' becoming a player. Mon, ye're a bull-neckit, bow-leggit
chiel', and ye'd shape fine for a Gowfer! Here's TOM." And, with this
brief introduction, the old man strolled away.

BULGER now found himself in the presence of Mr. MORRIS, whose
courtesy soon put him on a footing of friendliness and confidence.
He purchased, by his Mentor's advice, a driver, a cleek, a putter, a
brassey, an iron, a niblick, and a mashy. Armed with these implements,
which were "carried by an orphan boy," and, under the guidance of the
Head of the Faculty himself, BULGER set forth on his first round. His
first two strokes were dealt on the yielding air; his third carried
no inconsiderable parcel of real property to some distance; but his
fourth hit the ball, and drove it across the road. "As gude as a
better," quoth the orphan boy, and bade BULGER propel the tiny sphere
in the direction of a neighbouring rivulet. Into this affluent of the
main, BULGER finally hit the ball; but an adroit lad of nine stamped
it into the mud, while pretending to look for it, and BULGER had to
put down another. When he got within putting range, he hit his ball
careering back and forward over the hole, and, "Eh, man," quoth the
orphan boy, "if ye could only drive as you put!"

In some fifteen strokes he accomplished his task of holing out; and
now, weary and desponding (for he had fancied Golf to be an easy
game), he would have desisted for the day. But the Head of the Faculty
pressed on him the necessity of "The daily round, the common task."
So his ball was tee'd, and he lammed it into the Scholar's Bunker, at
a distance of nearly thirty yards. A niblick was now placed in his
grasp, and he was exhorted to "Take plenty sand." Presently a kind
of simoom was observed to rage in the Scholars' Bunker, out of which
emerged the head of the niblick, the ball, and, finally, BULGER
himself. His next hit, however, was a fine one, over the wall, where,
as the ball was lost, BULGER deposited a new one. This he, somehow,
drove within a few feet of the hole, when he at once conceived an
intense enthusiasm for the pastime. "It was a fine drive," said the
Head of the Faculty. "Mr. BLACKWELL never hit a finer." Thus inflamed
with ardour, BULGER persevered. He learned to waggle his club in a
knowing way. He listened intently when he was bidden to "keep his eye
on the ba'", and to be "slow up." True, he now missed the globe and
all that it inhabit, but soon he hit a prodigious swipe,