,
But why not see it _from below_?

Why leave the hospitable plain
And scale Mont Blanc with toil and pain
Merely to scramble down again?

Some men pretend they think it bliss
To clamber up a precipice
Or dangle over an abyss,

To crawl along a mountain side,
Supported by a rope that’s tied,
–Not too securely–to a guide;

But such pretences, it is clear,
In the aspiring mountaineer
Are usually insincere.

And many a climber, I’ll be bound,
Whom scarped and icy crags surround,
Wishes himself on level ground.

So I, for one, do not propose,
To cool my comfortable toes
In regions of perpetual snows,

As long as I can take my ease,
Fanned by a soothing southern breeze,
Under the shade of English trees.

And anyone who leaves my share
Of English fields and English air
May take the Alps for aught I care!

* * * * *

SPORT MOST APPROPRIATE TO THE LOCALITY.–Shooting pigeons at Monte
Carlo.

* * * * *

PLEASURE À LA RUSSE.–_Q._ When does a Russian give a Polish peasant a
holiday?

_A._ When he gives him _a kn_outing.

* * * * *

THE CRY OF THE HOLIDAY-LOVING CLERK.–”Easterward Ho!”

* * * * *

A DISH THAT DISAGREES WITH MOST PERSONS WHEN TRAVELLING.–The Chops of
the Channel.

* * * * *

THE GREATEST BORE IN CREATION.–The Simplon Tunnel.

* * * * *

[Illustration: The Brown family resolve to spend their vacation each
after his own fashion, instead of _en famille_.

Jack took his motor car of course.

Maud and Ethel started on a Biking Tour.

Pater preferred "Cooks".

"My Dear Sir, I tell you there is not a city in the whole of Europe that
is a patch upon Florence. Why I found the finest English chemists there
that I have come across in all my travels."

Mater had "quiet time" in Devonshire.

Bob went canoeing.

While Mary Ann says 'Give me good ole Margit'.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE ANTIQUARY.--_Tourist_ (_in Cornwall_). "May I be
permitted to examine that interesting stone in your field? These ancient
Druidical remains are most interesting!"

_Farmer._ "Sart'nly, sir. 'May be very int'restin' an' arnshunt, but we
do stick 'em oup for the cattle, an' call 'em roubbin' pusts!!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Smithson, having read and heard much of the pleasures of
a driving tour, determines to indulge in that luxury during his
Whitsuntide holidays. He therefore engages a trap, with a horse that can
"get over the ground," and securing the services of an experienced
driver, he sets forth._

_Smithson._ "A--a--isn't he--a--a--hadn't I better help you to pull at
him?"

_Driver._ "Pull at 'im? Why yer'd set 'im crazed! Jist you let me keep
is 'ead straight. Lor' bless yer, there ain't no cause to be affeared,
as long as we don't meet nothing, and the gates ain't shut at
Splinterbone crossing, jist round the bend."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Stout Party._ "Is this path safe?"

_Flippant Youth._ "Yes, the path is--but I can't answer for _you_!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "Will you 'urry up paintin' that tree, sir? Cause I'm
goin' to cut it down in a quarter of an hour."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Tourist_ (_in search of "the unique," after admiring old
cottage_). "Is there anything else to look at in the village?"

_Village Dame._ "Lor' bless 'ee, why there's the beautiful new
recr'ation ground as we've just 'ad made!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A PASTORAL REBUKE.--_First Pedestrian_ (_they've lost
their way_), "Look here. This must be the east, mustn't it? There's the
chancel window--that's always east; then the south must be----"

_High-Church Priest_ (_"turning up" suddenly out of the vestry_), "I beg
your pardon, gentlemen, but I can't allow my church to be used for a
secular purpose. You'll find an unconsecrated weathercock on the barn
yonder!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Visitor._ "Will you tell me where I shall find a seat?"

_Verger._ "Weel, sir, there's a guid wheen veesitors in Inverness the
noo: so sit whaur ye can see yer umbrella!"]

* * * * *

TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS

Toddlekins is anxious to take his family to Mars this summer, and
inquires where he can hire a speedy balloon for the purpose. He is
anxious to know whether he can obtain golf there, and also whether the
roads are good for bicycling. He is recommended to apply for information
to the Astronomer-Royal. But why should Toddlekins trouble to go so far
afield? He would be sure to find congenial society in the neighbourhood
of Hanwell, and by selecting this spot as his destination, the expense
of a return ticket would be saved.

