_The Sixth Bunker Addington_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE HEART OF A GOOF 15 II HIGH STAKES 51 III KEEPING IN WITH VOSPER 85 IV CHESTER FORGETS HIMSELF 116 V THE MAGIC PLUS FOURS 153 VI THE AWAKENING OF ROLLO PODMARSH 183 VII RODNEY FAILS TO QUALIFY 210 VIII JANE GETS OFF THE FAIRWAY 246 IX THE PURIFICATION OF RODNEY SPELVIN 283 DIVOTS CHAPTER I THE HEART OF A GOOF It was a morning when all nature shouted “Fore!” The breeze, as it blew gently up from the valley, seemed to bring a message of hope and cheer, whispering of chip-shots holed and brassies landing squarely on the meat. The fairway, as yet unscarred by the irons of a hundred dubs, smiled greenly up at the azure sky; and the sun, peeping above the trees, looked like a giant golf-ball perfectly lofted by the mashie of some unseen god and about to drop dead by the pin of the eighteenth. It was the day of the opening of the course after the long winter, and a crowd of considerable dimensions had collected at the first tee. Plus fours gleamed in the sunshine, and the air was charged with happy anticipation. In all that gay throng there was but one sad face. It belonged to the man who was waggling his driver over the new ball perched on its little hill of sand. This man seemed careworn, hopeless. He gazed down the fairway, shifted his feet, waggled, gazed down the fairway again, shifted the dogs once more, and waggled afresh. He waggled as Hamlet might have waggled, moodily, irresolutely. Then, at last, he swung, and, taking from his caddie the niblick which the intelligent lad had been holding in readiness from the moment when he had walked on to the tee, trudged wearily off to play his second. The Oldest Member, who had been observing the scene with a benevolent eye from his favourite chair on the terrace, sighed. “Poor Jenkinson,” he said, “does not improve.” “No,” agreed his companion, a young man with open features and a handicap of six. “And yet I happen to know that he has been taking lessons all the winter at one of those indoor places.” “Futile, quite futile,” said the Sage with a shake of his snowy head. “There is no wizard living who could make that man go round in an average of sevens. I keep advising him to give up the game.”