"Greetings, O venerable one!" he cried, jovially. "Hadst thou come a moment sooner, them wouldst have seen me lay my ball dead--aye, dead as mutton, with the sweetest little half-mashie-niblick chip-shot ever seen outside the sacred domain of S'nandrew, on whom"--he bared his head reverently--"be peace! In one under bogey did I do the hole--yea, and that despite the fact that, slicing my drive, I became ensnared in yonder undergrowth." The High Priest had not the advantage of understanding one word of what the King was talking about, but he gathered with satisfaction that Merolchazzar was pleased and wholly without suspicion. He clasped an unseen hand more firmly about the handle of his knife, and accompanied the monarch to the next altar. Merolchazzar stooped, and placed a small round white object on a little mound of sand. In spite of his austere views, the High Priest, always a keen student of ritual, became interested. "Why does your Majesty do that?" "I tee it up that it may fly the fairer. If I did not, then would it be apt to run along the ground like a beetle instead of soaring like a bird, and mayhap, for thou seest how rough and tangled is the grass before us, I should have to use a niblick for my second." The High Priest groped for his meaning. "It is a ceremony to propitiate the god and bring good luck?" "You might call it that." The High Priest shook his head. "I may be old-fashioned," he said, "but I should have thought that, to propitiate a god, it would have been better to have sacrificed one of these _kaddiz_ on his altar." "I confess," replied the King, thoughtfully, "that I have often felt that it would be a relief to one's feelings to sacrifice one or two _kaddiz_, but The Pro for some reason or other has set his face against it." He swung at the ball, and sent it forcefully down the fairway. "By Abe, the son of Mitchell," he cried, shading his eyes, "a bird of a drive! How truly is it written in the book of the prophet Vadun, 'The left hand applieth the force, the right doth but guide. Grip not, therefore, too closely with the right hand!' Yesterday I was pulling all the time." The High Priest frowned. "It is written in the sacred book of Hec, your Majesty, 'Thou shalt not follow after strange gods'." "Take thou this stick, O venerable one," said the King, paying no attention to the remark, "and have a shot thyself. True, thou art well stricken in years, but many a man has so wrought that he was able to give his grandchildren a stroke a hole. It is never too late to begin." The High Priest shrank back, horrified. The King frowned. "It is our Royal wish," he said, coldly.