“Mr. Grace is a crack player, and I’m not,” said Slade; “but I asked no favors of him on that account, and I don’t expect him to ask any of me.”
“I haven’t asked any of you!” roared Grace, now wholly exasperated with anger and pain, “and you’ll wait some time before I do. Go on with the game.”
The ankle grew worse, but Grace’s playing improved, notwithstanding. He felt that he would rather beat “that Slade man” than the champion himself; and he won each of his serves, not one of the balls being returned.
They were now “five all,” and the expressed excitement was uproarious in its bitterness and intensity.
Slade had the serve, and it was with a look of perfect self-satisfaction that he pounded the first ball across the net. Grace returned it, and the others that followed brought the score up to ’vantage in Slade’s favor, so that he only needed one more point to win.
The people stood up in breathless silence. Grace limped into position and waited, Slade bit his under lip nervously, and served the ball easily, and his opponent sent it back to him like an arrow; it struck within a foot of the serving line on the inside, making the score “deuce.”
“Outside! Game and set in favor of Mr. Slade,” chanted the younger Slade with an exultant cry.
“What!” shouted Grace and the two Malvernites in chorus.
But the crowd drowned their appeal in exclamations of self-congratulation and triumph.
“Did you see that ball?” demanded Grace of the referee.