FORE!
This book marks an epoch in my literary career. It is written in
blood. It is the outpouring of a soul as deeply seared by Fate's
unkindness as the pretty on the dog-leg hole of the second nine was
ever seared by my iron. It is the work of a very nearly desperate man,
an eighteen-handicap man who has got to look extremely slippy if he
doesn't want to find himself in the twenties again.
As a writer of light fiction, I have always till now been handicapped
by the fact that my disposition was cheerful, my heart intact, and my
life unsoured. Handicapped, I say, because the public likes to feel
that a writer of farcical stories is piquantly miserable in his private
life, and that, if he turns out anything amusing, he does it simply in
order to obtain relief from the almost insupportable weight of an
existence which he has long since realized to be a wash-out. Well,
today I am just like that.
Two years ago, I admit, I was a shallow farceur. My work lacked
depth. I wrote flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly good
time. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears and
laugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head up
and feel that I am entitled to respect.
If you find anything in this volume that amuses you, kindly bear in
mind that it was probably written on my return home after losing three
balls in the gorse or breaking the head off a favourite driver: and,
with a murmured "Brave fellow! Brave fellow!" recall the story of the
clown jesting while his child lay dying at home. That is all. Thank you
for your sympathy. It means more to me than I can say. Do you think
that if I tried the square stance for a bit.... But, after all, this
cannot interest you. Leave me to my misery.
POSTSCRIPT
In the second chapter I allude to Stout Cortez staring at
the Pacific. Shortly after the appearance of this narrative in serial
form in America, I received an anonymous letter containing the words,
"You big stiff, it wasn't Cortez, it was Balboa." This, I believe, is
historically accurate. On the other hand, if Cortez was good enough for
Keats, he is good enough for me. Besides, even if it was Balboa,
the Pacific was open for being stared at about that time, and I see no
reason why Cortez should not have had a look at it as well.
P. G. WODEHOUSE.
CONTENTS
The Clicking of Cuthbert
The young man came into the smoking-room of the clubhouse, and flung
his bag with a clatter on the floor. He sank moodily into an arm-chair
and pressed the bell.
"Waiter!"
"Sir?"
The young man pointed at the bag with every evidence of distaste.
"You may have these clubs," he said. "Take them away. If you don't want
them yourself, give them to one of the caddies."
Across the room the Oldest Member gazed at him with a grave sadness
through the smoke of his pipe. His eye was deep and dreamy--the eye of
a man who, as the poet says, has seen Golf steadily and seen it whole.
"You are giving up golf?" he said.
He was not altogether unprepared for such an attitude on the young
man's part: for from his eyrie on the terrace above the ninth green he
had observed him start out on the afternoon's round and had seen him
lose a couple of balls in the lake at the second hole after taking
seven strokes at the first.
"Yes!" cried the young man fiercely. "For ever, dammit! Footling game!
Blanked infernal fat-headed silly ass of a game! Nothing but a waste of
time."
The Sage winced.
"Don't say that, my boy."
"But I do say it. What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life is
earnest. We live in a practical age. All round us we see foreign
competition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playing
golf! What do we get out of it? Is golf any use? That's what I'm
asking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to this
pestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?"
The Sage smiled gently.
"I could name a thousand."
"One will do."