ANXIOUS MOTHER.–So glad that you intend taking your dear ten children
to Poppleton-on-Sea for three weeks’ change of air. And all that you
tell me about Timothy’s pet rabbit and Selina’s last attack of measles
is so deeply interesting. Unfortunately I cannot answer all your
questions myself, but I will print them here, so that some of my kind
readers may be able to assist you. You want to know, in regard to
Poppleton–

(1) Whether the pavements (if any) are stone or asphalte.

(2) What is the mean temperature, the annual rain-fall, and the
death-rate.

(3) What are the Rector’s “views,” and if there is a comfortable pew in
the church, out of draughts, calculated to hold eleven.

(4) What time the shops at Poppleton close on Saturdays.

DUBIOUS.–As you say, it _is_ difficult to make up one’s mind where to
spend the holidays, because there are so many places from which to
choose. And you were so wise to write and ask me to give you the name of
one single place which I could thoroughly recommend, and so save you all
further worry. How about Brighton, Hastings, Eastbourne, Bexhill,
Seaford, Cowes, Weymouth, Exmouth, Penzance, Lynton, or Tenby? I am
delighted to give you this real and valuable help!

PICNIC-PARTY.–You have my full sympathy. It is most churlish of
riparian owners to refuse to allow strangers to land on their property.
Fancy any one objecting to having his lawn covered with broken bottles
and paper bags!

OWNER.–I feel deeply for you. The way in which trippers on the river
invade riverside gardens is outrageous. The bags and pieces of glass
they leave about must be a gross disfigurement to your lawn.

* * * * *

[Illustration: INTRODUCTION MADE EASY.--_Invalid-Chair Attendant._ "If
you should have a fancy for any partickler party, I can easily bump
'em."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Miss Binns_ (_breathless, hurrying to catch London train
after week-end trip_). "Can you please tell me the _exact_ time?"

_Old Salt._ "'Alf ebb."]

* * * * *

A MOUNTAIN RAMBLER

(_By a Returned Traveller_)

I’ve scanned and penned an Ode on
Thy snowy glories, Snowdon
My honeymoon with Helen,
Was spent near “dark” Helvellyn,
Afar from all the _beau monde_
I’ve rambled round Ben Lomond,
At noontide on Ben Nevis,
I’ve roved and read _Sir Bevis_,
I’ve stretched each tired thin limb on
Thy summit, O Plinlimmon,
And once I tore my breeks
On Macgillycuddy’s Reeks.
Those glorious mountain scalps,
The tiptops of the Alps,
I’ve seen–their pines and passes,
Their glaciers and crevasses–
With fools, philosophers and wits,
I’ve scrambled up the Ortler Spitz,
Made sketches on St. Gothard,
Like Turner and like Stothard,
And with my _cara sposa_
Ascended Monte Rosa:
But not content with Europe,
I’ve roamed with staff and new rope
As far away as Ararat,
Where _savants_ say there’s ne’er a rat;
The Kuen Lun and Thian Shan
I know as well as any man;
I’ve boiled my evening kettle
On Popocatapetl,
And on the highest Andes
I’ve sodas mixed and brandies;
I’ve slumbered snug and cosey
On silvery Potosi;
I’ve stood on Peter Botto,
A rather lonely spot;
And–crowning feat of all
My mountaineerings on this ball–
I’ve smoked–O weed for ever blest!
My pipe upon Mount Everest.
And now my ramble’s over,
Here’s Shakspeare’s Cliff and Dover!
All Alpine risks and chances,
All Ultramontane fancies,
I’ve put away and done with;
I’ll stay my wife and son with,
And never more will roam
From Primrose Hill and home.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FESTIVE SEASON.--_Visitor to the District_ (_who has
missed his way_). "Can you tell me, my good man, if I shall pass the
'Red Lion' inn along this road?"

_The Village Toper._ "Oi wouldn't like to be saying wut a gen'leman
loike ye wud be doin'; but Oi'm parfect sartin Oi shouldn't!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: QUEEN'S HOTEL, AMBLESIDE, 3 O'CLOCK, A.M.--"Tom!" (_No
response._) "I say, Tom!" (_No answer._) "Tom!" (_A muffled grunt._)
"Tom--Fire!"

"Eh? What? What do you say?"

"I say Tom, do you think your key will fit my bag?"

"_No_--'t won't--Chubb!"

[_Objurgations, and midnight disturber retires._

]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR COMPATRIOTS ABROAD.--"And how did you like
Switzerland?"

