as casual water: and anyone who can hole out on the piano in five or
under is a player of class. Bogey is six, and I have known even such a
capable exponent of the game as my Uncle Reginald, who is plus two on
his home links on Park Avenue, to take twenty-seven at the hole. But
on that occasion he had the misfortune to be bunkered in a photograph
of my Aunt Clara and took no fewer than eleven strokes with his
niblick to extricate himself from it.

The eighth and ninth holes are straightforward, and can be done in two
and three respectively, provided you swing easily and avoid the
canary's cage. Once trapped there, it is better to give up the hole
without further effort. It is almost impossible to get out in less
than fifty-six, and after you have taken about thirty the bird gets
visibly annoyed.




THE ALARMING SPREAD OF POETRY


To the thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the
realization that we are becoming a nation of minor poets. In the good
old days poets were for the most part confined to garrets, which they
left only for the purpose of being ejected from the offices of
magazines and papers to which they attempted to sell their wares.
Nobody ever thought of reading a book of poems unless accompanied by a
guarantee from the publisher that the author had been dead at least a
hundred years. Poetry, like wine, certain brands of cheese, and public
buildings, was rightly considered to improve with age; and no