is best since September, when he went round in 97. He described
his difficulties at the tenth hole.

It all seemed very idiotic to me, for the game was over and done with.
Why rake it up?

The guest said that he had lost two balls, one of which was expensive.
His driving had been good, but in the short game he had been weak.
He could never quite make up his mind whether he putted best with a
gun-metal putter or a wooden one.

My brother asked me if I remembered that long drive of his two years
ago?

I nodded.

The nurse came in and told them to go. She then asked me if I was
hungry.

"Very," I said.

She brought me some beef-tea and calf's-foot-jelly, remarking that
they were easily taken and "would not hurt my throat."

That was why they were chosen, of course.

In the afternoon I had a visit from my Aunt Lavinia, who sat down with
the remark that she would tell me all the news.

"You remember Esther?" she began.

Esther is my cousin and we were brought up together. How could I have
forgotten her?

What she told me about Esther was of no consequence. Then she told me
how she had nearly lost her luggage at Brighton--she quite thought she
had lost it, in fact--but, as it happened, it turned up. "And if I had
lost it," she said, "it would have been dreadful, for I had a number
of dear Stella's beautiful sketches in one of my trunks. Quite
irreplaceable. However, it is all right."

Then why tell me?

And so she rattled on.

"You don't say anything," she said at last.

It was true. I had said nothing. I told her what the doctor
instructed.

"Quite right," she remarked. "I wish other people even in good health
could have the same prescription."

Just before dinner my brother came in again. "You've had Aunt Lavinia
here," he said.

I had.

"Getting quite grey, I thought," he said.

I had noticed it too.

He was smoking, and while he was with me he emptied his pipe and
filled it again. He thought he had knocked the burning ash in the
grate, but it had fallen in the turn-up of his right trouser-leg.

Should I tell him? I wondered. He would, of course, find it out from
the smell, but meanwhile the cloth would be burned through.

"Your trouser's burning," I said.

That was the only remark I volunteered all that day; and really,
except now and then on business, I don't see why one should ever
talk more.

* * * * *

CURLING.

(_THE GAME AND HOW TO PLAY IT, BY