One of the great charms of playing in various tournaments is the means it affords of visiting all the different towns and countries. It may involve considerable travelling and expense, but the touring abroad is both an education and a delight. Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Homburg, Baden-Baden and Dinard, all bring the pleasantest reminiscences. Many of us have travelled about together, which is the jolliest way of doing the tournaments. I remember one most enjoyable trip, when Miss Lowther motored the Hillyards and myself through Germany—an ideal way of "doing" tournaments! The place at which a meeting is held, its surroundings, also the facilities it offers for amusement in the evening after your day's tennis is over, add to the enjoyment and make a material difference. It will always be one of my chief delights, in thinking of my tennis career, to remember the hospitality and many courtesies I have everywhere received, and the many friends I have made, who I trust will remain friends long after my tennis is a thing of the past.
It is extraordinary how naïve the general public sometimes are. People will watch first-class tennis, sitting for hours together perhaps in great discomfort, and yet display a lamentable want of knowledge about the game. In fact, to many its object is a mystery! This seems hardly possible, but it is quite true. I once overheard a lady who was watching a match in the centre court at Wimbledon remark, "There, that's the very first time that man has hit the net with the ball, and he has had hundreds of tries!" I thought the man mentioned must be playing pretty good tennis! One really wonders why these onlookers spend so much time round a court, or where the pleasure can come in for them.
At a garden party not so very long ago where tennis was on the programme, the visitors, arriving on the court, found one solitary ball, tied round with a long piece of string, the other end being attached to the net. To a natural inquiry the hostess replied, "Oh, they lost so many balls in the shrubbery last year, I really couldn't afford it, and thought of this plan. It has been most successful. This ball has lasted for ages!" Another lady at Eastbourne, whom I had noticed because she never left her seat, bringing her lunch with her so as not to lose a moment's play, asked me at the end of the week, while watching a double, whether the partners were side by side or opposite, as in bridge!
One of the most rooted mistakes in the public mind is that the first-class player is a professional. Many times people have said to me, "You must be making quite a nice bit of pocket-money from your tennis." "Making?" I say. "Spending, you mean!"—which always makes them stare in amazement. This fallacy annoys me very much, and is, I find, very common. Let me take the opportunity here of pointing out that there are no professional lawn tennis players excepting a few coaches at Queen's Club, London, and at some of the clubs abroad; these men, of course, cannot compete in open tournaments.