"This time," I said, "I shall hit the sphere properly," and with a terrific swing I stroked it gently into a gorse bush. I looked at the thing in disgust and then felt my pulse. Apparently I was still quite well. Thomson, forgetting about his liver, drove a beauty. We met on the green. "Five," I said. "Only five?" asked Thomson suspiciously. "Six," I said, holing a very long putt. Thomson's health had a relapse. He took four short putts and was down in seven. "It's really rather absurd," he said, in a conversational way, as we went to the next tee, "that putting should be so ridiculously important. Take that hole, for instance. I get on the green in a perfect three; you fluff your drive completely and get on in--what was it?" "Five," I said again. "Er--five. And yet you win the hole. It is rather absurd, isn't it?" "I've often thought so," I admitted readily. "That is to say, when I've taken four putts. I'm two up." On the third tee Thomson's health became positively alarming. He missed the ball altogether. "It's ridiculous to try to play," he said with a forced laugh. "I can't see the ball at all." "It's still there," I assured him. He struck at it again and it hurried off into a ditch. "Look here," he said, "wouldn't you rather play the pro.? This is not much of a match for you." I considered. Of course a game with the pro. would be much pleasanter than a game with Thomson, but ought I to leave him in his present serious condition of health? His illness was approaching its critical stage, and it was my duty to pull him through if I could. "No, no," I said. "Let's go on. The fresh air will do you good." "Perhaps it will," he said hopefully. "I'm sorry I'm like this, but I've had a cold hanging about for some days, and that on the top of my liver----" "Quite so," I said. The climax was reached at the next hole, when, with several strokes in hand, he topped his approach shot into a bunker. For my sake he tried to look as though he had meant to run it up along the ground, having forgotten about the intervening hazard. It was a brave effort to hide from me the real state of his health, but he soon saw that it was hopeless. He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. Then he held his fingers a foot away from him, and looked at them as if he were trying to count them correctly. His state was pitiable, and I felt that at any cost I must save him. I did. The corner was turned at the fifth, where I took four putts. "You aren't going to win _all_ the holes," he said grudgingly, as he ran down his putt. Convalescence set in at the sixth when I got into an impossible place and picked up. "Oh, well, I shall give you a game yet," he said. "Two down." The need for further bulletins ceased at the seventh hole, which he played really well and won easily. "A-ha, you won't beat me by much," he said, "in spite of my liver." "By the way, how is the liver?" I asked.