Another fine thing about Tom, and one that has always endeared him to the golfing world, is the fact that there has never been anything in the least niggardly in the gratitude which he extends towards the game with which his life has been bound up. Suggest to Tom that there is anything better in life than golf, and you have done the first thing towards raising up a barrier of reserve between him and you. Listen to how he spoke of the game of his heart on a New Year’s Day twenty-one years back from now, when even then he was by way of becoming an old man. “An’ it hadna been for gowff,” he said to the patron who greeted him in the customary form for the first day of the year, “I’m no sure that at this day, sir, I wad hae been a leevin’ man. I’ve had ma troubles an’ ma trials, like the lave; an’ whiles I thocht they wad hae clean wauved me, sae that to ‘lay me doun an’ dee’--as the song says--lookit about a’ that was left in life for puir Tam. It was like as if ma vera sowle was a’thegither gane oot o’ me. But there’s naething like a ticht gude gowing mautch to soop yer brain clear o’ that kin’ o’ thing; and wi’ the help o’ ma God an’ o’ gowff, I’ve aye gotten warsled through somehow or ither. The tae thing ta’en wi’ the tither, I haena had an ill time o’t. I dinna mind that iver I had an unpleasant word frae ony o’ the many gentlemen I’ve played wi’. I’ve aye tried--as ma business was, sir--to mak’ masel’ pleesant to them; an’ they’ve aye been awfu’ pleesant to me. An’ noo, sir, to end a long and maybe a silly crack--bein’ maistly about masel’--ye’ll just come wi’ me, an’ ye’ll hae a glass o’ gude brandy, and I’ll have ma pint o’ black strap, an’ we’ll drink a gude New Year to ane anither, an’ the like to a’ gude gowffers.”