“Oh, all right,” said David; “then it was a nice surprise for you. Come on. If you’ll give me a stroke hole, I’ll—I’ll probably get beaten,” he added, in a sudden accession of modesty most unusual. “I say, what a ripping day it’s being.” “’Tain’t bad. And you’re not such a bad little devil.” This bordered on past conversation again, and he hastened away from it. “Go and get our clubs, David,” he said. “I lost the toss about the towels this morning.” “That’s not fair,” said David. “We tossed this morning, and that’s finished. We’ll toss again. Heads!” “Well, then, it isn’t. It’s tails. But I’ll go if you like!” It was still very hot, and the links, although the usual August crowd was at Naseby, were nearly deserted, since it seemed to most of the world to be the better part of wisdom to sit quiet till the heat had a little abated, and resume activities again after tea. The two boys, therefore, had an empty green before them, and since finance in both their cases happened to be precarious, and there was no need to keep their places on the green, they took no caddies. On the right along the first hole lay the sea, shimmering and still, so near that it was easily possible (to say the least of it) to slice a ball on to the beach, and in front lay the fairway of the course, stretches of velvet grass, interrupted by tossing seas of sand-dunes, fringed and bearded with coarse bents, while a flag planted thereon showed where lay the direction of the desired haven. Then came trudges through sandy places, with breathless suspense to see whether the balls had carried the last of the bunkers and in other cases the equally vivid conviction that they had done nothing of the sort, and would be found nestling in little, steep, bare hollows and be-devilled hiding-places. David, in especial, found himself frequently in amazing and awful places, of which Satan had certainly been the architect. But, in spite of the intimate nature of all that had passed between the two so few minutes before, their unbroken solitude together did not produce in either of them the least wish to re-open the subject. It had been closed; a door had been triumphantly slammed on it, so that even if golf had not been so absorbing, they would neither of them have mentioned it again. And yet, deep down in each, and unknown to them, all that had passed had taken root, and was silently germinating, making fibre in their unconscious minds, building up the stem on which character bursts into blossom. Many words were consciously spoken, and many thoughts thought, and all the words and all the thoughts did not stray beyond the fortunes of the little white india-rubber balls.