For my part, I do not know a more amusing game; and when the country is almost cleared of the harvest, men, women, children, everybody, drives his ball as you please, and there is nothing cheerier than to see them filing on a Sunday like a flight of starlings across potato fields and ploughed lands. II Well, one Tuesday, it was a Shrove Tuesday, the wheelwright of Coq laid aside his plane, and was slipping on his blouse to go and drink his can of beer at Condé, when two strangers came in, club in hand. “Would you put a new shaft to my club, master?” said one of them. “What are you asking me, friends? A day like this! I wouldn’t give the smallest stroke of the chisel for a brick of gold. Besides, does any one play golf on Shrove Tuesday? You had much better go and see the mummers tumbling in the high street of Condé.” “We take no interest in the tumbling of mummers,” replied the stranger. “We have challenged each other at golf and we want to play it out. Come, you won’t refuse to help us, you who are said to be one of the finest players of the country?” “If it is a match, that is different,” said Roger. He turned up his sleeves, hooked on his apron, and in the twinkling of an eye had adjusted the shaft. “How much do I owe you?” asked the unknown, drawing out his purse. “Nothing at all, faith; it is not worth while.” The stranger insisted, but in vain. III “You are too honest, i’faith,” said he to the wheelwright, “for me to be in your debt. I will grant you the fulfilment of three wishes.” “Don’t forget to wish what is _best_,” added his companion. At these words the wheelwright smiled incredulously. “Are you not a couple of the loafers of Capelette?” he asked, with a wink. The idlers of the crossways of Capelette were considered the wildest wags in Condé. “Whom do you take us for?” replied the unknown in a tone of severity, and with his club he touched an axle, made of iron, which instantly changed into one of pure silver. “Who are you, then,” cried Roger, “that your word is as good as ready money?” “I am St. Peter, and my companion is St. Antony, the patron of golfers.” “Take the trouble to walk in, gentlemen,” said the wheelwright of Coq; and he ushered the two saints into the back parlour. He offered them chairs, and went to draw a jug of beer in the cellar. They clinked their glasses together, and after each had lit his pipe: “Since you are so good, sir saints,” said Roger, “as to grant me the accomplishment of three wishes, know that for a long while I have desired three things. I wish, first of all, that whoever seats himself upon the elm-trunk at my door may not be able to rise without my permission. I like company and it bores me to be always alone.” St. Peter shook his head and St. Antony nudged his client. IV