"I quite see your point. You feel that Nature always compensates us in some way, and that as―"
"Oh, no!" said Miss Hope in great confusion. "I didn't mean that at all."
She must have meant it. You don't talk to people about singing in the middle of a game of tennis; certainly not to comparative strangers who have only spilt lemonade over your frock once before. No, no. It was an insult, and it nerved me to a great effort. I discarded—for it was my serve—the Hampstead Smash; I discarded the Peruvian Teaser. Instead, I served two Piccadilly Benders from the right–hand court and two Westminster Welts from the left–hand. The Piccadilly Bender is my own invention. It can only be served from the one court, and it must have a wind against it. You deliver it with your back to the net, which makes the striker think that you have either forgotten all about the game, or else are apologising to the spectators for your previous exhibition. Then with a violent contortion you slue your body round and serve, whereupon your opponent perceives that you are playing, and that it is just one more ordinary fault into the wrong court. So she calls "Fault!" in a contemptuous tone and drops her racquet … and then adds hurriedly, "Oh, no, sorry, it wasn't a fault, after all." That being where the wind comes in.
The Westminster Welt is in theory the same as the Hampstead Smash, but goes over the net. One must be in very good form (or have been recently insulted) to bring this off.
Well, we won that game, a breeze having just sprung up; and, carried away by enthusiasm and mutual admiration, we collected another. (Five, two.) Then it was Miss Hope's serve again.
"Good–bye," I said; "I suppose you want me in the forefront again?"
"Please."
"I don't mind her shots—the bottle of scent is absolutely safe; but I'm afraid he'll win another packet of woodbines."
Miss Hope started off with a double, which was rather a pity, and then gave our masculine adversary what is technically called "one to kill." I saw instinctively that I was the one, and I held my racquet ready with both hands. Our opponent, who had been wanting his tea for the last two games, was in no mood of dalliance; he fairly let himself go over this shot. In a moment I was down on my knees behind the net … and the next moment I saw through the meshes a very strange thing. The other man, with his racquet on the ground, was holding his eye with both hands!
"Don't you think," said Miss Hope (two, five—abandoned) "that your overhead volleying is just a little severe?"
XXVI
Ten and Eight
The only event of importance last week was my victory over Henry by ten and eight. If you don't want to hear about that, then I shall have to pass on to you a few facts about his motor–bicycle. You'd rather have the other? I thought so.
The difference between Henry and me is that he is what I should call a good golfer, and I am what everybody else calls a bad golfer. In consequence of this he insults me with offers of bisques.
"I'll have ten this time," I said, as we walked to the tee.
"Better have twelve. I beat you with eleven yesterday."
"Thank you," I said haughtily, "I will have ten." It is true that he beat me last time, but then owing to bad management on my part I had nine bisques left at the moment of defeat simply eating their heads off.
Henry teed up and drove a "Pink Spot" out of sight. Henry swears by the "Pink Spot" if there is anything of a wind. I use either a "Quo Vadis," which is splendid for going out of bounds, or an "Ostrich," which has a wonderful way of burying itself in the sand. I followed him to the green at my leisure.
"Five," said Henry.
"Seven," said I; "and if I take three bisques it's my hole."
"You must only take one at a time," protested Henry.
"Why? There's nothing in Baedeker about it. Besides, I will only take one at a time if it makes it easier for you. I take one, and that brings me down to six, and then another one and that brings me down to five, and then another one and that brings me down to four. There! And as you did the hole in five, I win."
"Well, of course, if you like to waste them all at the start―"
"I'm not wasting them, I'm creating a moral effect. Behold, I have won the first hole; let us be photographed together."
Henry went to the next tee slightly ruffled and topped his ball into the road. I had kept mine well this side of it and won in four to five.
"I shan't take any bisques here," I said. "Two up."
At the third tee my "Quo Vadis" darted off suddenly to the left and tried to climb the hill. I headed it off and gave it a nasty dent from behind when it wasn't looking, and with my next shot started it rolling down the mountains with ever–increasing velocity. Not until it was within a foot of the pin did it condescend to stop. Henry, who had reached the green with his drive and had taken one putt too many, halved the hole in four. I took a bisque and was three up.
The fourth hole was prettily played by both of us, and with two bisques I had it absolutely stiff. Unnerved by this, Henry went all out at the fifth and tried to carry the stream in two. Unfortunately (I mean unfortunately for him) the stream was six inches too broad in the particular place at which he tried to carry it. My own view is that he should either have chosen another place or else have got a narrower stream from somewhere. As it was I won in an uneventful six, and took with a bisque the short hole which followed.
"Six up," I pointed out to Henry, "and three bisques left. They're jolly little things, bisques, but you want to use them quickly. Bisque dat qui cito dat. Doesn't the sea look ripping to–day?"
"Go on," growled Henry.
"I once did a two at this hole," I said, as I teed my ball. "If I did a two now and took a bisque, you'd have to do it in nothing in order to win. A solemn thought."
At this hole you have to drive over a chasm in the cliffs. My ball made a bee line for the beach, bounced on a rock, and disappeared into a cave. Henry's "Pink Spot," which really seemed to have a chance of winning a hole at last, found the wind too much for it and followed me below.
"I'm in this cave," I said, when we had found Henry's ball; and with a lighted match in one hand and a niblick in the other I went in and tried to persuade the "Ostrich" to come out. My eighth argument was too much for it, and we reappeared in the daylight together.
"How many?" I asked.
"Six," he said, as he hit the top of the cliff once more, and shot back on to the beach.
I left him and chivied my ball round to where the cliffs are lowest; then I got it gradually on to a little mound of sand (very delicate work, this), took a terrific swing and fairly heaved it on to the grass. Two more strokes put me on to the green in twenty. I lit a pipe and waited for Henry to finish his game of rackets.
"I've played twenty–five," he shouted.
"Then you'll want some of my bisques," I said. "I can lend you three till Monday."
Henry had one more rally and then picked his ball up. I had won seven holes and I had three bisques with which to win the match. I was a little doubtful if I could do this, but Henry settled the question by misjudging yet again the breadth of the stream. What is experience if it teaches us nothing? Henry must really try to enlarge his mind about rivers.
"Dormy nine," I said at the tenth tee, "and no bisques left."
"Thank Heaven for that," sighed Henry.
"But I have only to halve one hole out of nine," I pointed out. "Technically I am on what is known as velvet."
"Oh, shut up and drive."
I am a bad golfer, but even bad golfers do holes in bogey now and then. In the ordinary way I was pretty certain to halve one of the nine holes with Henry, and so win the match. Both the eleventh and the seventeenth, for instance, are favourites of mine. Had I halved one of those, he would have admitted cheerfully that I had played good golf and beaten him fairly. But as things happened―