ight nine-hole course, the third hole of which was also the
seventh, and the first the ninth, had been complicated into a war
kitchen-garden, and James, bored with ordinary difficulties and
discomforts, had evolved the new golf.

"Come on," said he, burning with the zeal of a martyr-burner, "I'll show
you the ground."

"Can't I see it by standing up in the hammock?" I protested.

We approached the dark demesne, which was now pretty decently clothed
with potatoes, artichokes, rhubarb, raspberry-canes, marrows and even
cucumber-frames. In the midst was a large open cask which filled itself
by a pipe from a former six-inch water-hazard. Here James began to
propound the mysteries.

"The game," he said, "is a mixture of the old golf, tiddleywinks, ludo
and the race game."

"Not spillikins?" I protested. "A game I rather fancy myself at."

"For your information, please," continued James in his kindliest
military manner, "I may remark that a mashie is the club mostly
used--except when it is necessary to keep low between, say, two clumps
of potatoes."

"So as not to rouse the wireworms," I nodded. "Yes--go on."

"The conditions of the game are governed by the necessity of paying due
respect to the vegetable hazards. There is only one hole on the course."

"If you remember," I said, "I told you long ago that that was all there
was room for, but you would persist in making it nine."

"The hole," said James, "is the water-butt. You have to get into that.
By the way, your balls are floaters, I hope?"

"Only six of 'em," I said. "However, I dare say you won't mind if I grub
up a few potatoes to carry on with afterwards. So we hole out in the
water-butt? That's the tiddleywinks part of it, I suppose? Go on."

"There are various penalties," he explained. "If you get among the
potatoes, you add ten to your strokes and start again at the tee. If you
are bunkered in the raspberries, you lift out--"

"Step back three paces out of sight and pick one over your left
shoulder?" I inquired hopefully. "I shall often find myself in the
raspberry hazard."

"And if," concluded James sternly, "you are so clumsy as not to avoid
the cucumber-frames--"

"Say no more," I begged. "I understand. I shall ask for the time-table,
shake hands, thank you for a most delightful visit, and express my
regrets that any little _contretemps_ should have arisen to hasten my
departure."

"--you add fifty to your strokes. Five for the marrows and th