The Clicking of Cuthbert

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  THE CLICKING OF CUTHBERT

  by P. G. Wodehouse

  1922

  DEDICATION

  TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OFJOHN HENRIE AND PAT ROGIEWHO AT EDINBURGH IN THE YEAR 1593 A.D.WERE IMPRISONED FOR"PLAYING OF THE GOWFF ON THE LINKS OF LEITHEVERY SABBATH THE TIME OF THE SERMONSES",ALSO OF ROBERT ROBERTSON WHO GOT IT IN THE NECKIN 1604 A.D. FOR THE SAME REASON

  FORE!

  This book marks an epoch in my literary career. It is written inblood. It is the outpouring of a soul as deeply seared by Fate'sunkindness as the fairway on the dog-leg hole of the second nine wasever seared by my iron. It is the work of a very nearly desperate man,an eighteen-handicap man who has got to look extremely slippy if hedoesn't want to find himself in the twenties again.

  As a writer of light fiction, I have always till now been handicappedby the fact that my disposition was cheerful, my heart intact, and mylife unsoured. Handicapped, I say, because the public likes to feelthat a writer of farcical stories is piquantly miserable in his privatelife, and that, if he turns out anything amusing, he does it simply inorder to obtain relief from the almost insupportable weight of anexistence which he has long since realized to be a wash-out. Well,today I am just like that.

  Two years ago, I admit, I was a shallow _farceur_. My work lackeddepth. I wrote flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly goodtime. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears andlaugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head upand feel that I am entitled to respect.

  If you find anything in this volume that amuses you, kindly bear inmind that it was probably written on my return home after losing threeballs in the gorse or breaking the head off a favourite driver: and,with a murmured "Brave fellow! Brave fellow!" recall the story of theclown jesting while his child lay dying at home. That is all. Thank youfor your sympathy. It means more to me than I can say. Do you thinkthat if I tried the square stance for a bit.... But, after all, thiscannot interest you. Leave me to my misery.

  POSTSCRIPT.--In the second chapter I allude to Stout Cortez staring atthe Pacific. Shortly after the appearance of this narrative in serialform in America, I received an anonymous letter containing the words,"You big stiff, it wasn't Cortez, it was Balboa." This, I believe, ishistorically accurate. On the other hand, if Cortez was good enough forKeats, he is good enough for me. Besides, even if it _was_ Balboa,the Pacific was open for being stared at about that time, and I see noreason why Cortez should not have had a look at it as well.

  P. G. WODEHOUSE.

  CONTENTS

  FORE!

  CHAPTER

  I. THE CLICKING OF CUTHBERT

  II. A WOMAN IS ONLY A WOMAN

  III. A MIXED THREESOME

  IV. SUNDERED HEARTS

  V. THE SALVATION OF GEORGE MACKINTOSH

  VI. ORDEAL BY GOLF

  VII. THE LONG HOLE

  VIII. THE HEEL OF ACHILLES

  IX. THE ROUGH STUFF

  X. THE COMING OF GOWF

  1

  _The Clicking of Cuthbert_

  The young man came into the smoking-room of the clubhouse, and flunghis bag with a clatter on the floor. He sank moodily into an arm-chairand pressed the bell.

  "Waiter!"

  "Sir?"

  The young man pointed at the bag with every evidence of distaste.

  "You may have these clubs," he said. "Take them away. If you don't wantthem yourself, give them to one of the caddies."

  Across the room the Oldest Member gazed at him with a grave sadnessthrough the smoke of his pipe. His eye was deep and dreamy--the eye ofa man who, as the poet says, has seen Golf steadily and seen it whole.

  "You are giving up golf?" he said.

  He was not altogether unprepared for such an attitude on the youngman's part: for from his eyrie on the terrace above the ninth green hehad observed him start out on the afternoon's round and had seen himlose a couple of balls in the lake at the second hole after takingseven strokes at the first.

  "Yes!" cried the young man fiercely. "For ever, dammit! Footling game!Blanked infernal fat-headed silly ass of a game! Nothing but a waste oftime."

  The Sage winced.

  "Don't say that, my boy."

  "But I do say it. What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life isearnest. We live in a practical age. All round us we see foreigncompetition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playinggolf! What do we get out of it? Is golf any _use_? That's what I'masking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to thispestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?"

  The Sage smiled gently.

