'The Clicking of Cuthbert' Summary

The Clicking of Cuthbert

The Oldest Member (of a golf club with varying names) sees a young man giving up his clubs because he thinks golf is waste of time. To show the young man that playing golf can be useful, the Oldest Member tells him the following story about Cuthbert Banks.

In the suburb of Wood Hills, there is a divide between the Cultured, the intellectuals of the Wood Hills Literary and Debating Society, and the Golfers, the members of the local golf club. Mrs Emily Smethurst, president of the literary society, wants the neighbourhood to be cultured and disapproves of the golf club. The society's meeting place is near the golf course, and their sudden applause during a novelist's lecture causes golfer J. Cuthbert Banks to accidentally hit his ball into the room onto a table. He apologetically comes in to play the ball where it lies, and falls in love with Mrs Smethurst's niece, Adeline. He eventually proposes to her but she turns him down, since she is ambitious and, feeling she is too ordinary herself to be noteworthy, wants to marry someone noteworthy. Cuthbert is a skilled golfer and won the French Open Championship the previous year, but Adeline does not consider this a noteworthy achievement. She admires Raymond Parsloe Devine, the novelist who gave the lecture. Cuthbert joins the society to please Adeline, but she continues to adore Devine.

Vladimir Brusiloff, a famous Russian writer of dreary novels, is in the country on a lecturing tour and comes to Wood Hills, to the delight of Mrs Smethurst and her society. Brusiloff, tired of giving lectures and meeting aspiring writers, is in a bad mood when Mrs Smethurst introduces him to Devine. Devine says he was greatly influenced by Russian writers named Sovietski and Nastikoff, but Brusiloff coldly remarks that they are no good. Devine's prestige in the literary society is immediately shattered and he slinks away. Adeline loses all her respect for him. Brusiloff mentions that he wants to meet the golfers Abe Mitchell and Harry Vardon. (Walter Hagen and Jock Hutchison in the US version of the story.) Cuthbert mentions that he knows them. Brusiloff recognizes Cuthbert's name and is honoured to meet him, since he won the French Open. Adeline now admires Cuthbert. She marries him and becomes a fan of golf. Devine had to leave the neighbourhood and is now writing scenarios for films in California.

As the Oldest Member is finishing the story, his listener rushes out to get back his clubs.