The Englishman was hopping from one side of the court to the other, in the air, it seemed, fully as much as he was on the ground. Disbrow out of a court and Disbrow in a court were two wholly different personalities. The Meadow-Brook Girls began to understand why he was a champion. They revised their earlier opinions about his being delicate and slow. His movements when occasion required were lightning-like in their rapidity, then with a languid movement of his racquet he would drop the ball just over the net, many feet from where Charlie and Captain George were waiting to receive it. Wherever they were not, there went the tennis ball. The Englishman outplayed them at every point.
The girls became so excited over the game that they simply could not keep still. They applauded till their hands stung and smarted, they shouted until their voices grew husky. They had never seen the like of this, and now that they had begun to understand the game of tennis, they were able to appreciate many of the fine plays. It was the grace and ease of the player at all times that aroused their wonder. He appeared to work without the slightest effort, even with the handicap of a foot that would not bear his weight. The tennis ball, too, seemed endowed with reasoning powers, it seemed to change its course after leaving the racquet of the server when an opponent got in the way. This they could not understand, neither could the other spectators, for they had never seen anything like it in all their experience.
“Game!” announced the Englishman. “Keep right on playing. We will go through the set. See to it that you don’t loaf. Play tennis; don’t stand there and watch me serve. Show the young ladies that you at least know how to play the game.”
George flushed.
“Of course I know how. They know that without my showing them. But what can you expect a couple of amateurs to do against the champion of all England and half the United States of America? Charlie, watch yourself,” he added in a whisper. “We’ve got to win at least one game of the set from P. E. for the sake of our reputation with the girls.”
“We’ll be a heap better players than we are now before we win anything from him. There’s something about his serving that I can’t understand, some magic that we don’t know about.”
“The magic of skill, that’s all, Charlie. Play.”
The ball came back as before. This set told nearly the same story as the first, Disbrow winning all the points up to the last game of the set. The first game had been a love game, meaning that Disbrow had won all the points. On the fifth game of the second set, George made a point on his opponent because Disbrow had missed his footing on the soft ground of the court.
The girls were delighted. Somehow they did not like the idea of seeing the Tramp Boys wholly defeated, though they knew well that the point would not have been scored for the boys, had the champion been playing on a hard court.
That was the last and only point won by George and Charlie in that set. In the last game of the set, Disbrow, apparently having become warmed up, threw himself into the work with utter abandon, this time playing faster than he had at any time before that. His right arm, the sleeve rolled nearly to the shoulder, grew rosy from the rapid exercise, his ordinarily pale face showed a delicate flush and his eyes sparkled with excitement, even though his opponents were not worthy of the name.