“You!” cried the young man, raising a shocked and startled face from the driver with which he was toying. “_You_ told him to give up golf! Why I thought--” “I understand and approve of your horror,” said the Oldest Member, gently. “But you must bear in mind that Jenkinson’s is not an ordinary case. You know and I know scores of men who have never broken a hundred and twenty in their lives, and yet contrive to be happy, useful members of society. However badly they may play, they are able to forget. But with Jenkinson it is different. He is not one of those who can take it or leave it alone. His only chance of happiness lies in complete abstinence. Jenkinson is a goof.” “A what?” “A goof,” repeated the Sage. “One of those unfortunate beings who have allowed this noblest of sports to get too great a grip upon them, who have permitted it to eat into their souls, like some malignant growth. The goof, you must understand, is not like you and me. He broods. He becomes morbid. His goofery unfits him for the battles of life. Jenkinson, for example, was once a man with a glowing future in the hay, corn, and feed business, but a constant stream of hooks, tops, and slices gradually made him so diffident and mistrustful of himself, that he let opportunity after opportunity slip, with the result that other, sterner, hay, corn, and feed merchants passed him in the race. Every time he had the chance to carry through some big deal in hay, or to execute some flashing _coup_ in corn and feed, the fatal diffidence generated by a hundred rotten rounds would undo him. I understand his bankruptcy may be expected at any moment.” “My golly!” said the young man, deeply impressed. “I hope I never become a goof. Do you mean to say there is really no cure except giving up the game?” The Oldest Member was silent for a while. “It is curious that you should have asked that question,” he said at last, “for only this morning I was thinking of the one case in my experience where a goof was enabled to overcome his deplorable malady. It was owing to a girl, of course. The longer I live, the more I come to see that most things are. But you will, no doubt, wish to hear the story from the beginning.” The young man rose with the startled haste of some wild creature, which, wandering through the undergrowth, perceives the trap in his path. “I should love to,” he mumbled, “only I shall be losing my place at the tee.” “The goof in question,” said the Sage, attaching himself with quiet firmness to the youth’s coat-button, “was a man of about your age, by name Ferdinand Dibble. I knew him well. In fact, it was to me--” “Some other time, eh?” “It was to me,” proceeded the Sage, placidly, “that he came for sympathy in the great crisis of his life, and I am not ashamed to say that when he had finished laying bare his soul to me there were tears in my eyes. My heart bled for the boy.” “I bet it did. But--” The Oldest Member pushed him gently back into his seat.