LAWNLESS TENNIS
Lawnless Tennis
Lawn tennis is not generally regarded as a sport of a violent nature. We make this statement without fear of contradiction or controversy. There is little likelihood of our finer feelings ever being harrowed by accounts of the brutalities of tennis. Editors of newspapers are in no danger of being besieged with letters from "Constant Reader" and "Pro Bono Publico" demanding why the police don't interfere in championship tennis matches and bind the participants over to keep the peace.
No, tennis is not usually a violent or brutal sport. In fact, it is frequently associated in the popular mind with weak tea and girls and beg-pardons and curates and other evidences of the amenities of life. Rough persons who play lacrosse or football are apt to class tennis with tiddlywinks or casino.
We had some such idea ourself before we took it up. We could see ourself treading daintily across a verdant lawn and popping a nice white ball, covered in wool so it wouldn't hurt anyone, over a nice white net to a nice white young lady on the other side. If we should have the misfortune to put it in a place where she couldn't pop it back to us, we would apologize in a profuse and genteel manner, and then would go blushingly to the other side of the court and pop it over again.
Somehow or other the picture did not at first appeal to us. Was thy servant a bank-clerk that he should do this thing? And yet we needed exercise, gentle exercise. Not that we were getting fat—we are not of a stout habit—but we could feel our arteries hardening from day to day, and rheumatism working slowly but surely into many of our most useful joints.
We decided to do something to arrest the progress of senile decay—something easy and pleasant. Besides, we knew a fellow who belonged to a tennis club, and he insisted on us joining it. We succumbed at last, but it was a long time before we admitted as much to our newspaper associates. One is so apt to be misunderstood.
The first day we went up to the tennis club Harry accompanied us. Harry was a nice chap who wore glasses and spoke grammatically, and we felt we were in safe hands. He was also very fond of music, and we had some dim notion that perhaps he played the mandolin and sang in the shade between "sets." We made up our mind that we wouldn't sing ourself, no matter how much the company insisted. The way we came to know what a "set" meant, was that we had been preparing ourself by reading several volumes on the history and practice of the game, with short biographies of about a hundred champions. We had decided to become one.
The first shock came in the club-house when we were taken into the locker-mom. It was just like the locker-room of any athletic club. Wire lockers were ranged along the walls, and the benches were of somewhat battered wood. Somehow we had expected silk curtains and cushions and natty little bows of pink ribbon.
On the benches a number of gentlemen in various stages of dishabille, and with varying claims to manly beauty, were getting into or out of tennis clothes. When they didn't like their own clothes, they took some out of someone else's locker—just like the pirates who occupy their leisure with rougher games. If Harry had not been there we would have felt sure we had got into the wrong place.