"Not at all," growled Waddles. "He was just crazy to get into this thing, and he wouldn't have been unless he figured to have a cinch; consequently, hence and by reason of which I've given him a mark that'll make him draw right down to his hand. He won't play any four-flush here." Waddles then arranged the personnel of the foursomes, and jotted down the order in which they would leave the first tee. When I saw which quartette would start last I offered another suggestion. "You're not helping Bill's game any," said I. "You know that he doesn't like Davidson, and----" Waddles stopped me with his frozen-faced, stuffed-owl stare. In deep humiliation I confess that at the time I attributed it to his distaste for criticism. I realise now that it must have been amazement at my stupidity. "Excuse me for living," said I with mock humility. "There is no excuse," said Waddles heavily. Bill turned up on the tee at the last moment, and if he didn't like the company in which he found himself he masked his feelings very well. "How do, Mary? Beth, this is a pleasure. How are you, Davidson? Ladies first, I presume?" "Drive, Miss Rogers," said Davidson. Now a fluffy blonde is all right, I suppose, if she wears a hair net. Beth doesn't, and her golden aureole would make a Circassian woman jealous. Still, there are people who think Beth is a beauty. I more than half suspect that Beth is one of them. Beth drove, and the ball plumped into the cross bunker. "Oh, partner!" she squealed. "Can you ever forgive me?" "That's all right," Bill assured her. "I've often been in there myself. Takes a good long shot to carry that bunker." "It's perfectly dear of you to say so!" "Fore!" said Mary, who was on the tee, and the conversation ceased. "Better shoot to the left," advised Russell, "and go round the end of the bunker." Mary stopped waggling her club to look at him. If there is anything in which the female of the golfing species takes sinful pride it is the length of her drive. She likes to stand up on a tee used by the men and smack the ball over the cross bunker. She wouldn't trade a two-hundred-yard drive for twenty perfect approach shots. She may be a wonder on the putting green, but she offers herself no credit for that. It is the long tee shot that takes her eye--the drive that skims the bunker and goes on up the course. Waddles says the proposition of sex equality has a bearing on the matter, but I claim that it is just ordinary, everyday pride in being able to play a man's game, man fashion. Coming from a total stranger, that suggestion about driving to the left would have been regarded as a deadly insult; coming from Russell---- "But I think I can carry it," said Mary with a tiny pout. "Change your stance and drive to the left." The suggestion had become a command. "Fore!" said Mary again--and whacked the ball straight into the bunker--straight into the middle of it.