Golf and tennis are two games that Britain spread around the world. Golf is every man's game in Scotland and a middle-class game in England. I well remember my first trip to St. Andrews in 1939 and my delight at watching a railroad worker solemnly unbutton his collar, take off his coat, and play around one of the formidable courses there in 89. The incongruity was made more marked by the foursomes of expensively outfitted English and Americans who allowed the Scot to play through. Tennis in Britain, like tennis in America, retains aristocratic overtones. But today it is a middle-class sport; membership at the local tennis club is ranked below membership in the local yacht club or the local hunt. In both games British representatives in international competitions are at a disadvantage because there is not in Britain the urgent drive to develop players of international ability which exists in the United States and Australia. British cricket and rugby football teams, on the other hand, have enjoyed a number of brilliant successes in competition with Commonwealth teams since the war, and English soccer football, after some lean years, has begun to climb back to the top of the international heap. In this land of paradox which was the birthplace of the modern "sporting" attitude, the original home of "the game for the game's sake," we find that the most popular sport is soccer football played for money mainly by professionals; that rugby football can be a middle-class game in England and a working-class game one hundred miles away in Wales; that cricket through the years has acquired the standing not of a sport but of a religion among one important class in society; and that shooting and fishing, two proletarian pastimes in both the United States and the Soviet Union, are the domain of the wealthy, the well-bred, and the middle class in Britain. PUBS AND CLUBS Long ago one of my bosses advised me to spend less time listening to people in pubs. Had I taken his advice, which fortunately I did not, I would be richer by many pounds but poorer in both friends and information. Although writers have contended otherwise, the public house is not a unique British institution. Frenchmen gather in _estaminets_ to drink, to argue, and to write interminable letters. Americans meet at bars and taverns. The Spaniard patronizes his café. The unique aspect of the British pub is its atmosphere. The pub is a place where you can take your time. In city or country it is a refuge. A man may enter, drink three or four pints of beer in moody silence, and depart refreshed. Or he can come in, drink the same amount of beer, debate the state of the nation and the world with other drinkers and the barmaid, and play darts. Dart-playing, of course, is a national sport, and there are enthusiasts who claim it has more devotees than tennis or golf. Dart leagues flourish throughout the country, to the delight of the publicans, who reap a rich harvest from each match.