  "I could name a thousand."

  "One will do."

  "I will select," said the Sage, "from the innumerable memories thatrush to my mind, the story of Cuthbert Banks."

  "Never heard of him."

  "Be of good cheer," said the Oldest Member. "You are going to hear ofhim now."

  * * * * *

  It was in the picturesque little settlement of Wood Hills (said theOldest Member) that the incidents occurred which I am about to relate.Even if you have never been in Wood Hills, that suburban paradise isprobably familiar to you by name. Situated at a convenient distancefrom the city, it combines in a notable manner the advantages of townlife with the pleasant surroundings and healthful air of the country.Its inhabitants live in commodious houses, standing in their owngrounds, and enjoy so many luxuries--such as gravel soil, maindrainage, electric light, telephone, baths (h. and c.), and company'sown water, that you might be pardoned for imagining life to be so idealfor them that no possible improvement could be added to their lot. Mrs.Willoughby Smethurst was under no such delusion. What Wood Hills neededto make it perfect, she realized, was Culture. Material comforts areall very well, but, if the _summum bonum_ is to be achieved, theSoul also demands a look in, and it was Mrs. Smethurst's unfalteringresolve that never while she had her strength should the Soul be handedthe loser's end. It was her intention to make Wood Hills a centre ofall that was most cultivated and refined, and, golly! how she hadsucceeded. Under her presidency the Wood Hills Literary and DebatingSociety had tripled its membership.

  But there is always a fly in the ointment, a caterpillar in the salad.The local golf club, an institution to which Mrs. Smethurst stronglyobjected, had also tripled its membership; and the division of thecommunity into two rival camps, the Golfers and the Cultured, hadbecome more marked than ever. This division, always acute, had attainednow to the dimensions of a Schism. The rival sects treated one anotherwith a cold hostility.

  Unfortunate episodes came to widen the breach. Mrs. Smethurst's houseadjoined the links, standing to the right of the fourth tee: and, asthe Literary Society was in the habit of entertaining visitinglecturers, many a golfer had foozled his drive owing to sudden loudoutbursts of applause coinciding with his down-swing. And not longbefore this story opens a sliced ball, whizzing in at the open window,had come within an ace of incapacitating Raymond Parsloe Devine, therising young novelist (who rose at that moment a clear foot and a half)from any further exercise of his art. Two inches, indeed, to the rightand Raymond must inevitably have handed in his dinner-pail.

  To make matters worse, a ring at the front-door bell followed almostimmediately, and the maid ushered in a young man of pleasing appearancein a sweater and baggy knickerbockers who apologetically but firmlyinsisted on playing his ball where it lay, and, what with the shock ofthe lecturer's narrow escape and the spectacle of the intruder standingon the table and working away with a niblick, the afternoon's sessionhad to be classed as
a complete frost. Mr. Devine's determination, fromwhich no argument could swerve him, to deliver the rest of his lecturein the coal-cellar gave the meeting a jolt from which it neverrecovered.

  I have dwelt upon this incident, because it was the means ofintroducing Cuthbert Banks to Mrs. Smethurst's niece, Adeline. AsCuthbert, for it was he who had so nearly reduced the muster-roll ofrising novelists by one, hopped down from the table after his stroke,he was suddenly aware that a beautiful girl was looking at himintently. As a matter of fact, everyone in the room was looking at himintently, none more so than Raymond Parsloe Devine, but none of theothers were beautiful girls. Long as the members of Wood Hills LiterarySociety were on brain, they were short on looks, and, to Cuthbert'sexcited eye, Adeline Smethurst stood out like a jewel in a pile ofcoke.

  He had never seen her before, for she had only arrived at her aunt'shouse on the previous day, but he was perfectly certain that life, evenwhen lived in the midst of gravel soil, main drainage, and company'sown water, was going to be a pretty poor affair if he did not see heragain. Yes, Cuthbert was in love: and it is interesting to record, asshowing the effect of the tender emotion on a man's game, that twentyminutes after he had met Adeline he did the short eleventh in one, andas near as a toucher got a three on the four-hundred-yard twelfth.

  I will skip lightly over the intermediate stages of Cuthbert'scourtship and come to the moment when--at the annual ball in aid of thelocal Cottage Hospital, the only occasion during the year on which thelion, so to speak, lay down with the lamb, and the Golfers and theCultured met on terms of easy comradeship, their differencestemporarily laid aside--he proposed to Adeline and was badly stymied.

