LAWN-TENNIS TOURNAMENTS AND THE HUMOURS OF THEM. 2 23 
tournament career. T remember a pair of 
players once who turned up on the Tuesday 
of a tournament, and, not being put on to 
play immediately, never appeared again 
till the Saturday afternoon, and were then 
extraordinarily bitter with me because they 
had been scratched some time on Thursday. 
T did not at first gather the import of their 
inquiries as to how the mixed doubles handi- 
cap was getting on, till it dawned upon me, 
when they said, “ And when do we play ? ” 
that this was the couple over whom 1 had gone 
hoarse through the megaphone all Thursday 
afternoon. 
But if some players are ignorant of 
what they are expected to do, others are 
full of guile. There is the man who, to gain 
time when he is getting rather blown, spends 
minutes wiping his glasses ; and his counter- 
part in the girl who, in similar straits, oppor- 
tunely breaks some mysterious string and 
has to retire to the dressing-room, leaving 
her opponent to get chilly on the court. 
I saw one of the former class neatly dealt 
with once by his opponent, who, when the 
glass-wiper at length announced he was ready, 
said, “ But I’m not. I want to sit down 1 ” 
And sit down he did, the umpire gravely 
refusing to make him get up, until he thought 
the lesson had been driven well home. Even 
at Wimbledon a year or two back a certain 
Continental visitor succeeded in serving in 
two successive games, the last of one set and 
the first of the next, without either his oppo- 
nent or the umpire detecting his ingenious 
breach of the rules. 
Some very amusing incidents happen at 
little tournaments which are run by local 
committees without much knowledge of the 
rules or of players outside their own borders. 
Many years ago J remember a player telling 
me that at one of these meetings he had been 
asked by the committee if he would mind 
serving underhand, as his overhead service 
did such damage to the net ! At another 
of these little meetings a leading light of the 
Chancery Bar went in, being on his holiday, 
at the not prohibitive entry fee of half a 
crown. Despite the presence of numerous 
curates amongst the competitors, he over- 
came all comers, and went home, having 
enjoyed his game, and oblivious of prizes. 
Think of his mingled horror and amusement 
when next morning a messenger brought him 
a package containing eleven half-crowns, 
eight shillings, four sixpences, and twenty- 
eight threepenny-bits (these being, doubtless, 
the curates’ contributions), with a note from 
the secretary to say that this was what he 
had won. He went at once to a silversmith’s 
and purchased a suitable memento to the 
value of the prize money, except for one shil- 
ling, with which he purchased a copy of the 
“ Lawn-Tennis Annual,” and forwarded it to 
the secretary, drawing his attention to Regu- 
lation four. 
One of the hardest things the management 
of a tournament has to contend with is to 
get a good supply of umpires. Players hate 
playing a match without an umpire, and yet 
they are usually very averse to umpiring 
themselves, although, to do them justice, 
many players do take on this thankless job 
far more often than they ought to be asked 
to do. Almost innumerable are the excuses 
made to avoid mounting the umpire’s steps. 
Players who, in their own matches, can see 
with hawk-like keenness the exact piece of 
chalk that the ball they have returned hits 
on their opponent’s base-line will allege 
short-sightedness when called on to umpire. 
Perhaps the record excuse ever given by an 
unwilling umpire was that he'd do it with 
pleasure, only he couldn't hear the net- cord 
