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Up in the hills, some miles back of the Country Club, on the banks of a large artificial lake, stands the new clubhouse of the Birmingham Motor and Country Club, and around the lake runs the club’s two-and-a-half-mile speedway.  Elsewhere is the Roebuck Golf Club, the links of which are admitted ("even in Atlanta!”) to be excellent—­the one possible objection to the course of the Birmingham Country Club being that it is suited only to play with irons.

I mention these golfing matters not because they interest me, but because they may interest you.  I am not a golfer.  I played the game for two seasons; then I decided to try to lead a better life.  The first time I played I did quite well, but thence onward my game declined until, toward the last, crowds would collect to hear me play.  When I determined to abandon the game I did not burn my clubs or break them up, according to the usual custom, but instead gave them to a man upon whom I wished to retaliate because his dog had bitten a member of my family.

Small wonder that all golf clubs have extensive bars!  It is not hard to understand why men who realize that they have become incurable victims of the insidious habit of golf should wish to drown the thought in drink.  But in Birmingham they can’t do it—­not, at least, at bars.  Alabama has beaten her public bars into soda fountains and quick-lunch rooms, and though her club bars still look like real ones, the drinks served are so soft that no splash occurs when reminiscent tears drop into them.

When we were in Alabama each citizen who so desired was allowed by law to import from outside the State a small allotment of strong drink for personal use, but the red tape involved in this procedure had already discouraged all but the most ardent drinkers, and those found it next to impossible, even by hoarding their “lonesome quarts,” and pooling supplies with their convivial friends, to provide sufficient alcoholic drink for a “real party.”

We met in Birmingham but one gentleman whose cellars seemed to be well stocked, and the tales of ingenuity and exertion by which he managed to secure ample supplies of liquor were such as to lead us to believe that this matter had become, with him, an occupation to which all other business must give second place.

It was this gentleman who told us that, since the State went dry, the ancient form, “R.S.V.P.,” on social invitations, had been revised to “B.W.H.P.,” signifying, “bring whisky in hip pocket.”

To the “B.W.H.P.” habit he himself strictly adhered.  One night, when we chanced to meet him in a downtown club, he drew a flask from a hip pocket, and invited us to “have something.”

“What is it?” asked my companion.

“Scotch.”

When my companion had helped himself he passed the flask to me, but I returned it to the owner, explaining that I did not drink Scotch whisky.