nt and unappreciative as he is now.

A mutual contempt exists between those who play golf and those who do
not. Those who have not played are sure they could become expert in a
week, if they had so little sense as to waste time on so simple and
objectless a game. Those who are familiar with the game know that no man
living can ever hope to approach its possibilities, and they also know
that it is the grandest sport designed since man has inhabited this
globe.

I have sometimes thought that this old globe of ours is nothing more nor
less than a golf ball, brambled with mountains and valleys, and scarred
with ravines where the gods in their play have topped their drives. The
spin around its axis causes it to slice about the sun. This strikes me
as rather poetic, and when I write a golf epic I shall elaborate on this
fancy.

Harding has no such conception of this whirling earth of ours. He is
fully convinced that it was created for the purpose of being
cross-hatched with railroads, and that it never had any real utility
until he gridironed the western prairies with ten thousand miles of rust
and grease. I thought of that as I watched him standing by the side of
Carter, his huge hands thrust deep in his pockets, his bushy head thrown
back, and a tolerant grin on his bearded lips.

I was practising putting on a green set aside for that purpose, and
Carter saw me and motioned me to come to him. He introduced Harding, who
shook hands and then glanced curiously at my putter.

"What do you call that?" he asked, taking it from my hand. It was an
aluminum putter of my own design, and I have won many a game with it. I
told him what it was.

"Looks like a brake shoe on the new-model hand-cars," he said, swinging
it viciously with one hand. "How far can you knock one of those little
pills with it?"

"I see that you do not play golf," I said, rather offended at his
manner.

"No, there are a lot of things I do not do, and this is one of them," he
replied, and then he laughed. "But let me tell you," he added, "I used
to be a wonder at shinny."

I would have wagered he would make some such remark.

"Do you see that scar on the bridge of my nose?" he asked. "That came
from a crack with a shinny club when I was not more than ten years old.
Shinny is a great game; a great game! It requires quickness of eye and
limb, and more than that it demands a high degree of courage. It teaches
a boy to stand a hard knock without whimpering