d so I go on."

"Until you are a match for your opponent?"

"Until I have beaten him," said Ricordo.

Sprague laughed. "A lot of to-morrows are required in golf, Mr.
Ricordo," he said.

"Yes, they are required for most things; but they come. Still, this
match is only just begun yet. Who knows? I may improve!"

This conversation had taken place while walking from the green to the
tee, which in this case was some little distance.

For the next five holes Sprague and Purvis played with varying fortunes,
but when the seventh hole was played the former was one up. As for
Ricordo, while he greatly improved, he did not even halve a single hole
with either of them. As he improved they offered to give him strokes,
and so make the possibility of a match, but he refused.

"I always like to play level," he said sententiously. "You never beat a
man if he gives you strokes. Let me see, I am now seven down. If I lose
two more it will be impossible for me to win the match, eh?"

"That is the arithmetic of it, I imagine," said Purvis.

"Ah!" said Ricordo.

Ding! Ding! Ding! The three balls flew through the air, and each went
straight to the green, only in this case Ricordo's ball went several
yards further than the others.

"That was a lucky stroke of mine," he said, as he saw them exchange
significant glances. "Ah! if I could only do it always!"

For the first time Sprague felt a suggestion of competition in the game.
Although he was seven holes up on the stranger, and they had only eleven
more to play, the possibility of losing flashed into his mind. Besides,
he felt some little resentment, because of the superior way in which the
foreigner spoke. He seized an iron club, and placed his ball within two
yards of the hole.

"Why, that is magnificent," remarked Ricordo. "That is where skill comes
in."

Purvis came next, and while he sent his ball on the green, it was at an
extreme corner.

"If I lose this hole, my chance of winning on you shrinks to a vanishing
point," remarked Ricordo. "Well, I must not lose it."

He looked at the ball steadily, and then turned to his companions.

"Is it not whimsical?" he said. "This little thing seems to have become
a part of our life, eh? And the game of golf is also a game of life,
_non e vero_? Forgive me, signores, but I am an Eastern, and everything
in life is a parable to such as I."

He struck the ball, and laid it, according to golfers' parlance, "dead."

"Fine shot," sa