  That fair, soulful girl could not see him with a spy-glass.

  "Mr. Banks," she said, "I will speak frankly."

  "Charge right ahead," assented Cuthbert.

  "Deeply sensible as I am of----"

  "I know. Of the honour and the compliment and all that. But, passinglightly over all that guff, what seems to be the trouble? I love you todistraction----"

  "Love is not everything."

  "You're wrong," said Cuthbert, earnestly. "You're right off it.Love----" And he was about to dilate on the theme when she interruptedhim.

  "I am a girl of ambition."

  "And very nice, too," said Cuthbert.

  "I am a girl of ambition," repeated Adeline, "and I realize that thefulfilment of my ambitions must come through my husband. I am veryordinary myself----"

  "What!" cried Cuthbert. "You ordinary? Why, you are a pearl amongwomen, the queen of your sex. You can't have been looking in a glasslately. You stand alone. Simply alone. You make the rest look likebattered repaints."

  "Well," said Adeline, softening a trifle, "I believe I am fairlygood-looking----"

  "Anybody who was content to call you fairly good-looking would describethe Taj Mahal as a pretty nifty tomb."

  "But that is not the point. What I mean is, if I marry a nonentity Ishall be a nonentity myself for ever. And I would sooner die than be anonentity."

  "And, if I follow your reasoning, you think that that lets _me_out?"

  "Well, really, Mr. Banks, _have_ you done anything, or are youlikely ever to do anything worth while?"

  Cuthbert hesitated.

  "It's true," he said, "I didn't finish in the first ten in the Open,and I was knocked out in the semi-final of the Amateur, but I won theFrench Open last year."

  "The--what?"

  "The French Open Championship. Golf, you know."

  "Golf! You waste all your time playing golf. I admire a man who is morespiritual, more intellectual."

  A pang of jealousy rent Cuthbert's bosom.

  "Like What's-his-name Devine?" he said, sullenly.

  "Mr. Devine," replied Adeline, blushing faintly, "is going to be agreat man. Already he has achieved much. The critics say that he ismore Russian than any other young English writer."

  "And is that good?"

  "Of course it's good."

  "I should have thought the wheeze would be to be more English than anyother young English writer."

  "Nonsense! Who wants an English writer to be English? You've got to beRussian or Spanish or something to be a real success. The mantle of thegreat Russians has descended on Mr. Devine."

  "From what I've heard of Russians, I should hate to have that happen to_me_."

  "There is no danger of that," said Adeline scornfully.

  "Oh! Well, let me tell you that there is a lot more in me than youthink."

  "That might easily be so."

  "You think I'm not spiritual and intellectual," said Cuthbert, deeplymoved. "Very well. Tomorrow I join the Literary Society."

  Even as he spoke the words his leg was itching to kick himself forbeing such a chump, but the sudden expression of pleasure on Adeline'sface soothed him; and he went home that night with the feeling that hehad taken on something rather attractive. It was only in the cold, greylight of the morning that he realized what he had let himself in for.

  I do not know if you have had any experience of suburban literarysocieties, but the one that flourished under the eye of Mrs. WilloughbySmethurst at Wood Hills was rather more so than the average. With myfeeble powers of narrative, I cannot hope to make clear to you all thatCuthbert Banks endured in the next few weeks. And, even if I could, Idoubt if I should do so. It is all very well to excite pity and terror,as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits. In the ancient Greektragedies it was an ironclad rule that all the real rough stuff shouldtake place off-stage, and I shall follow this admirable principle. Itwill suffice if I say merely that J. Cuthbert Banks had a thin time.After attending eleven debates and fourteen lectures on _vers libre_Poetry, the Seventeenth-Century Essayists, the Neo-ScandinavianMovement in Portuguese Literature, and other subjects of a similarnature, he grew so enfeebled that, on the rare occasions when he hadtime for a visit to the links, he had to take a full iron for his mashieshots.

