A far more serious grievance which I have against my critics is that many of them confessed to the possession of but the slightest knowledge of the game, and one actually stated in cold print that he did not know what a niblick was. A writer on golf is certainly entitled to be judged by his peers--which, in my own case, means men who do one good drive in six, four reasonable approaches in an eighteen-hole round, and average three putts per green: and I think I am justified in asking of editors that they instruct critics of this book to append their handicaps in brackets at the end of their remarks. By this means the public will be enabled to form a fair estimate of the worth of the volume, and the sting in such critiques as “We laughed heartily while reading these stories--once--at a misprint” will be sensibly diminished by the figures (36) at the bottom of the paragraph. While my elation will be all the greater should the words “A genuine masterpiece” be followed by a simple (scr.). * * * * * One final word. The thoughtful reader, comparing this book with _The Clicking of Cuthbert_, will, no doubt, be struck by the poignant depth of feeling which pervades the present volume like the scent of muddy shoes in a locker-room: and it may be that he will conclude that, like so many English writers, I have fallen under the spell of the great Russians. This is not the case. While it is, of course, true that my style owes much to Dostoievsky, the heart-wringing qualities of such stories as “The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh” and “Keeping in with Vosper” is due entirely to the fact that I have spent much time recently playing on the National Links at Southampton, Long Island, U.S.A. These links were constructed by an exiled Scot who conceived the dreadful idea of assembling on one course all the really foul holes in Great Britain. It cannot but leave its mark on a man when, after struggling through the Sahara at Sandwich and the Alps at Prestwick, he finds himself faced by the Station-Master’s Garden hole at St. Andrew’s and knows that the Redan and the Eden are just round the corner. When you turn in a medal score of a hundred and eight on two successive days, you get to know something about Life. * * * * * And yet it may be that there are a few gleams of sunshine in the book. If so, it is attributable to the fact that some of it was written before I went to Southampton and immediately after I had won my first and only trophy--an umbrella in a hotel tournament at Aiken, South Carolina, where, playing to a handicap of sixteen, I went through a field consisting of some of the fattest retired businessmen in America like a devouring flame. If we lose the Walker Cup this year, let England remember that. P. G. WODEHOUSE