doin’ something jolly tedious at the Bank, but who was spiffed up as flashily as a Jew stock-jobber, what with his lavender spats, silk hatband and buttonhole big enough for bumble bees. Arbuthnot seemed only to have been waiting for the train to chug away from Paddington before he got out his flask and offered it round, saying, To spite His Majesty I’ve taken it up for the duration. And when it came to Mayhew’s humbug he did not mince his words: Give it a rest, Mayhew, ol’ man. To hear you talk you’d think you didn’t so much as enter into the swing, physically speaking — that the Holy Spirit did it all for you! Arbuthnot, his carnal countenance blue and red blended mutton turned, laughed loud — laughed longest. Now, wiping his full and saturnine lips with a snowy pocket kerchief and passing his also well-stocked bag to one of the caddies, Arbuthnot notices that Albert is still carrying only the two clubs he had with him on the train — the mashie niblick and an equally ancient spoon — takes this in, and absorbs also the désordonné of the younger man’s costume, which, in the clear May daylight, presents a brutal contrast with his own natty golfing togs: elasticated tartan stockings, pale green plus-twos that flatter his heavy thighs, and a matching windbreaker covered with an assortment of belts and straps. He says, Are those your only clubs? And when Albert admits to this, the banker goes on, Well, you’re welcome to the use of whichever of mine you please — damn it, you might rather prefer to leave those behind and simply share the bag. One does not ascend so far and so fast in the Service by taking offence — not that one becomes incapable of perceiving those utterances that, whether intentionally or not, should occasion such — but the banker means exactly what he says, and this is of a piece with his whole manner, with its easy and unforced egalitarianism, so unlike that of Mayhew, who, hearing their exchange, hastens to chip in: Why, De’Ath, I should’ve offered before — of course, you must feel free. And when Albert demurs, Thank you, sir, and thank you, Mister Arbuthnot, I’d as soon stick with these, I’m familiar with their, ah. . peculiarities, and to be frank I welcome the challenge, Mayhew presses uncomfortably: Come-come, De’Ath, I think no such formalities on the course — here we’re all golfers first and only secondly. . before becoming confused, so uncomfortable is he with saying gentlemen. Albert has some sympathy, as he appreciates the brilliance of his own personation: by no means affecting to be what he is not, while his flat, neutral accents and perfect diction no longer give any clue to the Foulham boy he once was. Don’t av any more, Missus Moore, Don’t av any more, Missus Moore . .Not so: there will be thousands more of his stamp recruited in the halls by the White-Eyed Kaffir . .Albert understands far better than his companions that war is always an opportunity. At last Mayhew manages to force out:. . civil servants, then bends to place his tee, straightens, waggles, sights to where the fairway doglegs between stately oaks, dips a knee prettily as the club’s head comes up, then swipes and digs. His ball bounces once, twice, and disappears into the rough — from wherever Mayhew’s handicap derives, Albert muses, it cannot be his drive. — Walking down the drowsy avenue from Hanwell Station, past two new villas and an old rectory of a piece with its ancient yew and oily crows, Arbuthnot and Mayhew had discussed the deposition of the national reserves, the sack after sack of gold sovereigns that had been loaded into the Bank — so many, Arbuthnot had contended, that the City constabulary had held up all the traffic on King William Street so that the motor vans, motor cars — and even drays taken on by a few of the larger local branches — might form an orderly queue. A housemaid who had been punishing a carpet in the front garden of one of the villas left off and blushed prettily as the three men strolled past. Albert saw over on the far side of the railway line the black chapel spire, redbrick chimneystacks and umber masonry towers of the County Asylum. The lunatics were probably brought in by rail or road — but why not by the Grand Junction Canal? He heard their cries lapping at the coal wharves. . lunatic women . .they were being classified now in terms of their usefulness for the effort — why not children, then, imbeciles, perhaps? After all, they’d serve quite as well as. . machine-gun fodder. The difference a year made — where would they be in three? He, Hi, gave ’er a knock, Which made the old woman go hipertihop, He, Hi, hipertihop . .Now, having observed the tussock that hides Mayhew’s ball for a decent while, Arbuthnot bends to poke in his own tee, saying, I’ve waited until now to propose my wager. The two caddies who have been taken on snigger — and the four who were not, and who sit ankles crossed in a row a few yards off, snigger also. . the sycophants of sycophants. Arbuthnot’s behind presents a billowy expanse. . barges tacking downriver under full sail . .but when he straightens he brings with him one of the new ten-shilling notes, taut between his fingers with Bradbury’s signature floating in the sky and framed by high, wispy cirrus . .I’ll either award this to the best of my companions’ rounds, he says, or pocket it for good. Mayhew makes another blunder. . he flounders, the Lusitania sucks him down . . — Don’tcha think that’s a little steep, old chap? and compounds this with a nod of the club in the direction of Albert, who quickly says, Not at all. Indeed, if you’ll oblige me, Mister Arbuthnot, may I double you? And he takes a pound note from his pocket book. — You see I have one of these new instruments of my own shrewdly withdrawn in anticipation of precisely this eventuality . .Arbuthnot vigorously assents — and Mayhew has no option but to add a pound of his own to the kitty. Arbuthnot takes up his stance, which is brutally compact. He manages the difficult feat, for such a heavyset man, of raising up his arms to the perpendicular. Albert thinks there is too much force in the drive, although club meets ball with a clean crack! so that it ascends, whistling faintly, in a steep Minniewerfer parabola, which, long before it reaches its zenith, Albert calculates will overshoot its target. A two-hundred-and-sixty-yard par 4, pinched into an hourglass by the oaks, firing over these risked the ordnance falling into a mine crater at the back of Fosse 8 — which is what happens to Arbuthnot’s ball. The safer course is to lay down covering fire in the no-man’s-land in front of the trees, then employ a mid-range iron to target the green — which is what Albert does, despite lacking both driver and suitable iron. He understands every nick and bump in his spoon, knows to several decimal points the angle of its face: once his swing has been calibrated he needs must exert no effort, only allow firing pin to meet cartridge unimpeded so that the ball hipertihops to a halt twenty yards short of the trees. Mayhew requires two strokes to clear the rough, Arbuthnot three to blast out of the bunker, the sand spraying from his hoggish delving. Advancing to his perfect lie, Albert swaps clubs, leans back into his downswing and lofts his ball over the embroidery of the oaks. A cleanly cut divot falls back to the earth and he takes his time tamping this down before waving the victorious mashie niblick overhead as he makes for the green, calling out, Sorry about that. . The two older men look on in silence as, using the flat back of the gripped-down spoon, Albert sinks the seven-yard putt. With the evidence of his companions’ frailties afforded by the 1st hole — and no more knowledge of the further seventeen other than their length and par, as detailed by the notice in the clubhouse — Albert has already played ahead. He will, he thinks, almost certainly win by thirteen strokes — fourteen if there is some radically unforeseen circumstance. En route to the 2nd tee Arbuthnot pauses to light his pipe and indicates with the match that Albert should