things get out of your way;
when you venture among furniture in woolwork slippers and no socks, it
comes at you and kicks you. I return to bed bad tempered, and refusing
to listen to his further absurd suggestion that all the clocks in the
house have entered into a conspiracy against me, take half an hour to get
to sleep again. From four to five he wakes me every ten minutes. I wish
I had never said a word to him about the thing. At five o'clock he goes
to sleep himself, worn out, and leaves it to the girl, who does it half
an hour later than usual.

On this particular Wednesday he worried me to such an extent, that I got
up at five simply to be rid of him. I did not know what to do with
myself. Our train did not leave till eight; all our luggage had been
packed and sent on the night before, together with the bicycles, to
Fenchurch Street Station. I went into my study; I thought I would put in
an hour's writing. The early morning, before one has breakfasted, is
not, I take it, a good season for literary effort. I wrote three
paragraphs of a story, and then read them over to myself. Some unkind
things have been said about my work; but nothing has yet been written
which would have done justice to those three paragraphs. I threw them
into the waste-paper basket, and sat trying to remember what, if any,
charitable institutions provided pensions for decayed authors.

To escape from this train of reflection, I put a golf-ball in my pocket,
and selecting a driver, strolled out into the paddock. A couple of sheep
were browsing there, and they followed and took a keen interest in my
practice. The one was a kindly, sympathetic old party. I do not think
she understood the game; I think it was my doing this innocent thing so
early in the morning that appealed to her. At every stroke I made she
bleated:

"Go-o-o-d, go-o-o-d ind-e-e-d!"

She seemed as pleased as if she had done it herself.

As for the other one, she was a cantankerous, disagreeable old thing, as
discouraging to me as her friend was helpful.

"Ba-a-ad, da-a-a-m ba-a-a-d!" was her comment on almost every stroke. As
a matter of fact, some were really excellent strokes; but she did it just
to be contradictory, and for the sake of irritating. I could see that.

By a most regrettable accident, one of my swiftest balls struck the good
sheep on the nose. And at that the bad sheep laughed--laughed distinctly
and undoubtedly, a husky, vulgar laugh; and