"Bob, why don't you get the 'pro' to give you a lesson or two? He might be able to straighten you out." "Oh, what does a professional know about the theory of golf? All he can do is to tell you to watch him and do the way he does. Now what Bob needs----" Every man who plays golf, no matter how badly, feels himself competent to offer advice. For a long ten minutes the air was heavy with well-meant suggestions. Coming at the wrong time, nothing is more galling than sympathetic counsel. Bob Coyne, six-handicap man and expert in the theory of golf, hunched his shoulders and endured it all without comment or protest. Somewhere in his head an idea was taking definite shape. Slowly but surely he was being urged to the point where decision merges into action. "I tell you," said the veteran with the calm insistence of age, "Bob ought to take a lay-off. He ought to forget golf for a while." Coyne rose and moved toward the door. As his hand touched the knob the irrepressible Parkes hurled the last straw athwart a heavy burden. "If ever I get so that I can't enjoy this game any more," said he, "I hope I'll have strength of character enough to quit playing it." "Oh, you do, do you?" demanded Coyne with the cold rage of a quiet man, goaded beyond the limit of his endurance. "Well, don't flatter yourself. You haven't--and you won't!" The door closed behind this rather cryptic remark, and the listeners looked at each other and shook their heads. "Never knew Bob to act like this before," said one. "Anything can happen when a man's game is in a slump," said the veteran. "Take a steady, brainy player--a first-class golfer; let him lose his shots for a week and there's no telling what he'll do. Nothing to it--this is the most interesting and the most exasperating outdoor sport in the world. "Just when you think you've learned all there is to learn about it--bang! And there you are, flat!" "He's been wolfing at me all morning," said Parkes. "Kind of silly to let a game get on your nerves, eh?" "You'll never know how a real golfer feels when his shots go bad on him," was the consoling response. "There he goes with his bag of clubs. Practice won't help him any. What he needs is a lay-off." "He's headed for the caddie shed," said Parkes. "I'd hate to carry his bag this afternoon. Be afraid he'd bite me, or something.... Say, have you fellows heard about the two Scotchmen, playing in the finals for a cup? It seems that MacNabb lost his ball on the last hole, and MacGregor was helping him look for it----" "I always did like that yarn," interrupted the veteran. "It's just as good now as it was twenty years ago. Shoot!" * * * * * A dozen caddies were resting in the shed, and as they rested they listened to the lively comment of the dean of the bag-carrying profession, a sixteen-year-old golfing Solomon who answered to the name of Butch: