Читать книгу The Holiday Round - A. A. Milne - Страница 25

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"Seeing that this is our last day together," began Archie—

"Oh, DON'T," said Myra. "I can't bear it."

"Seeing that this is our first day together, we might have a little tournament of some kind, followed by a small distribution of prizes. What do you think, Dahlia?"

"Well, I daresay I can find something."

"Any old thing that we don't want will do; nothing showy or expensive. Victory is its own reward."

"Yes, but if there IS a pot of home-made marmalade going with it," I said, "so much the better."

"Dahlia, earmark the marmalade for this gentleman. Now, what's it going to be? Golf, Simpson?"

"Why, of course," said Myra. "Hasn't he been getting it ready for days?"

"That will give him an unfair advantage," I pointed out. "He knows every single brick on the greens."

"Oh, I say, there aren't any greens yet," protested Simpson. "That'll take a year or two. But I've marked out white circles and you have to get inside them."

"I saw him doing that," said Archie. "I was afraid he expected us to play prisoners' base with him."

The game fixed upon, we proceeded to draw for partners.

"You'll have to play with me, Archie," said Dahlia, "because I'm no good at all."

"I shall have to play with Myra," I said, "because I'm no good at all."

"Oh, I'm very good," said Myra.

"That looks as though I should have to play with—" "Simpson,"

"Thomas," said Thomas and Simpson together.

"You're all giving me a lot of trouble," said Archie, putting his pencil back in his pocket. "I've just written your names out neatly on little bits of paper, and now they're all wasted. You'll have to stick them on yourselves so that the spectators will know who you are as you whizz past." He handed his bits of paper round and went in for his clubs.

It was a stroke competition, and each couple went round by itself.

Myra and I started last.

"Now we've got to win this," she said, "because we shan't play together again for a long time."

"That's a nice cheery thing to say to a person just when he's driving. Now I shall have to address the ball all over again."

"Oh, NO!"

I addressed and despatched the ball. It struck a wall about eighty yards away and dropped. When we got there we found to our disgust that it was nestling at the very foot. Myra looked at it doubtfully.

"Can't you make it climb the wall?" I asked.

"We shall have to go back, I'm afraid. We can pretend we left our pocket-handkerchiefs behind."

She chipped it back about twenty yards, and I sent it on again about a hundred. Unfortunately it landed in a rut. However Myra got it out with great resource, and I was lucky enough with my next to place it inside the magic circle.

"Five," I said. "You know, I don't think you're helping me much. All you did that hole was to go twenty-one yards in the wrong direction."

Myra smiled cheerfully at me and did the next hole in one. "Well played, partner," she said, as he put her club back in its bag.

"Oh, at the short holes I don't deny that you're useful. Where do we go now?"

"Over the barn. This is the long hole."

I got in an excellent drive, but unfortunately it didn't aviate quick enough. While the intrepid spectators were still holding their breath, there was an ominous crash.

"Did you say IN the barn or OVER the barn?" I asked, as we hurried on to find the damage.

"We do play an exciting game, don't we?" said Myra.

We got into the barn and found the ball and a little glass on the floor.

"What a very small hole it made," said Myra, pointing to the broken pane. "What shall I do?"

"You'll have to go back through the hole. It's an awkward little shot."

"I don't think I could."

"No, it IS rather a difficult stroke. You want to stand well behind the ball, and—however, there may be a local rule about it."

"I don't think there is or I should have heard it. Samuel's been telling me EVERYTHING lately."

"Then there's only one thing for it." I pointed to the window at the other end of the barn. "Go straight on."

Myra gave a little gurgle of delight.

"But we shall have to save up our pocket-money," she said.

Her ball hit the wood in between two panes and bounded back. My next shot was just above the glass. Myra took a niblick and got the ball back into the middle of the floor.

"It's simply sickening that we can't break a window when we're really trying to. I should have thought that anyone could have broken a window. Now then."

"Oh, good SHOT!" cried Myra above the crash. We hurried out and did the hole in nine.

At lunch, having completed eighteen holes out of the thirty-six, we were seven strokes behind the leaders, Simpson and Thomas. Simpson, according to Thomas, had been playing like a book. Golf Faults Analysed—that book, I should think.

"But I expect he'll go to pieces in the afternoon," said Thomas. He turned to a servant and added, "Mr Simpson won't have anything more."

We started our second round brilliantly; continued (after an unusual incident on the fifth tee) brilliantly; and ended up brilliantly. At the last tee we had played a hundred and thirty-seven. Myra got in a beautiful drive to within fifty yards of the circle.

"How many?" said the others, coming up excitedly.

"This is terrible," said Myra, putting her hand to her heart. "A hundred and—shall I tell them?—a—a—Oh, dear—a—hundredandthirtyeight."

"Golly," said Thomas, "you've got one for it. We did a hundred and forty."

"We did a hundred and forty-two," said Archie. "Close play at the

Oval."

"Oh," said Myra to me, "DO be careful. Oh, but no," she went on quickly, "I don't mind a bit really if we lose. It's only a game. Besides, we—"

"You forget the little pot of home-made marmalade," I said reproachfully. "Dahlia, what ARE the prizes? Because it's just possible that Myra might like the second one better than the first. In that case I should miss this."

"Go on," whispered Myra.

I went on. There was a moment's silence—and then a deep sigh from

Myra.

"How about it?" I said calmly.

Loud applause.

"Well," said Dahlia, "you and Myra make a very good couple. I suppose I must find a prize for you."

"It doesn't really matter," said Myra breathlessly, "because on the fifth tee we—we arranged about the prizes."

"We arranged to give each other one," I said, smiling at Dahlia.

Dahlia looked very hard at us.

"You DON'T mean—?"

Myra laughed happily.

"Oh," she said, "but that's just what we do."