He kept down, followed through and forebore, against all human instinct, to press the ball.
By the end of Newbern's golfing season he was able to do almost unerringly what so many of Newbern's better sort did erratically and at intervals.

And the talk of John Knox McTavish about the wealth accruing to alert caddies had proved to be not all fanciful.

In addition to the stipend earned for conventional work, there were lost balls in abundance to be salvaged and resold.
"Laddie," said John McTavish, "if I but had the lost-ball pur-r-rivilege of yon sweet courr-r-se and could insu-r-r-e deliver-r-r-y!" For the better sort of Newbern, despite conscientious warnings for which they paid John McTavish huge sums, would insist upon pressing the ball in the face of constant proof that thus treated it would slice into the rough to cuddle obscurely at the roots of tall grass.
Wilbur Cowan became a shrewd hunter and a successful merchandiser of golf balls but slightly used.

Newbern's better sort denounced the scandal of this, but bought of him clandestinely, for even in that far day, when golf balls in price were yet within reach of the common people, few of them liked to buy a new ball and watch it vanish forever after one brilliant drive that would have taken it far down the fairway except for the unaccountable slice.
* * * * * On the whole his season was more profitable than that of the year before, when he had nursed the truck of Trimble Cushman through the traffic jams of River Street, and he was learning more about the world of men if less about gas engines.

Especially did the new sport put him into closer contact with old Sharon Whipple.