t nine,
on a certain squally October evening, he and Puffin were seated by the
fire in the diary-room, while the rain volleyed at the windows and
occasional puffs of stinging smoke were driven down the chimney by the
gale that squealed and buffeted round the house. Puffin, by way of
keeping up the comedy of Roman roads, had brought a map of the district
across from his house, but the more essential part of his equipment for
this studious evening was a bottle of whisky. Originally the host had
provided whisky for himself and his guest at these pleasant chats, but
there were undeniable objections to this plan, because the guest always
proved unusually thirsty, which tempted his host to keep pace with him,
while if they both drank at their own expense, the causes of economy and
abstemiousness had a better chance. Also, while the Major took his
drinks short and strong in a small tumbler, Puffin enriched his with
lemons and sugar in a large one, so that nobody could really tell if
equality as well as fraternity was realized. But if each brought his own
bottle....

It had been a trying day, and the Major was very lame. A drenching storm
had come up during their golf, while they were far from the club-house,
and Puffin, being three up, had very naturally refused to accede to his
opponent's suggestion to call the match off. He was perfectly willing to
be paid his half-crown and go home, but Major Flint, remembering that
Puffin's game usually went to pieces if it rained, had rejected this
proposal with the scorn that it deserved. There had been other
disagreeable incidents as well. His driver, slippery from rain, had
flown out of the Major's hands on the twelfth tee, and had "shot like a
streamer of the northern morn," and landed in a pool of brackish water
left by an unusually high tide. The ball had gone into another pool
nearer the tee. The ground was greasy with moisture, and three holes
further on Puffin had fallen flat on his face instead of lashing his
fifth shot home on to the green, as he had intended. They had given each
other stimies, and each had holed his opponent's ball by mistake; they
had wrangled over the correct procedure if you lay in a rabbit-scrape or
on the tram lines; the Major had lost a new ball; there was a mushroom
on one of the greens between Puffin's ball and the hole.... All these
untoward incidents had come crowding in together, and from the Major's
point of view, the worst of them all had been the