* * *

Just about the time that this harmonious party began their work, a far
from harmonious couple were being just as industrious in the grand
spacious bunker in front of the tee to the last hole on the golf links.
It was a beautiful bunker, consisting of a great slope of loose, steep
sand against the face of the hill, and solidly shored up with timber.
The Navy had been in better form to-day, and after a decisive victory
over the Army in the morning and an indemnity of half-a-crown, its match
in the afternoon, with just the last hole to play, was all square. So
Captain Puffin, having the honour, hit a low, nervous drive that tapped
loudly at the timbered wall of the bunker, and cuddled down below it,
well protected from any future assault.

"Phew! That about settles it," said Major Flint boisterously. "Bad place
to top a ball! Give me the hole?"

This insolent question needed no answer, and Major Flint drove, skying
the ball to a prodigious height. But it had to come to earth sometime,
and it fell like Lucifer, son of the morning, in the middle of the same
bunker.... So the Army played three more, and, sweating profusely, got
out. Then it was the Navy's turn, and the Navy had to lie on its keel
above the boards of the bunker, in order to reach its ball at all, and
missed it twice.

"Better give it up, old chap," said Major Flint. "Unplayable."

"Then see me play it," said Captain Puffin, with a chewing motion of his
jaws.

"We shall miss the tram," said the Major, and, with the intention of
giving annoyance, he sat down in the bunker with his back to Captain
Puffin, and lit a cigarette. At his third attempt nothing happened; at
the fourth the ball flew against the boards, rebounded briskly again
into the bunker, trickled down the steep, sandy slope and hit the
Major's boot.

"Hit you, I think," said Captain Puffin. "Ha! So it's my hole, Major!"

Major Flint had a short fit of aphasia. He opened and shut his mouth and
foamed. Then he took a half-crown from his pocket.

"Give that to the Captain," he said to his caddie, and without looking
round, walked away in the direction of the tram. He had not gone a
hundred yards when the whistle sounded, and it puffed away homewards
with ever-increasing velocity.

* * * * *

Weak and trembling from passion, Major Flint found that after a few
tottering steps in the direction of Tilling he would be totally unable
to ge