"I was afraid not," I said sadly; "that would require imagination, tact, pluck, adroitness, in all of which commodities, my dear Smithers---- Well, no doubt it's a good thing nature doesn't mould us all alike."
"No doubt, else your handicap would not be 16, while mine is scratch."
"Golf is not life," I answered. "But I will tax your genius a little less. Could you for a few moments look like a director of the line, or a foreman shunter, or something of that sort?"
"Then," I said cheerfully, "we will bluff the collector--bluff him into believing we are that which we are not. Many people go through life like that. It is quite simple. All we have to do is to stroll up the station looking as much like commercial or mechanical despots as possible; give a kindly smile of condescension to the ticket-collector, make a casual remark about the working of the coupling rods, and pass out of the station."
"I see how it is," I said, taking my golf clubs out of the rack as the train pulled up. "You have no stomach for it; the spice of adventure it contains does not appeal to you. Well, so much for modern civilisation. I will go through alone with it; pray, if you wish, detach yourself from me until we are out of the station."
I sprang out and hurried up the platform; a servant of the company was in waiting.
"Tickets, please," he said coldly--unnecessarily coldly, I thought.
I smiled. "I am glad to see," I observed genially, "that on my line at any rate even the commander-in-chief cannot pass the sentries unchallenged. Your sense of duty shall not go unrewarded; let me have your card."
I have never seen a face so lacking in that gracious trustfulness which is at once the pride and the adornment of the normal ticket-collector. I think in his youth he must have committed a murder or robbed an orchard, for the shadow of a crime seemed to hang over him. I felt instinctively that he was not fit to play the part I had allotted to him.
I looked back. Smithers was pluckily doing up his bootlace several yards away; a tactless grin seemed to desolate his features. The grin decided me.
"Smithers," I called, "hurry up with the tickets; the inspector is waiting for them. Good day, inspector."
"One hundred and seventy started out, the number including the best of the English players and the entire American continent."