"Yes, me! How the deuce can I concentrate, with people babbling about
liver-pads, and--and knickerbockers all round me? Keep them away!"
He started to address his ball, and there was a weak uncertainty in the
way he did it that prepared me for what was to come. His club rose,
wavered, fell; and the ball, badly topped, trickled two feet and sank
into a cuppy lie.
"Is that good or bad?" inquired Mrs. Luella Mainprice Jopp.
A sort of desperate hope gleamed in the eye of the other competitor in
the final. He swung with renewed vigour. His ball sang through the air,
and lay within chip-shot distance of the green.
"At the very least," said Mrs. Agnes Parsons Jopp, "I hope, Vincent,
that you are wearing flannel next your skin."
I heard Jopp give a stifled groan as he took his spoon from the bag. He
made a gallant effort to retrieve the lost ground, but the ball struck
a stone and bounded away into the long grass to the side of the green.
His opponent won the hole.
We moved to the second tee.
"Now, that young man," said Mrs. Jane Jukes Jopp, indicating her late
husband's blushing antagonist, "is quite right to wear knickerbockers.
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