“I take back everything I ever said about this being an easy game to play,” he said.  “I’m a pretty good ‘rule of thumb’ civil and mechanical engineer, I know a few things about the laws of resistances and all that sort of thing, I have watched you fellows hit that ball and have tried to imitate you, but it’s no use.  Now I’m going to do just what Wallace tells me, and if he can teach me to drive I’ll pay him more than any professional ever made in the history of the game.”

Harding certainly has had a time of it.  For weeks he has laboured with a patience worthy of better results, he has purchased every known variety and weight of club.  He has a larger collection of drivers, brassies, cleeks, mashies, midirons, jiggers, niblicks, putters and other tools than Billy Moon, and Moon is a specialist in that direction.

The surrounding woods, the ponds, brooks and swamps contain unnumbered balls which Harding has misdriven.  He will not waste one minute looking for a ball which gets into difficulty, and since his arrival our orders to the manufacturers have more than doubled.

One of his ambitions has been to drive a ball across the old mill pond.  It is a long carry and beyond probability that he can accomplish it, but I have seen him drive box after box of balls and give them to the caddies who have recovered them.

Wallace was on hand at the appointed time to give Harding his first lesson, and we had quite a gallery for our foursome, including Miss Harding and Miss Lawrence.  Wallace was to play with Harding against Carter and me, but the chief interest centred in whether Wallace could effect any improvement in the playing of his ponderous pupil.

He told Harding to make several practise swings Harding did so and Wallace studied them closely.

“A man of your build should play with the left foot advanced,” he said.  “Bend the left knee but keep the other one more nearly rigid.  Keep the weight of your body on your heels or you will fall on your ball when you swing through.  Do not curve your back like a letter C. Keep the backbone straight but not rigid.  It is the pivot on which your body and shoulders must turn, and how can it turn true if your vertebrae is bent?”

“I had not thought of that,” admitted Harding, making a much better stroke.

“Unless the back is straight the right shoulder will drop, and that is fatal,” cautioned Wallace.  “Grip firmly and evenly with the fingers—­not the palms—­of both hands, but let the wrists be flexible until the club-head comes to the ball.”

Wallace corrected other errors, and after fifteen minutes of instruction Harding teed a ball and for the first time in his life cleared the lane.  He was as delighted as a boy who unexpectedly comes into possession of his first gun.

“Wallace,” he declared, “if you will stick to me until I get so I can do that well half of the time I’ll give you a hundred shares of the L.M. & K. and a job which beats this one all hollow.”