of his life, who, since the real service that they did to him was evident to her sympathetic mind, treated it with becoming seriousness. This was the explanation of the 78 that was spoken of at breakfast-time that morning, and in it there is a hint that might sometime prove of service to those who, like the host of that week-end, are sometimes troubled for want of that ability to loose their thoughts to sleep. VIII One does not see St. Andrews at its best at a time of a championship, or at any other time when there are great crowds in the streets and on the courses, and swarming round about the clubhouse and outside the shops of the clubmakers overlooking the eighteenth green. It is not its natural self then; it is at its worst. I do not like it when the trippers pour in from Glasgow. One cannot resist the suspicion that many of them are not as good golfers as they ought to be, and that they love St. Andrews for what they save by her, being the only course in the world on which a man may play for nothing; with a kindly Corporation and a great club spending large sums of money upon it. To keep those marvellous greens in their fine state they employ a genius among greenkeepers, who is Hugh Hamilton, who is the successor of Tom Morris, who was the successor of Allan Robertson. It may seem strange to some that the play should be made without any charge, but St. Andrews would not be the same, and would lose rather than gain in dignity, if it were not free. The time to see it at its best is in the spring, and it is fine again in the late autumn, when the mere holiday-makers have gone back to their cities and workshops. The only time when a crowd is bearable at St. Andrews is on the autumn medal day, and then, indeed, it is as if the tradition and the sanctity of the place are intensified. This surely is the great Celebration Day of golf. With its dignity, ceremony, tradition, crowds, and excitement, it is really very much like a Lord Mayor’s Day. Old folks who may have never played, wee bairns who are only just beginning to think they will play when they can walk a little better, are all straining to excitement because it is the club’s medal day, the day of the Royal Medal, and of the captain’s playing himself in, and of the firing of the guns. From north, south, east, and west--many of them from London--the members of the Royal and Ancient Club foregather for the occasion. There is a hushed solemnity overhanging the place. Something is about to be done that used to be done in the days of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers, and the men on the links on this occasion feel themselves to be the descendants--as often enough they are in blood--of the great golfers of old who made the early chapters of the history of the game.