ON ACTIVE SERVICE.
Every August Bank Holiday we have a short Mixed Open Tournament at our lawn-tennis club. It's quite a small, homely affair, but as our President, Sir Benjamin Boogles, always offers two valuable prizes (hall-marked), every member who can possibly enter does so. Each year hitherto the Tournament has been finished in the one day; but this year it is not finished yet—in fact, in one instance the first game of the first set is still undecided, and the winners in the other sets are anxiously awaiting the result in order that the second round may proceed before the end of the season. As I am one of the actors—I might almost say the protagonist—in this protracted drama, I will explain the position.
Wilbrooke, our crack player, who can easily give most of us forty and a bonus of five games in the set, and still beat us, recently became engaged to Pattie Blobson, who is a hopeless rabbit at the game, this being her first season. Not unnaturally she insisted on his entering the Tournament with her. I always enter with Joan, and though we are neither of us exactly rabbits it would be rather hard to find a zoological term that would fittingly describe our standard of play. Of course there is no handicapping in "Opens," and Joan and I usually reckon to be knocked out in the second round at latest, though we did once get into the third round owing to one of our opponents, a doctor, being summoned to a case in the middle of play.
Now this year we both thought our tennis would be over for the day after the first quarter of an hour, as we were drawn to play our first round against Wilbrooke and Pattie. However, I won the toss, and to that fact the subsequent impasse may be attributed. I elected to serve first, leaving Wilbrooke the choice of sides. The sun was not shining, so there was little in it from the point of view of light; but the east end of the court is just a trifle higher than the other, so he chose that.
I served first, and though I never peg them in to rabbits, I felt justified in sending down a medium-paced ball in my partner's interests. It pitched correctly, broke (unintentionally) and buried itself in Pattie's skirt.
Fifteen-love.
I banged my first ball to Wilbrooke with all my might. It fell within the Club precincts, but that's the best I can urge for it. My second was an easy lob, which he smashed, and, in spite of my efforts to give it a clear path, it caught me in the small of the back.
Fifteen-all.
My next serve to Pattie was a fault, which I followed up with an ordinary "donkey" drop, towards which she rushed in the impetuous fashion characteristic of the genuine rabbit, with the result that it bounced scathless over her head.
Thirty-fifteen.