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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, -- 1955.
CHRISTMAS STORY
THE SEASONABLE GIFT
By JOHN PUDNEY
"No.
unfortunately not, Though I thought I
saw you giving a leoson, Andrew out there in the mist?"
ROM beneath the "Is it likely you'll be needing holly-garlanded it this side of Christmas, Mr antlers of the de-
Blinch? serted club house, Blinch gazed out at De cember mist. Blinch was not дл active bore. He was a world ob- man lost in sessed with such things as economica, social services and domestic festivity. He had never been the cause of it day event. He remained passively uneventfully, per vasively a bure. A golf bore at that.
"That was business, not plea- suro, Mr Blinch. If a very sen eleman insists upon having himself .structed on a day le this, and will pay the price for
sonce
Blinch pre-
His lonely fingers drubbed the ANDREW shook himself with glass. His soul.bry mind played wholly of this world.
+ atumpy grandeur not uver the six entit hole, rc- hearsing the story he might tell felt that he was in the
of an individual who about 1
some blussed chance Mini An utidience. The only sound in
the humid void of Doverley Park Golf Kirb Christmas Eve; however, was the clock acquainting Blinch with the impossiututy of play. Ing around before the light
went
Vk
from time to time took his dark brown tea with the gods. That I was how he was intended to
feel.
of
He ruised hila eyes wistfuly towards the near-dis-ant coque try of the flag on the first green. Then thousand neales surprise pricked his being. Andrew Beliane, the Club Pro- fessional, wos out there giving a lesson. A lesson on Christ- mas Eve?
Mr
"And I might mention, Blinch, that my task is not mado any caster by members bailing me from the club house."
Andrew shook moisture from his cap-that heather-coloured fantasy of tweed which belltted only n delty of the Game, He turned away majestically.
"But," cried Blinch, "I couldn't for the life of me séc any pupil."
Tho scowl of Andrew ..Beltane. close to, Wis In я
sirunge way benign.
"Then
perhaps you haven't yot the
gift of really seeing. Mr Blinch,
YET it certainly was Andrew, A gift of the gods, that is, for
such a one as yourself....'
shaggy as ever in his polt of tweed, ignoring the mist, de- monourgung with a wooden Bilnch was left alone with concentrating 89 usual this thought. Suppose his eyes upon the left arm swing.
hod, in fact, deceived hiin? Suppose he was doomed to be Bllach coulă imagine every unable to follow the enigmatic word of his discourse, talking vagaries of tho bail which
the pupil momentarily so embodied so much of his hap- momentarily-inio
the
pincast
conviction Usat he could play golf with the gods. But wherO
Who the
At all costs, he must arrange pupi17 Stare DIST ha might, a game for the morrow, even if Blinch could only see the squat it were Christmas Day, when so furry figure of
Andrew in all many members wero prevc- wide green invitation of the cupled. He must prove to his
Blinch so
far forgot own satisfaction that his eyes himself as to come
out on the did not deceive him. He would verandah to wave and even to play a steady game, a little less whistle,
than his best perhaps.
Suff- ciently good to be worth dis- cussing afterwards, to be rt-
course
Andrew Beltane glanced up, and even
at that distance his tailed in his favourite comer of scowl conveyed message
of the lounge hole by hole with awesome disapproval of the the corroboration of a partner Interruption. Then talking, within halling distance. A
pointing out features of the partner? course, pausing from time to time to demonstrate a swing, he walked solitarily out of sight round a bluff.
Blinch stepped back into the
club house. There were no wit- H
telephoned Hatterly, nesses. None but the garlanded
Smythe and even Jones, the amlere to whom he could appeal undertaker, who did not mind a to substantiate what he had me in, the afternoons when seen. Had he seen It? Blinch re-
there were no funerals. He was garded himself as a Densible philosophical-because he had man, moderate in his
been a bore for a long tim..... temperate in his habits. His
our about the excuses of them all. sult of happiness, day by day, ay Doverley Park WLS. he believed, a healthy quest.
He returned to his vigil by the windows in the club house and for twenty minutes watched
Then his words began to fall patiently, like rain.
They played off together on Christmas Day. They played, both of them, steady games. They were well matched, Bunch talked and the stranger listened. all right, Indeed they Blinch found that his eyes were servod him so well that he was soon able to catch up with his hap- piness. And how his putting im provedi Ho always referred to it afterwards not as Christmas Day but as the day his putting Improved.
