The Enchanted Typewriter

by John Kendrick Bangs

  X. GOLF IN HADES

  "Jim," said I to Boswell one morning as the type-writer began to work,"perhaps you can enlighten me on a point concerning which a great manypeople have questioned me recently. Has golf taken hold of Hades yet?You referred to it some time ago, and I've been wondering ever since ifit had become a fad with you."

  "Has it?" laughed my visitor; "well, I should rather say it had. Thefact is, it has been a great boon to the country. You remember mytelling you of the projected revolution led by Cromwell, and Caesar, andthe others?"

  "I do, very well," said I, "and I have been intending to ask you how itcame out."

  "Oh, everything's as fine and sweet as can be now," rejoined Boswell,somewhat gleefully, "and all because of golf. We are all quiet along theStyx now. All animosities are buried in the general love of golf, andevery one of us, high or low, autocrat and revolutionist, is hobnobbingaway in peace and happiness on the links. Why, only six weeks ago,Apollyon was for cooking Bonaparte on a waffle iron, and yesterdaythe two went out to the Cimmerian links together and played a mixedfoursome, Bonaparte and Medusa playing against Apollyon and Delilah."

  "Dear me! Really?" I cried. "That must have been an interesting match."

  "It was, and up to the very last it was nip-and-tuck between 'em," saidBoswell. "Apollyon and Delilah won it with one hole up, and they gotthat on the put. They'd have halved the hole if Medusa's back hairhadn't wiggled loose and bitten her caddie just as she was holeing out."

  "It is a remarkable game," said I. "There is no sensation in the worldquite equal to that which comes to a man's soul when he has hit the balla solid clip and sees it sail off through the air towards the green,whizzing musically along like a very bird."

  "True," said Boswell; "but I'm rather of the opinion that it's a safergame for shades than for you purely material persons."

  "I don't see why," I answered.

  "It is easy to understand," returned Boswell. "For instance, with usthere is no resistance when by a mischance we come into unexpectedcontact with the ball. Take the experience of Diogenes and Solomon atthe St. Jonah's Links week before last. The Wiseman's Handicap wason. Diogenes and Simple Simon were playing just ahead of Solomon andMontaigne. Solomon was driving in great form. For the first time in hislife he seemed able to keep his eye on the ball, and the way he sent itflying through the air was a caution. Diogenes and Simple Simon had bothhad their second stroke and Solomon drove off. His ball sailed straightahead like a missile from a catapult, flew in a bee-line for Diogenes,struck him at the base of his brain, continued on through, and landed onthe edge of the green."

  "Mercy!" I cried. "Didn't it kill him?"

  "Of course not," retorted Boswell. "You can't kill a shade. Diogenesdidn't know he'd been hit, but if that had happened to one of youmaterial golfers there'd have been a sickening end to that tournament."

  "There would, indeed," said I. "There isn't much fun in being hit by agolf-ball. I can testify to that because I have had the experience," andI called to mind the day at St. Peterkin's when I unconsciously stymiedwith my material self the celebrated Willie McGuffin, the Demon Driverfrom the Hootmon Links, Scotland. McGuffin made his mark that day if henever did before, and I bear the evidence thereof even now, although theincident took place two years ago, when I did not know enough to keepout of the way of the player who plays so well that he thinks he has aperpetual right of way everywhere.

  "What kind of clubs do you Stygians use?" I asked.

  "Oh, very much the same kind that you chaps do," returned Boswell."Everybody experiments with new fads, too, just as you do. Old PeterStuyvesant, for instance, always drives with his wooden leg, and neveruses anything else unless he gets a lie where he's got to."

  "His wooden leg?" I roared, with a laugh. "How on earth does he dothat?"

  "He screws the small end of it into a square block shod like a brassey,"explained Boswell, "tees up his ball, goes back ten yards, makes a runat it and kicks the ball pretty nearly out of sight. He can put with ittoo, like a dream, swinging it sideways."

