r seem to weary of
the game of golf. What is its precise charm in your eyes,--the
health-giving qualities of the game or its capacity for bad lies?"

"I owe my life to it," replied the Baron. "That is to say to my
precision as a player I owe one of the many preservations of my
existence which have passed into history. Furthermore it is ever
varying in its interest. Like life itself it is full of hazards and no
man knows at the beginning of his stroke what will be the requirements
of the next. I never told you of the bovine lie I got once while
playing a match with Bonaparte, did I?"

"I do not recall it," said Ananias, foozling his second stroke into
the stone wall.

"I was playing with my friend Bonaparte, for the Cosmopolitan
Championship," said Munchausen, "and we were all even at the
thirty-sixth hole. Bonaparte had sliced his ball into a stubble field
from the tee, whereat he was inclined to swear, until by an odd
mischance I drove mine into the throat of a bull that was pasturing on
the fair green two hundred and ninety-eight yards distant. 'Shall we
take it over?' I asked. 'No,' laughed Bonaparte, thinking he had me.
'We must play the game. I shall play my lie. You must play yours.'
'Very well,' said I. 'So be it. Golf is golf, bull or no bull.' And
off we went. It took Bonaparte seven strokes to get on the green
again, which left me a like number to extricate my ball from the
throat of the unwelcome bovine. It was a difficult business, but I
made short work of it. Tying my red silk handkerchief to the end of my
brassey I stepped in front of the great creature and addressing an
imaginary ball before him made the usual swing back and through
stroke. The bull, angered by the fluttering red handkerchief, reared
up and made a dash at me. I ran in the direction of the hole, the bull
in pursuit for two hundred yards. Here I hid behind a tree while Mr.
Bull stopped short and snorted again. Still there was no sign of the
ball, and after my pursuer had quieted a little I emerged from my
hiding place and with the same club and in the same manner played
three. The bull surprised at my temerity threw his head back with an
angry toss and tried to bellow forth his wrath, as I had designed he
should, but the obstruction in his throat prevented him. The ball had
stuck in his pharynx. Nothing came of his spasm but a short hacking
cough and a wheeze--then silence. 'I'll play four,' I cried to
Bonaparte, who stood watching me f