The stranger, it seemed, would be staying in the neighbour-
hocd for some time, Blinch felt that i would be impolite to fox him for details of his visit, and the stronger volunteered none. Blinch suggested that they might sit around, later on when they came in, and have a good chat. The stranger agreed so readily that Blinch, as they sauntered through the mist, treated him to the story of his win in the 1980 Competition.
It was while he was in the middle of this that one of the members who had come in for A Christmas drink, went to burrow the Secretary's field- Flames.
"Something most odd about Blinch. Come and have a look."
WGS
THE feld-glasses passed from hand to hand. There was no doubt about 11. Bilnch telling one of his better-known stories.
He was also facing up to his ball with a deliberation (or opponents he respected, Yet he was, with- out a shadow of a doubt, alone. "I can tell from here that it's that story, about his win in the 1939 Competition."
"Even without the glasses, I can see that Blinch is making a very
keen game of it Ho fever plays like that unless ho is happy."
Andrew
Bellane, wheeling his bike Crusa the gravel below, paused and regarded the distant figure of Blinch with satisfaction. "He's doing fine," he murmurod half to the privato audience of his thoughts, half to the occupants
of
the verandah. "I reckon that's the perfect gift...."
But he rode off before any- one could challenge his cryptic comment,
ロー
Nobody spoke as Blinch proached, voluble with anéc- Cote, after sinking a long putt with masterly, skili on the last green. They stood aside to let him through into the club house, They nodded their em- barras ment to his cheery "Merry Christmas, people. A splendid round!"
hilarity after that. From time They failed in their routing to time, one of them would tip. Hla imagination, he hoped, the mist, resolving that, is a
Loo towards Blinch's special never got the better of his Judg. last resort, he might pay the where he was wont to herd his corner, behind the screen ment. He exercised it reasonably prescribed fee and hire the com- victims. Each time in describing to fellow-members pany of Andrew Beltane for a
the report the ups and downs of games he
came back that Blinch was still hed played. He never let it over- drubbing upon the glass again
round. His fingers were talking. step the mark. He was
personable stranger
angry when the
because anger waa the only dressed him.
weapon with which ho could
combat the inexplicable.
Beltane. that keenly. There
The fellow. moved respect-, Either his eyes had deceived fully and spoke of the Game him or Andrew
the Com- WEA nothing TN the New Year, oracular dwarf, that custodian of wrong with this fellow, for his mittee passed a resolution ethics, that ultimate judge of first words were: "I was won which, alas for the students of human performance, had gone dering, Sir, whether you would golf history, was considered to off his head.
care to play a few boics during be too eccentric to be recorded the
in the minutes. The gist of holiday period. I think," he
on
added, with the optimism of was that Blinch's now friend wes elected an Honorary Mem- the Really Keen, "the weather ber of Doverley Park Golf will bold."
It
wag,
Club.
was in inspired decision, CHOULD ho · call
"I was considering going out, applauded to this day. Nearly the Secretary, or telephone the certainly," Bunch said, swallow- Chairman of the Committee, or Ing hard, looking stern in cruce every afternoon, Blinch meets his friend for a game. Nearly to conceal his eagerness perhaps worn the Steward? Skilled though he was in the well-
every evening, he moves into "Can't offer
Д you
very his founded-complaint, the nicely
corner beside the empty sparkling game, timed protest, by which his name fellow
Sir..." The chair. He hidden by the shifted his hed become dreaded by all these
feet in screen which the Committer, officials, Blinch wisat
exactly the right gesture of for the greater comfort of the Suppose Andrew was snug in
Honorary Member, erused to the professional's shop, browing
discreetly more his dark brown tea, conning the
across the corner than it had subtleties of a new wooden club? Blinch had always taken a
a loss, modesty.
bo drawn
bean formerly.
The strangement is the only remarkable feature of Doverley
Arm line on vistons. He pulled 66NEVER mind, Blinch said, Park. To visitors, the sollars himself together, uought of an
"Game's the thing. As I figure of Blinch is pointed out EXCUDO shout a new strap was saying to Bellano-you a natural hozard. Already for his bag and
hastened know, he's our pro here
www many of the members have 21- through the shrubberies. Andrew
mont
prodigiosa. WOE not in his den, That "Hda a lesson with him his sollevements a a boro westled it. Bilngh gratefully put moming, is n matter of fact. And, "loat Blinch's wift should behind him thougris of Ran over the wooden clubs tos, fagor adalters; that cunning. zhagio, and returned,, humming gether. doon, Bir, you were oki troll Androwy Beltane odm loud unul he met Bellane, saying,
Soellyfi gives, ni brint "losuch outside the club house.
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