“Yes.  We must have been in front of you.  Father won his match.”

“So he was telling me.  I was very glad to hear it.”

“Did you win, Mr. Garnet?”

“Yes.  Pretty easily.  My opponent had bad luck all through.  Bunkers seemed to have a magnetic attraction for him.”

“So you and father are both in the semi-final?  I hope you will play very badly.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Yes, it does sound rude, doesn’t it?  But father has set his heart on winning this year.  Do you know that he has played in the final round two years running now?”

“Really?”

“Both times he was beaten by the same man.”

“Who was that?  Mr. Derrick plays a much better game than anybody I have seen on these links.”

“It was nobody who is here now.  It was a Colonel Jervis.  He has not come to Combe Regis this year.  That’s why father is hopeful.”

“Logically,” I said, “he ought to be certain to win.”

“Yes; but, you see, you were not playing last year, Mr. Garnet.”

“Oh, the professor can make rings round me,” I said.

“What did you go round in to-day?”

“We were playing match-play, and only did the first dozen holes; but my average round is somewhere in the late eighties.”

“The best father has ever done is ninety, and that was only once.  So you see, Mr. Garnet, there’s going to be another tragedy this year.”

“You make me feel a perfect brute.  But it’s more than likely, you must remember, that I shall fail miserably if I ever do play your father in the final.  There are days when I play golf as badly as I play tennis.  You’ll hardly believe me.”

She smiled reminiscently.

“Tom is much too good at tennis.  His service is perfectly dreadful.”

“It’s a little terrifying on first acquaintance.”

“But you’re better at golf than at tennis, Mr. Garnet.  I wish you were not.”

“This is special pleading,” I said.  “It isn’t fair to appeal to my better feelings, Miss Derrick.”

“I didn’t know golfers had any where golf was concerned.  Do you really have your off-days?”

“Nearly always.  There are days when I slice with my driver as if it were a bread-knife.”

“Really?”

“And when I couldn’t putt to hit a haystack.”

“Then I hope it will be on one of those days that you play father.”

“I hope so, too,” I said.

“You hope so?”

“Yes.”

“But don’t you want to win?”

“I should prefer to please you.”

“Really, how very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet,” she replied, with a laugh.  “I had no idea that such chivalry existed.  I thought a golfer would sacrifice anything to win a game.”

“Most things.”

“And trample on the feelings of anybody.”

“Not everybody,” I said.

At this point the professor joined us.