  It was not simply the oppressive nature of the debates and lecturesthat sapped his vitality. What really got right in amongst him was thetorture of seeing Adeline's adoration of Raymond Parsloe Devine. Theman seemed to have made the deepest possible impression upon herplastic emotions. When he spoke, she leaned forward with parted lipsand looked at him. When he was not speaking--which was seldom--sheleaned back and looked at him. And when he happened to take the nextseat to her, she leaned sideways and looked at him. One glance at Mr.Devine would have been more than enough for Cuthbert; but Adeline foundhim a spectacle that never palled. She could not have gazed at him witha more rapturous intensity if she had been a small child and he asaucer of ice-cream. All this Cuthbert had to witness while stillendeavouring to retain the possession of his faculties sufficiently toenable him to duck and back away if somebody suddenly asked him what hethought of the sombre realism of Vladimir Brusiloff. It is littlewonder that he tossed in bed, picking at the coverlet, throughsleepless nights, and had to have all his waistcoats taken in threeinches to keep them from sagging.

  This Vladimir Brusiloff to whom I have referred was the famous Russiannovelist, and, owing to the fact of his being in the country on alecturing tour at the moment, there had been something of a boom in hisworks. The Wood Hills Literary Society had been studying them forweeks, and never since his first entrance into intellectual circles hadCuthbert Banks come nearer to throwing in the towel. Vladimirspecialized in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happenedtill page three hundred and eighty, when the moujik decided to commitsuicide. It was tough going for a man whose deepest reading hithertohad been Vardon on the Push-Shot, and there can be no greater proof ofthe magic of love than the fact that Cuthbert stuck it without a cry.But the strain was terrible and I am inclined to think that he musthave cracked, had it not been for the daily reports in the papers ofthe internecine strife which was proceeding so briskly in Russia.Cuthbert was an optimist at heart, and it seemed to him that, at therate at which the inhabitants of that interesting country weremurdering one another,
the supply of Russian novelists must eventuallygive out.

  One morning, as he tottered down the road for the short walk which wasnow almost the only exercise to which he was equal, Cuthbert metAdeline. A spasm of anguish flitted through all his nerve-centres as hesaw that she was accompanied by Raymond Parsloe Devine.

  "Good morning, Mr. Banks," said Adeline.

  "Good morning," said Cuthbert hollowly.

  "Such good news about Vladimir Brusiloff."

  "Dead?" said Cuthbert, with a touch of hope.

  "Dead? Of course not. Why should he be? No, Aunt Emily met his managerafter his lecture at Queen's Hall yesterday, and he has promised thatMr. Brusiloff shall come to her next Wednesday reception."

  "Oh, ah!" said Cuthbert, dully.

  "I don't know how she managed it. I think she must have told him thatMr. Devine would be there to meet him."

  "But you said he was coming," argued Cuthbert.

  "I shall be very glad," said Raymond Devine, "of the opportunity ofmeeting Brusiloff."

  "I'm sure," said Adeline, "he will be very glad of the opportunity ofmeeting you."

  "Possibly," said Mr. Devine. "Possibly. Competent critics have saidthat my work closely resembles that of the great Russian Masters."

  "Your psychology is so deep."

  "Yes, yes."

  "And your atmosphere."

  "Quite."

  Cuthbert in a perfect agony of spirit prepared to withdraw from thislove-feast. The sun was shining brightly, but the world was black tohim. Birds sang in the tree-tops, but he did not hear them. He mighthave been a moujik for all the pleasure he found in life.

  "You will be there, Mr. Banks?" said Adeline, as he turned away.

  "Oh, all right," said Cuthbert.

  When Cuthbert had entered the drawing-room on the following Wednesdayand had taken his usual place in a distant corner where, while able tofeast his gaze on Adeline, he had a sporting chance of being overlookedor mistaken for a piece of furniture, he perceived the great Russianthinker seated in the midst of a circle of admiring females. RaymondParsloe Devine had not yet arrived.

  His first glance at the novelist surprised Cuthbert. Doubtless with thebest motives, Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to becomealmost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair, but his eyeswere visible through the undergrowth, and it seemed to Cuthbert thatthere was an expression in them not unlike that of a cat in a strangebackyard surrounded by small boys. The man looked forlorn and hopeless,and Cuthbert wondered whether he had had bad news from home.

