DIVOTS P. G. WODEHOUSE By P. G. WODEHOUSE CARRY ON, JEEVES! HE RATHER ENJOYED IT BILL THE CONQUEROR GOLF WITHOUT TEARS JEEVES LEAVE IT TO PSMITH MOSTLY SALLY THREE MEN AND A MAID INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE THE LITTLE WARRIOR A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS DIVOTS BY P. G. WODEHOUSE [Illustration: NEW YORK] GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926 AND 1927, BY P. G. WODEHOUSE [Illustration] DIVOTS --B-- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY DAUGHTER LEONORA WITHOUT WHOSE NEVER-FAILING SYMPATHY AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK WOULD HAVE BEEN FINISHED IN HALF THE TIME PREFACE Before leading the reader out on to this little nine-hole course, I should like to say a few words on the club-house steps with regard to the criticisms of my earlier book of Golf stories, _The Clicking of Cuthbert_. In the first place, I noticed with regret a disposition on the part of certain writers to speak of Golf as a trivial theme, unworthy of the pen of a thinker. In connection with this, I can only say that right through the ages the mightiest brains have occupied themselves with this noble sport, and that I err, therefore, if I do err, in excellent company. Apart from the works of such men as James Braid, John Henry Taylor and Horace Hutchinson, we find Publius Syrius not disdaining to give advice on the back-swing (“He gets through too late who goes too fast”); Diogenes describing the emotions of a cheery player at the water-hole (“Be of good cheer. I see land”); and Doctor Watts, who, watching one of his drives from the tee, jotted down the following couplet on the back of his score-card: _Fly, like a youthful hart or roe, Over the hills where spices grow._ And, when we consider that Chaucer, the father of English poetry, inserted in his Squiere’s Tale the line _Therefore behoveth him a ful long spoone_ (though, of course, with the modern rubber-cored ball an iron would have got the same distance) and that Shakespeare himself, speaking querulously in the character of a weak player who held up an impatient foursome, said: _Four rogues in buckram let drive at me_ we may, I think, consider these objections answered.