speptic man with undisciplined whiskers broke in
serenely without waiting for the answers to the questions he propounded:

"Ideal weather, eh? Came over from Norfolk this morning; ran over at
fifty miles an hour. Some going, eh? They tell me you've quite a course
here; record around seventy-one, isn't it? Good deal of water to keep
out of? You gentlemen some of the cracks? Course pretty fast with all
this dry weather? What do you think of the one-piece driver? My friend,
Judge Weatherup. My name's Yancy--Cyrus P."

A ponderous person who looked as though he had been pumped up for the
journey gravely saluted, while his feverish companion rolled on:

"Your course's rather short, isn't it? Imagine it's rather easy for a
straight driver. What's your record? Seventy-one amateur? Rather high,
isn't it? Do you get many cracks around here? Caddies seem scarce. Did
either of you gentlemen ever reflect how surprising it is that better
scores aren't made at this game? Now, take seventy-one; that's only one
under fours, and I venture to say at least six of your holes are
possible twos, and all the rest, sometime or other, have been made in
three. Yet you never hear of phenomenal scores, do you, like a run of
luck at roulette or poker? You get my idea?"

"I believe it is your turn, sir," said Pickings, both crushing and
parliamentary. "There are several waiting."

Judge Weatherup drove a perfect ball into the long grass, where
successful searches averaged ten minutes, while his voluble companion,
with an immense expenditure of force, foozled into the swale to the
left, which was both damp and retentive.

"Shall we play through?" said Pickings, with formal preciseness. He
teed his ball, took exactly eight full practice swings, and drove one
hundred and fifty yards as usual directly in the middle of the course.

"Well, it's straight; that's all can be said for it," he said, as he
would say at the next seventeen tees.

Booverman rarely employed that slogan. That straight and narrow path was
not in his religious practice. He drove a long ball, and he drove a
great many that did not return in his bag. He glanced resentfully to the
right, where Judge Weatherup was straddling the fence, and to the left,
where Yancy was annoying the bullfrogs.

"Darn them!" he said to himself. "Of course now I'll follow suit."

But whether or not the malignant force of suggestion was neutralized by
the attraction in opposite directions, his drive