be on the field of play;
How can it matter what fate befalls me,
With ten good fellows and one good day?
... But still,
I rather hope spectators will,
Observing any lack or skill,
Remark, "This is his first appearance." Yes, I _hope_ they will.

THE COMPETITION SPIRIT

About six weeks ago a Canadian gentleman named Smith arrived in the Old
Country (England). He knew a man who knew a man who knew a man ... and so
on for a bit ... who knew a man who knew a man who knew me. Letters
passed; negotiations ensued; and about a week after he had first set foot
in the Mother City (London) Smith and I met at my Club for lunch.

I may confess now that I was nervous. I think I expected a man in a brown
shirt and leggings, who would ask me to put it "right there," and tell me
I was "some Englishman." However, he turned out to be exactly like
anybody else in London. Whether he found me exactly like anybody else in
Canada I don't know. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch, and arranged
to play golf together on the next day.

Whatever else is true of Canada there can be no doubt that it turns out
delightful golfers. Smith proved to be just the best golfer I had ever
met, being, when at the top of his form, almost exactly as good as I was.
Hole after hole we halved in a mechanical eight. If by means of a raking
drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for
a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate
approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by
superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and
leave me, at the edge of the green, to play "one off eleven." It was, in
fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in
the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in the afternoon.

By the end of a month we must have played a dozen rounds of this nature.
I always had a feeling that I was really a better golfer than he, and
this made me friendly towards his game. I would concede him short putts
which I should have had no difficulty in missing myself; if he lost his
ball I would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got
into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under
repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages,
just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at
first it was part of his sporting wa