married man, near the fifty-year mark, and he is extremely nervous and
even irritable when any one approaches his ball.

"Don't touch it!" shouted Pepper, now on a dead run. "You'll make me
lose the hole! Don't you know the make of the ball you're playing? Mine
is a Kempshall remade."

"Oh, this is not my ball," frankly declared Miss Dangerfield. "My ball
is over there, but I thought this was one which had been lost."

"I pitched it out of that trap a moment ago," insisted Pepper, "and did
not take my eyes off it."

"I am sure I do not want it if it is yours!" haughtily declared Miss
Dangerfield, turning indignantly away.

"Thank you," said Pepper, politely as he knows how, and we went on our
way leaving him to recover his composure as best he could. I looked back
and noted that he fumbled his next shot.

"If I thought as much as that of a mere golf ball I would never play
the game," pouted Miss Dangerfield. "I think he is horrid, and I shall
never speak to him again!"

"If he had lost the ball he would have lost the hole," I explained,
anxious to extenuate Pepper's offense as much as possible.

"Suppose he did lose the old hole!" exclaimed the wronged young lady.
"What does it amount to if you lose one insignificant hole when there
are eighteen in all?"