In the even cycle of this golfer’s life the time of torment came round once again, and, as it had seemed before, it was more desperate than it had ever been. There appeared to be no remedy. All the tricks had been tried, and all the clubs generally put into commission had been experimented with, and there was no good result. And then a strange thing happened. Things were at about their worst, when, as sometimes was the case, this poor tormented golfer awoke in his bed very early one morning in summer. The sun had not long broken the darkness; it was about three o’clock. Being a man who went to bed betimes and who was early refreshed, he did this time, as on others, lie in long thought upon the events of life and his own affairs, the perfect stillness of the time conducing to effective contemplation. And, as was inevitable, the chain of reflection brought him round to the prevailing worry of the game, and for half an hour or so he considered this grave problem from every conceivable point of view, and subjected each iron instrument that was concerned with it to the severest cross-examination, from which none emerged with an unspotted reputation. It is not always in the human golfer to attach entire blame to flesh and blood, and wholly exonerate inanimate iron. Pride must have its place, even in the times of adversity. This man was self-assured that one reason for his failure--not the whole reason, perhaps; but still one reason--was that all his searchings and purchasings had yet left him without the club that he really needed, that one which was resting somewhere in a shop or in another man’s bag, that was the affinity of his game, the thing that was meant for him and which one day might come his way. He had a vague instinct of what the feel of that club would be like, of the shape of its head, its balance, and the length of the shaft. When he encountered it he would know it at once for the long-sought-for club.