We have returned to London weary at the end of a January day from Sunningdale or Walton Heath, or it may have been just back along on the underground from the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond, which seems as well in winter as any, and much better than most others. But London is murky and dirty. It is cold, it is windy, there is a drizzling rain, and the streets are very dirty. It will be three-quarters of an hour before we may be seated at the dinner table. Oh, we become a little tired of this! Troubles never come singly, and probably on such a day a match or matches have been lost. Those who are not of the community do not understand what worries make up the full agony of this game, and that is why the loss of two matches was considered by the gentle lady with her friend at tea to be the cause complete of the horrid din as of breaking furniture in the hall, the barely-stifled awful words, the yelping and limping of the little dog that suggested some sudden and unexpected injury, and the general impression that was conveyed throughout the household of havoc and disaster. "It is nothing," said gentle Fanny of the perfect understanding as, with her toes in pink satin on the fender, she poured another cup for Mrs. Larcombe. "Really, it is only George, who, I can tell, has lost _both_ his matches, dear!"
But it was not the matches only. It was the waiting lone and weary for Marmaduke at the beginning of the day; it was the lame excuse of Marmaduke for his tardiness; it was the aggravating manner of the man throughout and the stupidity of the caddie; it was the stickiness of the greens; it was something wrong with the fateful golfer's lunch that made it all worse in the afternoon; the slicing that was more frequent and farther into the rough; the pitch shots that were topped still more; and the putts that ever lipped and stayed outside. It was the luck that went viler all the time, the cruelty of circumstance, the misery of it all; and after the twin defeat the sad discovery and reflection that if one little thing--perhaps only the pressure of a finger--had been remembered about some big things that were wrongly done, it might all have been avoided. It is realised again that of all the sad thoughts the saddest is: "It might have been." It is then that the agony of golf is experienced; it is then that the golfer is not happy. And it is then, on the retreat to town, that one may seem to hear the Mediterranean call, and see a vision of a sun glistening on a flowered and song-laden land where golf is played. Take the chance, unhappy man; make the change then if you can.