"Your billiard table is always the same," I continued. "It consists of the cloth and four cushions, and they are smooth as art can make them.

Your golf course is never the same on any two days, and would not be if you played through all eternity. Sometimes the gra.s.s in a certain place is long, and sometimes it is short; sometimes it is thick, and again it is thin; sometimes the ground is hard from lack of rain, and again it is soft and spongy from an excess of rain. There are millions of variations in these conditions, and every one of them must be considered in making a perfect shot."

"Yes, I suppose that is so," he admitted, and I could see I had started him thinking.

"There are days when the air is light," I went on, "and when a certain stroke will send the ball where you wish it to go. There are other days when the air is heavy, and when a hit ball seems to have no life in it.

You must allow for the force and direction of every slant of wind. There are conditions of atmosphere when objects seem near, and others when they seem far away, and you must take this into account."

He was silent, and I went on.

"On a billiard table your ball is always within easy reach. You stand on a level floor and play on a level table. In golf your ball never lands in the same place twice. It may be above you, or below you. It may lie in any one of ten million separate conformations of ground, and for each you must exercise judgment. Your clubs change in weight as you clean them; no two golf b.a.l.l.s have the same degree of elasticity when new, and as you use them it decreases. But more than all else, you are not the same man physically or mentally on any two days. A slight increase in weight, the wearing of an extra garment, the congestion of a muscle or the stiffening of a chord may be sufficient to throw you off your stroke and seriously impair your game."

"Nonsense; I don't believe it," he declared. "When I once find out how to make a certain shot I will keep right on improving until I have it perfect."

"If that were possible golf would lose its charm," I said. "A man will go on making a certain shot with almost perfect accuracy for months, and all at once lose the knack of it, and not be able to recover it for months, and perhaps never. In order to hit a golf ball accurately there are scores of muscles which must act in perfect accord, and the several parts of the body must maintain certain positions during the various parts of the stroke. If the shoulder drops the quarter of an inch, if the heel rises too soon by the minutest fraction of a second, if either hand grasping the club turns in any degree the stroke is ruined. You will hit the ball, but it will not go the distance or the direction required."

"Must be a mighty hard game, from all that you say," he laughed, grimly.

"Guess I'd better go back and not try it, but I notice that there was nothing the matter with the position of my muscles, cords, hands and the rest of my anatomy the other day when I whacked that ball out of sight.

And I can do it again, Smith, and don't you forget it."

I preferred to await the arbitrament of events so far as that boast was concerned.

We had arrived at the eighteenth tee, and he looked over the field with much satisfaction. The railroad embankment is about one hundred and fifty yards from the tee, and few try to carry it. The old post road runs parallel to the line of this hole, and forms the western boundary of the Woodvale links. There is no bunker save the railroad bank for the entire distance, and it is an ideal hole for the golf "slugger."

"Where is the green?" asked Harding, standing on the elevated tee. I pointed in the line of the old church belfry, and after a long look he declared that he could see the white flag floating from the standard.

"n.o.body ever drove it, you say?" he observed, throwing his shoulders back.

"Of course not," I laughed, and added, "and never will."

"Don't be too sure about that," he said, piling a mound of sand. "It's nothing more than a 'putt,' as you call it, to bat a ball over that railroad."

"You talk about driving six hundred yards to that green," I said, annoyed at his ignorant nerve, "I will bet you a box of cigars that you do not carry that railroad track in a month."

"Don't be foolish, Smith."

"Do you wish to bet?"

"Of course I do," he replied, teeing a ball, "and we'll get action on it in about ten seconds. Just keep your eye on this ball!"

Disdaining to take a practice stroke, he swung viciously at it. He must have caught it on the toe of his club, for it sliced to the right in a low and sweeping curve.

As I followed its flight I saw a farm wagon in the road. The driver had stopped his team, and was standing up watching Harding. I recognised Farmer Bishop, and noted that his sallow face was distorted in a disdainful grin, which froze on his lips when he saw the ball curving toward him.

It is difficult for an experienced golfer to dodge a sliced drive, even when he has a chance to run to one side or the other, but all that Bishop could do was to duck, which he did, with the result that the ball hit his left temple. He half fell and half jumped to the ground, and was not so badly hurt as to prevent his being the maddest agriculturist I have seen in many years.

He danced up and down at the edge of the road, his hand to his head, warm, loud words flowing in a torrent from his mouth.

Harding dropped his club and we both ran toward the injured man. Harding was the first to reach the fence, but he did not climb over.

"Did it hit you?" he asked Bishop.

The farmer took one more hop and then turned and faced the railroad magnate. There was a lump over his eye bigger than a hen's egg, and on it I could see the bramble marks of the ball. It was a moment before his rage permitted utterance. He spit out a mouthful of tobacco so as not to be handicapped.

"Did you hit me; you dod-gasted old poppinjay of a fat dude!" he exclaimed, shaking a brawny, freckled fist at Harding. "Did you hit me; you flabby old chromo! Do you suppose I fall out of my wagon and dance up and down this road for exercise; you old boiled lobster?"

"I am very sorry, sir," said Harding, amus.e.m.e.nt and growing anger struggling for mastery. "I wasn't shooting in this direction. Something happened to my ball; what do you call it, Smith?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Did it hit you?"]

"You sliced it," I said.

"That's it; I sliced it," declared Harding, as if that were more or less of a valid excuse.

"You come over that fence an' I'll slice you!" roared Bishop, taking a step forward. "Things have come to a fine pa.s.s in this country if an honest farmer can't take his milk to town without riskin' bein' murdered by plutocrats with 'sliced b.a.l.l.s' and all that blankety-blank tommyrot.

Climb over on this side of the fence an' I'll lick seven kinds of stuffin' out of you in erbout a minute."

"Keep your shirt on!" retorted Harding, "you won't lick n.o.body."

He looked curiously at the maddened farmer.

"Your name is Bishop, isn't it?" he asked, and I wondered how he happened to know.

"Yes, my name's Bishop," was the sullen and defiant answer.

"Jim Bishop?"

"Yes; Jim Bishop."

Harding grinned good-naturedly.

"Don't you know who I am?" he asked.

"No, I don't, and I don't give a d.a.m.n!" replied Bishop, looking at him more closely, I thought.

"Did you know a young fellow named Harding when you were a boy?" asked Harding.

"Bob Harding?"

"Yes, Bob Harding!"

"Do you mean to tell me that you're the Bob Harding who uster live on a farm near Buckfield, Maine?" asked Bishop, the anger dying from his voice.

"That's what I am!" declared the millionaire, as Bishop came toward him, a curious smile on his tanned face. "How are you, Jim?"

"Well; I'll be jiggered! How are you, Bob?" and they shook hands across the fence. For a moment neither spoke.

"It's thirty years or more since I've seen you," said Harding. "When did you move to this country?"