  "But he doesn't call that golf, does he?" I cried.

  "What is it?" demanded Boswell.

  "I should call it football," I said.

  "Not at all," said Boswell. "Not a bit of it. He hasn't any foot on thatleg, and he has a golf-club head with a shaft to it. There isn't anyrule which says that the shaft shall not look like an inverted nine-pin,nor do any of the accepted authorities require that the club shall bemanipulated by the arms. I admit it's bad form the way he plays, but, asStuyvesant himself says, he never did travel on his shape."

  "Suppose he gets a cuppy lie?" I asked, very much interested at thefirst news from Hades of the famous old Dutchman.

  "Oh, he does one of two things," said Boswell. "He stubs it out with histoe, or goes back and plays two more. Munchausen plays a good game too.He beat the colonel forty-seven straight holes last Wednesday, and allHades has been talking about it ever since."

  "Who is the colonel?" I asked, innocently.

  "Bogey," returned Boswell. "Didn't you ever hear of Colonel Bogey?"

  "Of course," I replied, "but I always supposed Bogey was an imaginaryopponent, not a real one."

  "So he is," said Boswell.

  "Then you mean--"

  "I mean that Munchausen beat him forty-seven up," said Boswell.

  "Were there any witnesses?" I demanded, for I had little faith inMunchausen's regard for the eternal verities, among which a golf-cardmust be numbered if the game is to survive.

  "Yes, a hundred," said Boswell. "There was only one trouble with 'em."Here the great biographer laughed. "They were all imaginary, like thecolonel."

  "And Munchausen's score?" I queried.

  "The same, naturally. But it makes him king-pin in golf circles justthe same, because nobody can go back on his logic," said Boswell."Munchausen reasoned it out very logically indeed, and largely, he said,to protect his own reputation. Here is an imaginary warrior, said he,who makes a bully, but wholly imaginary, score at golf. He sends me animaginary challenge to play him forty-seven holes. I accept, not so muchbecause I consider myself a golfer as because I am an imaginer--if thereis such a word."

  "Ask Dr. Johnson," said I, a little sarcastically. I always growsarcastic when golf is mentioned.

  "Dr. Johnson be--" began Boswell.

  "Boswell!" I remonstrated.

  "Dr. Johnson be it, I was about to say," clicked the type-writer,suavely; but the ink was thick and inclined to spread. "Munchausenfelt that Bogey was encroaching on his preserve as a man with animagination."

  "I have always considered Colonel Bogey a liar," said I. "He joinsall the clubs and puts up an ideal score before he has played over thelinks."

  "That isn't the point at all," said Boswell. "Golfers don't lie.Realists don't lie. Nobody in polite--or say, rather, accepted--societylies. They all imagine. Munchausen realizes that he has only one claimto recognition, and that is based entirely upon his imagination. So whenthe imaginary Colonel Bogey sent him an imaginary challenge to play himforty-seven holes at golf--"

  "Why forty-seven?" I asked.

  "An imaginary number," explained Boswell. "Don't interrupt. As I say,when the imaginary colonel--"

  "I must interrupt," said I. "What was he colonel of?"

  "A regiment of perfect caddies," said Boswell.

  "Ah, I see," I replied. "Imaginary in his command. There isn't oneperfect caddy, much less a regiment of the little reprobates."

  "You are wrong there," said Boswell. "You don't know how to produce agood caddy--but good caddies can be made."

  "How?" I cried, for I have suffered. "I'll have the plan patented."

  "Take a flexible brassey, and at the ninth hole, if they deserve it,give them eighteen strokes across the legs with all your strength," saidBoswell. "But, as I said before, don't interrupt. I haven't much timeleft to talk with you."

  "But I must ask one more question," I put in, for I was growing excitedover a new idea. "You say give t
hem eighteen strokes across the legs.Across whose legs?"

  "Yours," replied Boswell. "Just take your caddy up, place him acrossyour knees, and spank him with your brassey. Spank isn't a good golfterm, but it is good enough for the average caddy; in fact, it will dohim good."