  This was not the case. The latest news which Vladimir Brusiloff had hadfrom Russia had been particularly cheering. Three of his principalcreditors had perished in the last massacre of the _bourgeoisie_,and a man whom he owed for five years for a samovar and a pair ofovershoes had fled the country, and had not been heard of since. It wasnot bad news from home that was depressing Vladimir. What was wrongwith him was the fact that this was the eighty-second suburban literaryreception he had been compelled to attend since he had landed in thecountry on his lecturing tour, and he was sick to death of it. When hisagent had first suggested the trip, he had signed on the dotted linewithout an instant's hesitation. Worked out in roubles, the feesoffered had seemed just about right. But now, as he peered throughthe brushwood at the faces round him, and realized that eight out often of those present had manuscripts of some sort concealed on theirpersons, and were only waiting for an opportunity to whip them outand start reading, he wished that he had stayed at his quiet home inNijni-Novgorod, where the worst thing that could happen to a fellowwas a brace of bombs coming in through the window and mixingthemselves up with his breakfast egg.

  At this point in his meditations he was aware that his hostess waslooming up before him with a pale young man in horn-rimmed spectaclesat her side. There was in Mrs. Smethurst's demeanour something of theunction of the master-of-ceremonies at the big fight who introduces theearnest gentleman who wishes to challenge the winner.

  "Oh, Mr. Brusiloff," said Mrs. Smethurst, "I do so want you to meet Mr.Raymond Parsloe Devine, whose work I expect you know. He is one of ouryounger novelists."

  The distinguished visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner throughthe shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking how exactlylike Mr. Devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whomhe had been introduced at various hamlets throughout the country.Raymond Parsloe Devine bowed courteously, while Cuthbert, wedged intohis corner, glowered at him.

  "The critics," said Mr. Devine, "have been kind enough to say that mypoor efforts contain a good deal of the Russian spirit. I owe much tothe great Russians. I have been greatly influenced by Sovietski."

  Down in the forest something stirred. It was Vladimir Brusiloff's mouthopening, as he prepared to speak. He was not a man who prattledreadily, especially in a foreign tongue. He gave the impression thateach word was excavated from his interior by some up-to-date process ofmining. He glared bleakly at Mr. Devine, and allowed three words todrop out of him.

  "Sovietski no good!"

  He paused for a moment, set the machinery working again, and deliveredfive more at the pithead.

  "I spit me of Sovietski!"

  There was a painful sensation. The lot of a popular idol is in manyways an enviable one, but it has the drawback of uncertainty. Heretoday and gone tomorrow. Until this moment Raymond Parsloe Devine'sstock had stood at something considerably over par in Wood Hillsintellectual circles, but now there was a rapid slump. Hitherto he hadbeen greatly admired for being influenced by Sovietski, but it appearednow that this was not a good thing to be. It was evidently a rottenthing to be. The law could not touch you for being influenced bySovietski, but there is an ethical as well as a legal code, and this itwas obvious that Raymond Parsloe Devine had transgressed. Women drewaway from him slightly, holding their skirts. Men looked at himcensoriously. Adeline Smethurst started violently, and dropped atea-cup. And Cuthbert Banks, doing his popular imitation of a sardinein his corner, felt for the first time that life held something ofsunshine.

  Raymond Parsloe Devine was plainly shaken, but he made an adroitattempt to recover his lost prestige.

  "When I say I have been influenced by Sovietski, I mean, of course,that I was once under his spell. A young writer commits many follies. Ihave long since passed through that phase. The false glamour ofSovietski has ceased to dazzle me. I now belong whole-heartedly to theschool of Nastikoff."

  There was a reaction. People nodded at one another sympathetically.After all, we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders, and a lapseat the outset of one's career should not be held against one who haseventually seen the light.

  "Nastikoff no good," said Vladimir Brusiloff, coldly. He paused,listening to the machinery.

  "Nastikoff worse than Sovietski."

  He paused again.

  "I spit me of Nastikoff!" he said.

  This time there was no doubt about it. The bottom had dropped out ofthe market, and Raymond Parsloe Devine Preferred were down in thecellar with no takers. It was clear to the entire assembled companythat they had been all wrong about Raymond Parsloe Devine. They hadallowed him to play on their innocence and sell them a pup. They hadtaken him at his own valuation, and had been cheated into admiring himas a man who amounted to something, and all the while he had belongedto the school of Nastikoff. You never can tell. Mrs. Smethurst's guestswere well-bred, and there was consequently no violent demonstration,but you could see by their faces what they felt. Those nearest RaymondParsloe jostled to get further away. Mrs. Smethurst eyed him stonilythrough a raised lorgnette. One or two low hisses were heard, and overat the other end of the room somebody opened the window in a markedmanner.

