They told me he was skilful, and assiduous, and true, They told me he had "carried" for the bravest and the best. His hair was soldier-scarlet, and his eyes were saucer blue, And one seemed looking eastward, whilst the other fronted west. His strabismus was a startler, and it shook my nerve at once; It affected me with dizziness, like gazing from a height. I straddled like a duffer, and I wavered like a dunce, And my right hand felt a left one, and my left felt far from right. As I watched him place my ball with his visual axes crossed, The very sunshine glimmered, with a queer confusing glint, I felt like a sick lubber on Atlantic surges tossed-- Oh! never have a caddie with a squint! I'm an "irritable duffer"--so my enemies declare,-- That is I'm very sensitive, and play a modest game. A very little puts me off my stroke, and, standing there, With his boot-heels at right angles, and his optics much the same, He maddened me--no less, and I felt that all success Against bumptious young McBungo--was impossible that day. I'd have parted with a fiver to have beaten him. His dress Was so very very swagger, and his scarlet cap so gay. He eyed my cross-eyed caddie with a supercilious smirk, I tried to set my features, and my nerves, like any flint; But my "knicker'd" knees were knocking as I wildly set to work. Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint! [Illustration: Golfer] I tried to look away from the spoiler of my play, But for fiendish fascination he was like a squinting snake; All the muffings man can muff I contrived to muff that day; My eyes were all askew and my nerves were all ashake. I seemed to squint myself, and not only with my eyes, My knees, my hands, my elbows, with obliquity were rife. McBungo's sleek sham sympathy and sinister surprise Made almost insupportable the burden of my life. He _was_ so beastly friendly, and he _was_ so blazing fair, So fulsomely effusive with suggestion, tip, and hint! And all the while that caddie stood serenely cock-eyed there. Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint!