I then got a fast ball over to Wilbrooke, but returning it was child's play to him, and he drove it like lightning down the centre-line before I had time to call "Leave it to you, partner."
Thirty-all.
Again I served Pattie a fault. At the second attempt the ball performed Blondin tricks on the wire of the net, and for one of those "moments big as years" I feared we had lost the game, the service to Wilbrooke being a mere formality; but fortunately the ball fell the other side of the net, and my third delivery Pattie tipped to the wicket-keeper.
Forty-thirty.
I now determined to send two—if necessary—fast ones to Wilbrooke on the chance that one might shoot and be unplayable. But my first ball went into the net, and the locale of the second can only be dimly surmised, for it went over the fence into the open country.
Deuce.
It was at this point that I began to realize that so long as I did not serve a double-fault to Pattie, Wilbrooke could never win the game, and when we had played nine more deuces I communicated the intelligence to Joan. Meanwhile, the other sets had all finished, and the players came up to see why we were still hard at it. At the twenty-fourth deuce the Tournament secretary remarked: "Last game, I suppose? Hurry up, we can't get on." I explained to him that this was only the first game of the set, and that similar prolongations were likely to recur when my partner served in the third game and I again in the fifth.
The news spread rapidly, and for a time we were the most unpopular quartet in the Club; but by the time we had reached our eighty-third deuce, and luncheon (the gift of Lady Boggles) was served, hunger and anger began to abate simultaneously, and the situation was discussed with humour to the exclusion of all other topics. At the end of the morning's play I was certainly feeling a trifle done up, but it says much for the recuperative properties of chicken galantine and junket that after the interval I felt quite invigorated and good for service ad infinitum. Efforts were made to induce us to toss for the set, but neither of us would consent to this, Wilbrooke maintaining that under normal conditions I could not possibly win the game, and I arguing that under existing conditions—with which I was more intimately concerned—I could not possibly lose it, and therefore to toss would be a mockery. Thus there was no alternative but to play on.
I suggested to Joan that as her presence on the court was not strictly essential she should join in a friendly set with some of the other unemployed. But she would not hear of it. She wanted to be in at the finish, if there was ever going to be a finish, she said; and so we continued.
When we were summoned to tea (kindly provided gratis by Miss Vera Boogles) we had amassed 265 deuces, and though my right arm ached and my service was a trifle wobbly I was still scoring the vantage point (and losing it at once) with the utmost regularity. But the temporary cessation of hostilities, associated with about half-a-pound of Swiss roll and three Chelsea buns, served to restore me, and after tea we went at it again until half-past seven, when, with the score at 394 deuces, the net got tired and collapsed, and we adjourned.