All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming. Baseball men are in uniform, generally white, with various-colored stockings. The golfer wears a red coat and has a servant or valet, who carries his bag of clubs, designed for every possible expediency. To hear a group of golfers discuss the merits of these tools is one of the extraordinary experiences one has in America. I have been made fairly "giddy," as the Englishmen say, by this anemic conversation at country clubs. The "high-ball" was the saving clause--a remarkable invention this. Have I explained it? You take a very tall glass, made for the purpose, and into it pour the contents of a small cut-glass bottle or decanter of whisky, which must be Scotch, tasting of smoke. On this you pour seltzer or soda-water, filling up the glass, and if you take enough you are "high" and feel like a rolling ball. It is the thing to take a "high-ball" after every nine holes in golf. Then after the game you bathe, and sit and drink as many as your skin will hold. I got this from a professional golf-teacher in charge of the ---- links, and hence it is official. The avidity with which the Americans seize upon a sport and the suddenness with which they drop it, illustrating what I have said about the lack of a national sporting taste, is well shown by the coming of a game called "ping pong," a parlor tennis, with our battledores for rackets. What great mind invented this game, or where it came from, no one seems to know, but as a wag remarked, "When in doubt lay it to China." Some suppose it is Chinese, the name suggesting it. So extraordinary was the early demand for it that it appeared as though everybody in America was determined to own and play ping pong. The dealers could not produce it fast enough. Factories were established all over the country, and the tools were ground out by the ten thousands. Books were written on the ethics of the game; experts came to the front; ping pong weeklies and monthlies were founded, to dumfound the masses, and the very air vibrated with the "ping" and the "pong."