  "Go on," said I, with a mental resolve to adopt his prescription.

  "Well," said Boswell, "Munchausen, having received an imaginarychallenge from an imaginary opponent, accepted. He went out to thelinks with an imaginary ball, an imaginary bagful of fanciful clubs, andlicked the imaginary life out of the colonel."

  "Still, I don't see," said I, somewhat jealously, perhaps, "how thatmakes him king-pin in golf circles. Where did he play?"

  "On imaginary links," said Boswell.

  "Poh!" I ejaculated.

  "Don't sneer," said Boswell. "You know yourself that the links youimagine are far better than any others."

  "What is Munchausen's strongest point?" I asked, seeing that there wasno arguing with the man--"driving, approaching, or putting?"

  "None of the three. He cannot put, he foozles every drive, and atapproaching he's a consummate ass," said Boswell.

  "Then what can he do?" I cried.

  "Count," said Boswell. "Haven't you learned that yet? You can spendhours learning how to drive, weeks to approach, and months to put. Butif you want to win you must know how to count."

  I was silent, and for the first time in my life I realized thatMunchausen was not so very different from certain golfers I have met inmy short day as a golfiac, and then Boswell put in:

  "You see, it isn't lofting or driving that wins," he continued. "Cupsaren't won on putting or approaching. It's the man who puts in the bestcard who becomes the champion."

  "I am afraid you are right," I said, sadly, "but I am sorry to find thatHades is as badly off as we mortals in that matter."

  "Golf, sir," retorted Boswell, sententiously, "is the same everywhere,and that which is dome in our world is directly in line with what isdeveloped in yours."

  "I'm sorry for Hades," said I; "but to continue about golf--do theladies play much on your links?"

  "Well, rather," returned Boswell, "and it's rather amusing to watch themat it, too. Xanthippe with her Greek clothes finds it rather difficult;but for rare sport you ought to see Queen Elizabeth trying to keep hereye on the ball over her ruff! It really is one of the finest spectaclesyou ever saw."

  "But why don't they dress properly?"

  "Ah," sighed Boswell, "that is one of the things about Hades thatdestroys all the charm of life there. We are but shades."

  "Granted," said I, "but your garments can--"

  "Our garments can't," said Boswell. "Through all eternity we shades ofour former selves are doomed to wear the shadows of our former clothes."

  "Then what the devil does a poor dress-maker do who goes to Hades?" Icried.

  "She makes over the things she made before," said Boswell. "That's why,my dear fellow," the biographer added, becoming confidential--"that'swhy some people confound Hades with--ah--the other place, don't youknow."

  "Still, there's golf!" I said; "and that's a panacea for all ills. YOUenjoy it, don't you?"

  "Me?" cried Boswell. "Me enjoy it? Not on all the lives in Christendom.It is the direst drudgery for me."

  "Drudgery?" I said. "Bah! Nonsense, Boswell!"

  "You forget--" he began.

  "Forget? It must be you who forget, if you call golf drudgery."

  "No," sighed the genial spirit. "No, _I_ don't forget. I remember."

  "Remember what?" I demanded.

  "That I am Dr. Johnson's caddy!" was the answer. And then came aheart-rending sigh, and from that time on all was silence. I repeatedlyput questions to the machine, made observations to it, derided it,insulted it, but there was no response.

  It has so continued to this day, and I can only conclude the story of myEnchanted Type-writer by saying that I presume golf has taken the samehold upon Hades that it has upon this world, and that I need not hopeto hear more from that attractive region until the game has relaxed itsgrip, which I know can never be.

  Hence let me say to those who have been good enough to follow me throughthe realms of the Styx that I bid them an affectionate farewell andthank them for their kind attention to my chronicles. They are alltruthful; but now that the source of supply is cut off I cannot proveit. I can only hope that for one and all the future may hold as much ofpleasure as the place of departed spirits has held for me.