LAWN-TENNIS TOURNAMENTS AND THE HUMOURS OF THEM . 225 
twins, and especially to C. G. 
Lately, in excuse for missing 
a shot which kicked badly, 
he turned to his brother and 
pleaded pathetically, “It 
broke right round me” 
“What! round you ?' 7 was 
the biting retort, and the 
spectators were again dis- 
solved in mirth. 
A good share of the 
humours of a tournament 
comes in the way of the 
referee. He it is upon whom 
an indignant father bursts, 
with righteous indignation, 
to impart his illogical con- 
viction that “ if my daugh- 
ter had been properly handi- 
capped she would have won 
easily ! 77 It is to him that 
a husband has been known 
to bring the apparently 
startling request, “ I want 
you to scratch my wife ” ! 
His duties, in the manage- 
ment and careful fitting-in 
of the matches of a tourna- 
ment, are apt to be dis- 
turbed by telegrams such as 
the following series, which 
once came at intervals of about half an hour 
from an absent competitor whose presence 
was urgently desired. No. 1 ran, “ Car 
broken down ; hiring another.” No. 2, 
“ Hired car broken down, coming by train.” 
No. 3, “ Train broken down, hiring special.” 
And No. 4, “ Special broken down ; walking . 37 
Quite outside one’s ordinary duties is the 
receipt of such a postcard as the following : 
“ I see you have a crochet tournament at 
- — next week. Please let me know by 
return what size cotton and pins are allowed.” 
This baffled me completely, until I learned 
that in the week following the tennis tourna- 
ment a croquet tournament was to be held 
on the same ground, and either through a 
printer’s error or supreme mental blindness 
some confiding spinster had jumped to the 
conclusion that the opportunity had at last 
arrived for exhibiting her talents as a crochet- 
worker. 
The information supplied by competitors 
on their entry-forms as to their capabilities, 
for handicapping purposes, is also sometimes 
of a very astounding nature. 1 wish I had 
made notes of all the curious efforts to give 
me information in this respect that I have 
received. But here are a few of them : 
I WANT YOU TO SCRATCH MY WIFE 1” 
“ Please remember that T am over fifty, and 
weigh eighteen stone.” “ Beaten by Ritchie 
in the open singles at Cannes 6 — o, 6 — o, 
6 — o ; did not play in the handicaps.” “ Have 
been out of England for some years, but last 
year w r on the ping-pong championship of 
the Eastern Pacific.” “ My style is good, but 
I am very erotic ” (this was from a lady 
wiiose spelling was even w r orse than her 
tennis). A week or two ago the only 
information on the entry form of a lady 
competitor was : “ Service very unsafe.” I 
concluded, on the whole, that she more pro- 
bably meant that she was in the habit of 
serving double faults than that she w r as the 
possessor of a very fast and dangerous service, 
and treated her accordingly. 1 was correct 
in my estimate. I remember once a couple of 
men, very in different players, entering for 
the level events only at a tournament. As 
they very soon got batted out of these, 
I asked them why they hadn’t gone in for 
the handicaps. It appeared that they were 
golfers, and “ not having a handicap at 
tennis ” had imagined that the rabbit’s joys 
were not for them. You know r , of course, 
why the inferior players are called “ rabbits ”? 
I don’t ; but I heard one young lady say to 
