prejudicial effect on his game. These little incidents are bound to
happen when one is in a nervous and highly-strung condition.

The fifth and sixth holes produced no unusual features. Peter won the
fifth in eleven, and James the sixth in ten. The short seventh they
halved in nine. The eighth, always a tricky hole, they took no
liberties with, James, sinking a long putt with his twenty-third, just
managing to halve. A ding-dong race up the hill for the ninth found
James first at the pin, and they finished the first nine with James one
up.

As they left the green James looked a little furtively at his
companion.

"You might be strolling on to the tenth," he said. "I want to get a few
balls at the shop. And my mashie wants fixing up. I sha'n't be long."

"I'll come with you," said Peter.

"Don't bother," said James. "You go on and hold our place at the tee."

I regret to say that James was lying. His mashie was in excellent
repair, and he still had a dozen balls in his bag, it being his prudent
practice always to start out with eighteen. No! What he had said was
mere subterfuge. He wanted to go to his locker and snatch a few minutes
with Sandy MacBean's "How to Become a Scratch Man". He felt sure that
one more glance at the photograph of Mr. MacBean driving would give him
the mastery of the stroke and so enable him to win the match. In this I
think he was a little sanguine. The difficulty about Sandy MacBean's
method of tuition was that he laid great stress on the fact that the