It was a melancholy exhibition, that scratch match; all the more melancholy that the other courts gradually emptied and a ring of Juniors formed, who stared silently now at the players, then round at Pontifex, and wondered what on earth he found to interest him in a miserable show like this. For our heroes mulled everything. Two faults were not enough for them; the holes in their rackets were legion, and their legs never went the way they wanted. The Den blushed as it looked on and heard Ponty call, game after game, “Love—forty.”
Of course the two wretched boys were scared—Ponty knew that well enough—but so were Cazenove and Wade. And yet Cazenove and Wade managed to keep their wind and get over their net, and no one could say they had less to be scared at than their opponents.
At length the doleful spectacle was over. “One—six” was the score in games.
“You must be proud of your one game,” said Ponty, strolling off.
Our heroes watched him go, and felt they were hard hit. It was no use pretending not to understand the captain’s meaning, or not to notice the still lingering blushes of the spectators on their account.
So they withdrew sadly from the field of battle, chastened in spirit, yet not without a dawning ambition to make Ponty change his mind concerning them before the term was quite run out.