“Oh, tell them and be done with it. For goodness’ sake, quit circumnavigating the globe,” scoffed Davy. “I could walk to town and back while you are saying ‘No, thank you.’ Speak up.”
“And you haven’t guessed yet?” questioned George.
“We are more in the dark than when you began,” replied Harriet. “Who is to play on your team?”
“Why, you are, of course. The Meadow-Brook Girls are our team. You are the players who are going to win the tennis championship for the coast, and you’re going to put all the others so far back of the lines that they won’t be able to find themselves for the rest of the summer. Now, what do you think of that?”
“What?” Harriet sat up very straight, looking George Baker squarely in the eyes. “Why, Mr. Baker, none of us has ever played a game of tennis in her life.”
CHAPTER V
THE TRAMP CLUB RECEIVES A SHOCK
“Quit joking. I mean what I say,” commanded Captain Baker somewhat testily. “Of course I know you girls play tennis as well as you do everything else. Knowing this, I hadn’t the least hesitancy in entering you for the tournament. I told Jack Herrington all about you. He insisted on my making the entry right there and then. You see, he had heard of the Meadow-Brook Girls. He knew almost as much about their accomplishments as I did myself. He said that was just the kind of entries they wished for the Atlantic Coast Tennis Tournament. I was mighty glad he said that, for I really wanted you girls to go in and win the cup, so I made the entry in Miss Harriet’s name per George Baker as representative. There are girl teams entered from all along the coast and they are cracker-jacks, too, but they aren’t in the same class with you girls, either in tennis or anything else. Now, isn’t that great?” Captain George’s face was flushed and his eyes were sparkling.
“Great?” answered Harriet slowly. “I told you none of us ever had played a game of tennis in her life, and I meant it. Some of us have knocked the ball about a little with the racquets, but not one of us ever has played a game. Why, we know absolutely nothing about tennis.”
“What? You—you mean to say—you mean you are in earnest—you aren’t joking with me?”
“I was never more serious in my life, George,” replied Harriet gravely.