The eldest of the boys laughed good-naturedly and said: “Yes, we’re here, Mr. Slade. You know we drew a bye, and so we play in the finals.”
“Well, of course you’ll play my brother and myself then. I hope the novelty of playing in the last round won’t paralyze you. If it doesn’t, we will,” he added with a short laugh. “I say, Ed,” he continued, turning to his elder brother, “here are Merton and his partner come all the way from Malvern to play in the finals. They might have saved their car-fare, don’t you think?”
The elder brother scowled at the unfortunate representatives of Malvern.
“You don’t really mean to make us stand out here in the hot sun fooling with you, do you?” he asked impatiently. “You’ll only make a spectacle of yourselves. Why don’t you drop out? We’ve beaten you often enough before, I should think, to suit you, and we want to begin the singles.”
But the Malvern youths were not to be browbeaten. They said they knew they would be defeated, but that the people at Malvern were very anxious to have them play, and had insisted on their coming up. “They wish to see what sort of a chance we have for the tri-club tournament, next week,” they explained.
“Well, we’ll show what sort of chance you have with a vengeance,” laughed one of the brothers. “But it really is hard on us.”
The two boys flushed, and one of them began hotly, “Let me tell you, Mr. Slade,”—but the other put his hand on his arm, saying, “What’s the use?” and pushed him gently toward the grounds.
The Slades went into the club-house grumbling.
“Nice lot, those home players,” soliloquized Grace. “I’ll pound the life out of them for that!”
He was still more inclined to revenge the Malvern youths later, after their defeat by the Slades,—which was not such a bad defeat after all, as they had won one of the four sets, and scored games in the others. But the Slades, with complete disregard for all rules of hospitality to say nothing of the etiquette of tennis, kept up a running comment of ridicule and criticism on their hopeful opponents’ play, and, much to Grace’s disgust, the spectators laughed and encouraged them. The visitors struggled hard, but everything was against them; they did not understand playing as a team, and though they were quick and sure-eyed enough, and their service was wonderfully strong, the partiality of the crowd “rattled” them, and the ridicule of their opponents was not likely to put them more at their ease.