You who squander your golden youth fooling about on a bowling-green will not understand the magic of those three words. But if you were a golfer, you would realise that in selecting just that invocation to breathe to himself Rollo Podmarsh had hit, by sheer accident, on the ideal method of achieving a fine drive. Let me explain. The first two words, tensely breathed, are just sufficient to take a man with the proper slowness to the top of his swing; the first syllable of the second “Mary” exactly coincides with the striking of the ball; and that final “ry!” takes care of the follow-through. The consequence was that Rollo’s ball, instead of hopping down the hill like an embarrassed duck, as was its usual practice, sang off the tee with a scream like a shell, nodded in passing Mary’s ball, where it lay some hundred and fifty yards down the course, and, carrying on from there, came to rest within easy distance of the green. For the first time in his golfing life Rollo Podmarsh had hit a nifty. Mary followed the ball’s flight with astonished eyes. “But this will never do!” she exclaimed. “I can’t possibly start you two up if you’re going to do this sort of thing.” Rollo blushed. “I shouldn’t think it would happen again,” he said. “I’ve never done a drive like that before.” “But it must happen again,” said Mary, firmly. “This is evidently your day. If you don’t get round in under a hundred to-day, I shall never forgive you.” Rollo shut his eyes, and his lips moved feverishly. He was registering a vow that, come what might, he would not fail her. A minute later he was holing out in three, one under bogey. The second hole is the short lake-hole. Bogey is three, and Rollo generally did it in four; for it was his custom not to count any balls he might sink in the water, but to start afresh with one which happened to get over, and then take three putts. But to-day something seemed to tell him that he would not require the aid of this ingenious system. As he took his mashie from the bag, he _knew_ that his first shot would soar successfully on to the green. “Ah, Mary!” he breathed as he swung. These subtleties are wasted on a worm, if you will pardon the expression, like yourself, who, possibly owing to a defective education, is content to spend life’s springtime rolling wooden balls across a lawn; but I will explain that in altering and shortening his soliloquy at this juncture Rollo had done the very thing any good pro. would have recommended. If he had murmured, “Oh, Mary! Mary!” as before he would have over-swung. “Ah, Mary!” was exactly right for a half-swing with the mashie. His ball shot up in a beautiful arc, and trickled to within six inches of the hole. Mary was delighted. There was something about this big, diffident man which had appealed from the first to everything in her that was motherly.