"Oh, immensely! It was our first visit, you know!"

"And did you go on into Italy?"

"Well, no. We found a hotel at Lausanne where there was a first-rate
tennis-lawn, you know--quite as good as ours at home. So we spent the
whole of our holiday there, and played lawn-tennis all day long."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AGGRAVATING FLIPPANCY

_The Professor_ (_who has just come back from the North Pole)._ "----
and the fauna of these inhospitable regions is as poor as the flora! You
couldn't name a dozen animals who manage to live there."

_Mrs. Malapert._ "Oh--I dare say I could!"

_The Professor._ "Really--what _are_ they?"

_Mrs. Malapert._ "Well, now--five polar bears, let us say, and--and
seven seals!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _First Traveller._ "Can we have beds here to-night?"

_Obliging Hostess._ "Oh, yes, sir."

_First Traveller._ "Have you--er--any--er--_insects_ in this house?"

_Obliging Hostess._ "No, sir. _But we can get you some!"_]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady_ (_to her travelling companion, who has just had
his finger-nail pinched badly_). "How horrid! I always think anything
wrong with one's nails sets one's teeth on edge all down one's back!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: NEARING THE ENGLISH COAST

_Jones._ (_Returning to England_). "We are quite fifty miles from the
Scilly Isles, Miss Brown. They say the odour of the flowers they
cultivate there travels that distance over the sea. I can detect it
distinctly now--can't you?"

_Miss Brown_ (_from America_). "I guess it hasn't _quite_ reached me
yet, Mr. Jones!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS.--_He._ "Oh,
you're from America, are you? People often say to me, 'Don't you dislike
Americans?' But I always say 'I believe there are some very nice ones
among them.'"

_She._ "Ah, I dare say there _may_ be two or three nice people amongst
millions!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR COUNTRYMEN ABROAD.--_Mr. Shoddy._ "_I_ always say,
Mrs. Sharp, that I never feel really safe from the ubiquitous British
snob till I am south of the Danube!"

_Mrs. Sharp_ (_innocently_). "And what do the--a--_South Danubians_ say,
Mr. Shoddy?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Waiter._ "Did you ring, Sir?"

_Traveller_ (_as a gentle hint to previous arrival_). "_Another fire_,
waiter!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mr. Smith._ "Oh, I was wondering whether you and your
husband would care to accompany our party to Hadrian's Villa to-morrow?"

_Young American Bride._ "Why, yes; we'd just love to go. George and I
will be furnishing as soon as we get back to Noo York, and maybe we'd be
able to pick up a few notions over at this villa."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNANSWERABLE

_Pompous Magnate_ (_making speech at public luncheon in provincial
town_). "Speaking of travel reminds me how greatly I have admired the
scenery round Lake Geneva, and also what pleasant times I have spent in
the neighbourhood of Lake Leman."

_Cultured Neighbour_ (_in audible whisper_). "Pardon me, but the two
places are synonymous."

_P. M._ (_patronisingly_). "Ah! So _you_ may think, sir--so _you_ may
think! But, from my point of view, I consider Lake Geneva to be far the
most synonymous of the two."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "IT'S AN ILL WIND," &c.--"Oh, papa! what _do_ you think?
Four out of our twelve boxes are missing."

"Hurrah! By George! that's the best piece of news I've had for a long
time."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN EPICURE.--"Oh, George, I'm ashamed of you--rubbing
your lips like that, after that dear little French girl has given you a
kiss!"

"I'm not rubbing it _out_, mammy--I'm rubbing it _in_!"]

* * * * *

A COWES WEEK EXPERIENCE

_Monday._–Dear old Bluewater–what a good fellow he is!–asks me to
join his yacht, the _Sudden Jerk_, for Cowes week. Never been yachting
before.

