There ought not to be a single able-bodied infant in the British Isles who has not foozled a drive.  To take my case.  Suppose I had employed in drilling the hours I had spent in learning to handle my clubs.  I might have drilled before the professor by the week without softening his heart.  I might have ported arms and grounded arms and presented arms, and generally behaved in the manner advocated by “Efficiency,” and what would have been the result?  Indifference on his part, or—­and if I overdid the thing—­irritation.  Whereas, by devoting a reasonable portion of my youth to learning the intricacies of golf I was enabled . . .

It happened in this way.

To me, as I stood with Ukridge in the fowl-run in the morning following my maritime conversation with the professor, regarding a hen that had posed before us, obviously with a view to inspection, there appeared a man carrying an envelope.  Ukridge, who by this time saw, as Calverley almost said, “under every hat a dun,” and imagined that no envelope could contain anything but a small account, softly and silently vanished away, leaving me to interview the enemy.

“Mr. Garnet, sir?” said the foe.

I recognised him.  He was Professor Derrick’s gardener.

I opened the envelope.  No.  Father’s blessings were absent.  The letter was in the third person.  Professor Derrick begged to inform Mr. Garnet that, by defeating Mr. Saul Potter, he had qualified for the final round of the Combe Regis Golf Tournament, in which, he understood, Mr. Garnet was to be his opponent.  If it would be convenient for Mr. Garnet to play off the match on the present afternoon, Professor Derrick would be obliged if he would be at the Club House at half-past two.  If this hour and day were unsuitable, would he kindly arrange others.  The bearer would wait.

The bearer did wait.  He waited for half-an-hour, as I found it impossible to shift him, not caring to use violence on a man well stricken in years, without first plying him with drink.  He absorbed more of our diminishing cask of beer than we could conveniently spare, and then trudged off with a note, beautifully written in the third person, in which Mr. Garnet, after numerous compliments and thanks, begged to inform Professor Derrick that he would be at the Club House at the hour mentioned.

“And,” I added—­to myself, not in the note—­“I will give him such a licking that he’ll brain himself with a cleek.”

For I was not pleased with the professor.  I was conscious of a malicious joy at the prospect of snatching the prize from him.  I knew he had set his heart on winning the tournament this year.  To be runner-up two years in succession stimulates the desire for first place.  It would be doubly bitter to him to be beaten by a newcomer, after the absence of his rival, the colonel, had awakened hope in him.  And I knew I could do it.  Even allowing for bad luck—­and I am never a very unlucky golfer—­I could rely almost with certainty on crushing the man.