So Alfred came along--barking at Bradbury as he endeavoured to concentrate on the smooth pronation of the wrists, bounding ahead to frolic round distant players who were shaping for delicate chip-shots, and getting a deep toe-hold on the turf of each successive green. Hell, felt Bradbury, must be something like this, and he wished that he had led a better life. But that retribution which waits on all, both small and great, who defy Green Committees had marked Alfred down. Taking up a position just behind Mrs. Fisher as she began her down swing on the seventh, he received so shrewd a blow on his right foreleg that with a sharp yelp he broke into a gallop, raced through a foursome on the sixth green, and, charging across country, dived head-long into the water-hazard on the second; where he remained until Bradbury, who had been sent in pursuit, waded in and fished him out. Mrs. Fisher came panting up, full of concern. “What shall we do? The poor little fellow is quite lame. I know, you can carry him, Bradbury.” Bradbury Fisher uttered a low, bleating sound. The water had had the worst effect on the animal. Even when dry, Alfred was always a dog of powerful scent. Wet, he had become definitely one of the six best smellers. His aroma had what the advertisement-writers call “strong memory value.” “Carry him? To the car, do you mean?” “Of course not. Round the links. I don’t want to miss a day’s golf. You can put him down when you play your shots.” For a long instant Bradbury hesitated. The words “Is zat so?” trembled on his lips. “Very well,” he said, swallowing twice. * * * * * That night, in his du Barri bedroom, Bradbury Fisher lay sleepless far into the dawn. A crisis, he realised, had come in his domestic affairs. Things, he saw clearly, could not go on like this. It was not merely the awful spiritual agony of playing these daily rounds of golf with his wife that was so hard to endure. The real trouble was that the spectacle of her on the links was destroying his ideals, sapping away that love and respect which should have been as imperishable as steel. To a good man his wife should be a goddess, a being far above him to whom he can offer worship and reverence, a beacon-star guiding him over the tossing seas of life. She should be ever on a pedestal and in a shrine. And when she waggles for a minute and a half and then jerks her head and tops the ball, she ceases to be so. And Mrs. Fisher was not merely a head-lifter and a super-waggler; she was a scoffer at Golf’s most sacred things. She held up scratch-men. She omitted to replace divots. She spoke lightly of Green Committees.