“Not a bit of it,” said Adonis.  “That’s all of it simple truth.  I happen to know, because I saw the finish of the whole thing myself, and was one of the fellows who turned a fire-extinguisher on him and saved him from being a total loss to the insurance companies.  But he learned his lesson.  There’s nothing like experience to teach caution, and that little episode gave Phaeton caution to burn, if I may indulge in mundane slang.  He was guyed so unmercifully by everybody for his carelessness that the first thing he did when he recovered was to learn how to drive, and it wasn’t six cycles before he was the most expert whip in Olympus.  He finally made a profession of it and established a livery-stable.  Then, when the automobile came in and horses went out of fashion, he kept up with the times, and is to-day in charge of all our rapid transit—­he owns the franchises for the Jupiter and Dipper Trolley Road, he is the largest stockholder in the Metropolitan Traction Company of Neptune, Saturn, and Venus, and is said to be the moving spirit back of the new underground electric in Hades.”

“I guess he’ll do,” said I, reflecting with admiration upon the wonderful self-rehabilitation of one I had previously regarded as a foolish incompetent.

“You won’t have to guess again in this case,” said Adonis, dryly.  “You’ve hit it right the very first time.”

“Well, tell me about the links, Adonis,” said I.  “Getting there seems to be an easy matter, but after you get there, how about the course?  Is it eighteen holes?”

“It is,” said Adonis, “and of proper length, too, and splendidly arranged.  You start at the club-house right near the landing-stage and play right around the planet, so that when you’re through you’re back at the club-house again.  At the ninth hole there is a half-way house, where you can get nectar, and ambrosia, and sarsaparilla, and any other soft drink you want.”

“No hard drinks, eh?” I queried.

“Not at the half-way house,” said Adonis.  “We gods have too much sense to indulge in hard drinks in the middle of a game.  If you want hard drinks you have to wait till you get back to the club-house.”

“That is rather sensible,” I said, as I thought of how a Martini cocktail taken at the ninth hole had ruined my chances in the Noodleport Annual Handicap last autumn.  “But I say, Adonis,” I added, “did I understand you to say that you played all around Mars?”

“Yes—­why not?” said he.

“Pretty long holes, I should say,” said I.  “Mars is four thousand miles round, isn’t it?”

“You are an earth-worm,” he retorted, forgetting his place wholly in his scorn for my picayune ideas.  “Calling a paltry four thousand miles long—­why, you can play around that links in two hours and a half.”

“Indeed?” said I.  “And how long may your hours be?  Everything here is on such a magnificent scale, I suppose one of your hours is about equal to one of our decades.”