  Raymond Parsloe Devine hesitated for a moment, then, realizing hissituation, turned and slunk to the door. There was an audible sigh ofrelief as it closed behind him.

  Vladimir Brusiloff proceeded to sum up.

  "No novelists any good except me. Sovietski--yah! Nastikoff--bah! I
spitme of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G.Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists anygood except me."

  And, having uttered this dictum, he removed a slab of cake from anear-by plate, steered it through the jungle, and began to champ.

  It is too much to say that there was a dead silence. There could neverbe that in any room in which Vladimir Brusiloff was eating cake. Butcertainly what you might call the general chit-chat was pretty welldown and out. Nobody liked to be the first to speak. The members of theWood Hills Literary Society looked at one another timidly. Cuthbert,for his part, gazed at Adeline; and Adeline gazed into space. It wasplain that the girl was deeply stirred. Her eyes were opened wide, afaint flush crimsoned her cheeks, and her breath was coming quickly.

  Adeline's mind was in a whirl. She felt as if she had been walkinggaily along a pleasant path and had stopped suddenly on the very brinkof a precipice. It would be idle to deny that Raymond Parsloe Devinehad attracted her extraordinarily. She had taken him at his ownvaluation as an extremely hot potato, and her hero-worship hadgradually been turning into love. And now her hero had been shown tohave feet of clay. It was hard, I consider, on Raymond Parsloe Devine,but that is how it goes in this world. You get a following as acelebrity, and then you run up against another bigger celebrity andyour admirers desert you. One could moralize on this at considerablelength, but better not, perhaps. Enough to say that the glamour ofRaymond Devine ceased abruptly in that moment for Adeline, and her mostcoherent thought at this juncture was the resolve, as soon as she gotup to her room, to burn the three signed photographs he had sent herand to give the autographed presentation set of his books to thegrocer's boy.

  Mrs. Smethurst, meanwhile, having rallied somewhat, was endeavouring toset the feast of reason and flow of soul going again.

  "And how do you like England, Mr. Brusiloff?" she asked.

  The celebrity paused in the act of lowering another segment of cake.

  "Dam good," he replied, cordially.

  "I suppose you have travelled all over the country by this time?"

  "You said it," agreed the Thinker.

  "Have you met many of our great public men?"

  "Yais--Yais--Quite a few of the nibs--Lloyid Gorge, I meet him. But----"Beneath the matting a discontented expression came into his face, andhis voice took on a peevish note. "But I not meet your real greatmen--your Arbmishel, your Arreevadon--I not meet them. That's whatgives me the pipovitch. Have _you_ ever met Arbmishel andArreevadon?"

  A strained, anguished look came into Mrs. Smethurst's face and wasreflected in the faces of the other members of the circle. The eminentRussian had sprung two entirely new ones on them, and they felt thattheir ignorance was about to be exposed. What would Vladimir Brusiloffthink of the Wood Hills Literary Society? The reputation of the WoodHills Literary Society was at stake, trembling in the balance, andcoming up for the third time. In dumb agony Mrs. Smethurst rolled hereyes about the room searching for someone capable of coming to therescue. She drew blank.

  And then, from a distant corner, there sounded a deprecating, cough,and those nearest Cuthbert Banks saw that he had stopped twisting hisright foot round his left ankle and his left foot round his right ankleand was sitting up with a light of almost human intelligence in hiseyes.

  "Er----" said Cuthbert, blushing as every eye in the room seemed to fixitself on him, "I think he means Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon."

  "Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon?" repeated Mrs. Smethurst, blankly. "Inever heard of----"

  "Yais! Yais! Most! Very!" shouted Vladimir Brusiloff, enthusiastically."Arbmishel and Arreevadon. You know them, yes, what, no, perhaps?"

  "I've played with Abe Mitchell often, and I was partnered with HarryVardon in last year's Open."

  The great Russian uttered a cry that shook the chandelier.

  "You play in ze Open? Why," he demanded reproachfully of Mrs.Smethurst, "was I not been introducted to this young man who play inopens?"

  "Well, really," faltered Mrs. Smethurst. "Well, the fact is, Mr.Brusiloff----"

  She broke off. She was unequal to the task of explaining, withouthurting anyone's feelings, that she had always regarded Cuthbert as apiece of cheese and a blot on the landscape.

