a girl. Full in the tide of Merle's jaunty
discourse he blazed out with an authority of his own, and in tones so
arrogant that the importance of the other oozed almost pitiably from
him.

"Quit that! Listen! We've played ten holes, and you haven't made one
clean drive, and I've got off every one clean. I make this course in
seventy-three, and you'd never make it in one hundred and twenty the way
you're going. But every time you stand there and tell me things about
your drive and about mine as if you could really play golf."

"Well, but my dear chap--" Merle paused, trying to regain some lost
spiritual value--"I'm merely telling you some little things about form."

"Forget it!" commanded the other. "You haven't any form yourself; you
don't have form until you can play the game, and then you don't think
about it. Maybe my form doesn't stick out, but you bet it must be tucked
in there somewhere or I couldn't hit the ball. You don't want to think
I haven't any just because I don't stand there and make a long speech to
the ball before swatting it."

"Well, I was only saying----" Merle began again, but in meekness such as
Patricia had never observed in him.

Hearing a sound in the background Wilbur turned. She was staging a
pantomime of excessive delight, noiselessly clapping her thin brown
hands. He frowned at her--he was not going to have any girl laughing at
his brother--and returned his attention to the late exponent of Braid
and Vardon.

"Here"--he teed a ball--"you do about every wrong thing you could. You
don't overlook a single one. Now I'll show you. Take your stance,
address the ball!"

He had forgotten, in the heat of his real affection, all the difference
in their stations. He was talking crisply to this Whipple as if he were
merely a Cowan twin. Merle, silent, dazed, meek, did as he was directed.

"Now take your back swing slower. You've been going up too quick--go up
slow--stay there! Wait--bend that left wrist under your club--not out
but under--here"--he adjusted the limp wrist. "Now keep your weight on
the left foot and come down easy. Don't try to knock the ball a mile--it
can't be done. Now up again and swing--easy!"

Merle swung and the topped ball went a dozen feet.

"There, now I suppose you're satisfied!" he said, sulkily, but his
instructor was not, it seemed, satisfied.

"Don't be silly! You lifted your head. You have to do more than one
thing right to hit that ball. You have to stay dow