_Tuesday._–Arrive Ryde Pier, correctly (I hope) “got up”; blue serge,
large brass anchor buttons, and peaked cap. Fancy Bluewater rather
surprised to see how _au fait_ I am at nautical dress. “Ah! my dear
fellow, delighted to see you. Come along; the gig is lying alongside the
steps. One of the hands” (why “hands”?) “shall look to your traps.” We
scramble into gig and are rowed out to 50-ton yawl. Climb up side.
Bluewater says, “Come below. Take care–two steps down, then turn round
and—- Oh! by Jove! what a crack you’ve caught your head. Never mind,
old boy, you’ll soon get accustomed to it.” Devoutly hope I shall _not_
get accustomed to knocking my head. Arrive at foot of “companion” (why
“companion”?) stairs. Bluewater pulls aside curtains and says, “_There_
you are!” Reply, “Oh! yes, there I am. Er–is–do you lie on the
shelf–oh! berth, is it!–beg pardon–or underneath it?” He explains.
“You’ll find it very jolly, you know; you can lie in your bunk, and look
right up the companion to the sky above.” “Oh! awfully jolly,” I say.
We repair on deck. Get under weigh to run down to Cowes. Dear old
Bluewater very active. Pulls at ropes and things, shouting
“leggo-your-spinach-and-broom,”[A] and other unintelligible war-cries.
Stagger across deck. Breeze very fresh. “Lee oh!” shouts Bluewater;
“mind the broom!”–or it might have been boom–and next moment am
knocked flat on my back by enormous pole.

Arrive Cowes. Crowd of yachts. Drop anchor for night. Go below, damp
face in tiny iron basin; yacht lurches and rolls all the water out over
new white shoes. Enter saloon, tripping over some one’s kit-bag at the
door. Try to save myself by clutching at swing-table, which upsets and
empties soup tureen all over my trousers. Retire, change, return. Host
and I sit down and proceed to chase fried soles backwards and forwards
across treacherous swing-table. “_Now_, my dear fellow isn’t this
jolly? Isn’t this worth all your club dinners?” Reply “Oh, yes,”
enthusiastically. Privately, should prefer club in London. Weather gets
worse. Try to smoke. Don’t seem to care for smoking, somehow. Feel
depressed, and ask dear old Bluewater to describe a sailor’s grave.
Tries to cheer me up by saying, “Don’t waste the precious moments, my
friend, on such sad subjects. You are not born to fill a seaman’s grave.
There’s a class of man not born to be drowned, you know.” Then he laughs
heartily. Try to smile; fail. Pitching and rocking motion increases.
Retire early and lie down on shelf. Fall off twice. Manage to reach
perch again. Weather gets worse. Shall never sleep with noise of
trampling on deck and waves washing yacht’s sides. Shall never—-
Sudden misgiving. _Am_ I going to be—-? Oh! no, must be passing
dizziness. It cannot possibly be…. IT IS!!!

Am rowed ashore, bag and baggage, next morning. Dear old Bluewater tries
to keep me from going, and says, “What, after all, _is_ sea-sickness?”
Dear old Bluewater must be an ass. Confound old Bluewater!

[Footnote A: Qy. spinnaker boom.--ED.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE EXCURSION.

_Head of Family._ "I reckon some of us'll have to stand, or we shan't
all get seats!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: CAUSE AND EFFECT

_Mrs. Brown._ "I had such a lovely bathe last Thursday, dear."

_Niece._ "That was the day of the tidal wave, wasn't it, Auntie?"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: How Stonehenge might be popularised if the Government
bought it. Suggestion gratis.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Full-sized Tripper._ "How does one get into the
churchyard, please?"

_Simple Little Native._ "Through this 'ere 'ole!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Walking Tourist._ "What's the name of this village, my
man?"

_Yokel._ "Oi dunno, zur. Oi only bin 'ere a month!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW

_Fair Yankee_ (_in Egypt_). "I say, uncle, can yew tell me, air there
ever any new camels? I guess all I've seen must be second-hand!"]

* * * * *

AN UNCONGENIAL SPOT FOR TEETOTALERS.–Barmouth.

* * * * *

A MAN WHO BEATS ABOUT THE BUSH.–An Australian.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "IN PERIL OF PRECIPITATION"--_Coriolanus_, iii. 3.

_Stout Party._ "Hi! boy, stop! I'm going to get off."

_Donkey Boy._ "Yer carn't, marm. There ain't room!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: DETECTED.--_Clerical Tourist_ (_visiting cathedral_).
"Always open, eh? And do you find that people come here on week-days for
rest and meditation?"

_Verger._ "Ay, that they do, odd times. Why, I catched some of 'em at it
only last Toosday!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Lady._ "Well, if that's David, what a size Goliath
must a' been."]

* * * * *

HOLIDAY FARE IN CORNWALL

A Roll on the billow,
A Loaf by the shore,
A Fig for fashion,
And Cream galore!

* * * * *

THE ROAD TO THE NIAGARA FALLS.–_Via Dollarosa._

* * * * *

WHERE THE FELLAH’S SHOE PINCHES.–Where the corn used to be–in Egypt.

* * * * *

[Illustration: FINIS]

* * * * *

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.

* * * * *