  "Introduct me!" thundered the Celebrity.

  "Why, certainly, certainly, of course. This is Mr.----."

  She looked appealingly at Cuthbert.

  "Banks," prompted Cuthbert.

  "Banks!" cried Vladimir Brusiloff. "Not Cootaboot Banks?"

  "_Is_ your name Cootaboot?" asked Mrs. Smethurst, faintly.

  "Well, it's Cuthbert."

  "Yais! Yais! Cootaboot!" There was a rush and swirl, as theeffervescent Muscovite burst his way through the throng and rushed towhere Cuthbert sat. He stood for a moment eyeing him excitedly, then,stooping swiftly, kissed him on both cheeks before Cuthbert could gethis guard up. "My dear young man, I saw you win ze French Open. Great!Great! Grand! Superb! Hot stuff, and you can say I said so! Will youpermit one who is but eighteen at Nijni-Novgorod to salute you oncemore?"

  And he kissed Cuthbert again. Then, brushing aside one or twointellectuals who were in the way, he dragged up a chair and sat down.

  "You are a great man!" he said.

  "Oh, no," said Cuthbert modestly.

  "Yais! Great. Most! Very! The way you lay your approach-putts dead fromanywhere!"

  "Oh, I don't know."

  Mr. Brusiloff drew his chair closer.

  "Let me tell you one vairy funny story about putting. It was one day Iplay at Nijni-Novgorod with the pro. against Lenin and Trotsky, andTrotsky had a two-inch putt for the hole. But, just as he addresses theball, someone in the crowd he tries to assassinate Lenin with arewolwer--you know that is our great national sport, trying toassassinate Lenin with rewolwers--and the bang puts Trotsky off hisstroke and he goes five yards past the hole, and then Lenin, who israther shaken, you understand, he misses again himself, and we win thehole and match and I clean up three hundred and ninety-six thousandroubles, or fifteen shillings in your money. Some gameovitch! And nowlet me tell you one other vairy funny story----"

  Desultory conversation had begun in murmurs over the rest of the room,as the Wood Hills intellectuals politely endeavoured to conceal thefact that they realized that they were about as much out of it at thisre-union of twin souls as cats at a dog-show. From time to time theystarted as Vladimir Brusiloff's laugh boomed out. Perhaps it was aconsolation to them to know that he was enjoying himself.

  As for Adeline, how shall I describe her emotions? She was stunned.Before her very eyes the stone which the builders had rejected hadbecome the main thing, the hundred-to-one shot had walked away with therace. A rush of tender admiration for Cuthbert Banks flooded her heart.She saw that she had been all wrong. Cuthbert, whom she had alwaystreated with a patronizing superiority, was really a man to be lookedup to and worshipped. A deep, dreamy sigh shook Adeline's fragile form.

  Half an hour later Vladimir and Cuthbert Banks rose.

  "Goot-a-bye, Mrs. Smet-thirst," said the Celebrity. "Zank you for amost charming visit. My friend Cootaboot and me we go now to shoot afew holes. You will lend me clobs, friend Cootaboot?"

  "Any you want."

  "The niblicksky is what I use most. Goot-a-bye, Mrs. Smet-thirst."

  They were moving to the door, when Cuthbert felt a light touch on hisarm. Adeline was looking up at him tenderly.

  "May I come, too, and walk round with you?"

  Cuthbert's bosom heaved.

  "Oh," he said, with a tremor in his voice, "that you would walk roundwith me for life!"

  Her eyes met his.

  "Perhaps," she whispered, softly, "it could be arranged."

  * * * * *

  "And so," (concluded the Oldest Member), "you see that golf can be ofthe greatest practical assistance to a man in Life's struggle. RaymondParsloe Devine, who was no player, had to move out of the neighbourhoodimmediately, and is
now, I believe, writing scenarios out in Californiafor the Flicker Film Company. Adeline is married to Cuthbert, and itwas only his earnest pleading which prevented her from having theireldest son christened Abe Mitchell Ribbed-Faced Mashie Banks, for sheis now as keen a devotee of the great game as her husband. Those whoknow them say that theirs is a union so devoted, so----"

  * * * * *

  The Sage broke off abruptly, for the young man had rushed to the doorand out into the passage. Through the open door he could hear himcrying passionately to the waiter to bring back his clubs.