“Thunderation!” I roared.  “What was that?”

Jupiter laughed.  “It was your own ball,” he said.  “You put too much muscle into that stroke, and, as a consequence, the ball flew all the way round the planet and clipped you from behind.”

“You don’t mean to say—­” I began.

“Yes, I do,” said Jupiter.  “That is a special long-distance driver made for me.  Only had it two days.  It is not easy to use, because it has such wonderful force.  Hercules drove a ball three times around the planet at one stroke with it yesterday.  To use it properly requires judgment.  Up here you have to play golf with your head, as well as with your clubs.”

“Well, I played it with mine all right,” I put in, rubbing the lump on the back of my head ruefully.  “Shall I play two?”

“Certainly,” said Jupiter.  “You’ve a good brassey lie behind the tee there.  Play gently now, for this hole isn’t more than three hundred miles long.”

My brassey stroke is one of my best, and I did myself proud.  The ball flew about one hundred and seventy-nine miles in a straight line, but landed in a sand-bunker.  Jupiter followed with a good clean drive for two hundred miles, breaking all the records previously stated to me by Adonis, whereupon we entered the skitomobile and were promptly transported to the edge of the bunker, where my ball reposed upon the glistening sand.  It took three to get out, owing to the height of the cop, which rose a trifle higher in the air than Mount Blanc, but the niblick Jason had brought along for my use, as soon as I got used to the titanic quality of the game I was playing, was finally equal to the loft.  My ball landed just short of the green, one hundred and sixteen miles away.  Jupiter foozled his approach, and we both reached the edge of the green in four.

“Bully distance for a putt,” said Jupiter, taking the line from his ball to the hole.

“About how far is it?” I asked, for I couldn’t see anything resembling a hole within a mile of me.

“Oh, five miles, I imagine,” was the answer.  “Put on these glasses and you’ll see the disk.”

My courteous host handed me a pair of spectacles which I put upon my nose, and there, seemingly two inches away, but in reality five and a quarter miles, was the hole.  The glasses were a revelation, but I had seen too much that was wonderful to express surprise.

“Dead easy,” I said, referring to the putt, now that I had the glasses on.

“Looks so,” said Jupiter, “but be careful.  You can’t hope to putt until you know your ball.”

At the moment I did not understand, but a minute after I had a shock.  Putting perfectly straight, the ball rolled easily along and then made a slight hitch backward, as if I had put a cut on it, and struck off ahead, straight as an arrow but to the left of the disk.  This it continued to do in its course, zigzagging more and more out of the straight line until it finally stopped, quite two and a half miles from the cup.