point of view of the player who likes to get round the course in a
single afternoon, something of a trial; but, personally, I confess, it
pleases me to see my fellow human beings--and into this category
golf-children, though at the moment you may not be broad-minded enough
to admit it, undoubtedly fall--taking to the noblest of games at an
early age. Golf, like measles, should be caught young, for, if
postponed to riper years, the results may be serious. Let me tell you
the story of Mortimer Sturgis, which illustrates what I mean rather
aptly.

Mortimer Sturgis, when I first knew him, was a care-free man of
thirty-eight, of amiable character and independent means, which he
increased from time to time by judicious ventures on the Stock
Exchange. Although he had never played golf, his had not been
altogether an ill-spent life. He swung a creditable racket at tennis,
was always ready to contribute a baritone solo to charity concerts, and
gave freely to the poor. He was what you might call a golden-mean man,
good-hearted rather than magnetic, with no serious vices and no heroic
virtues. For a hobby, he had taken up the collecting of porcelain
vases, and he was engaged to Betty Weston, a charming girl of
twenty-five, a lifelong friend of mine.

I like Mortimer. Everybody liked him. But, at the same time, I was a
little surprised that a girl like Betty should have become engaged to
him. As I said before, he was not magnetic; and magnetism, I thought,
was the chief quality she would have demanded in a man. Betty was one
of those ardent, vivid girls, with an intense capacity for
hero-worship, and I would have supposed that something more in the
nature of a plumed knight or a corsair of the deep would have been her
ideal. But, of course, if there is a branch of modern industry where