226 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE* 
another one day, “ I suppose they call us 
rabb ts because we jump about so,” This 
seems a very reasonable explanation, and is 
quite probably the correct one. 
In my capacity as a referee I have ample 
opportunities of observing — and I should like 
to bear testimony to — the really wonderful 
work done by the secretaries of tournaments. 
These purely honorary officials work for 
months before their tournament, and I 
should think they never sleep during the 
week it is in progress. At everybody’s beck 
and call, they preserve an unruffled mien, 
and have a cheerful smile for everyone, even 
for the grumblers who are to be found every- 
where. I have only once seen a tournament 
secretary really angry. It had rained for 
about two days on end, and was still raining, 
when to our joint tent there entered an 
enterprising person who was desirous of 
selling to the secretary a new and improved 
machine for sprinkling lawns ! It has always 
been a marvel to me how that man got out 
of the ground alive. 
The spectators also supply on their own 
behalf a considerable amount of humour, 
mainly arising from their abysmal ignorance 
of the game. At a very good and exciting 
men’s double a year or 
two back, a lady, being 
asked by a new arrival 
what the score was, re- 
plied in a clear and 
resonant voice, c< Well, 
this side’s i four all ’ ; T 
don’t know what the other 
side is.” The players, 
overhearing this remark, 
became temporarily so 
disorganized that for the 
next few games they all 
played, as one of them 
said afterwards, “ like a 
hutch full of rabbits.” 
But though intelligent 
appreciation of the points 
of the game seems to be 
denied to many of the 
lookers - on, there is no 
doubt that some of them 
enjoy it much and wor- 
s h i p their favourite 
players to an inordi- 
nate extent. A man 
once came into the secre- 
tary’s tent and inquired 
if he might be allowed 
to buy, at the conclusion of the match, 
the balls with which Miss Boothby was then 
playing on court two ; and there is a legend, 
for which 1 will not vouch, that one of the 
Dohertys, having hung his white duck 
trousers out to dry at a country tournament, 
discovered, when he wanted to wear them 
again, that every button had been removed, 
presumably by enthusiastic admirers in 
search of a memento. Drying arrangements, 
by the way, are often inadequate, and 
at an hotel tournament where they were 
particularly bad I once heard a competitor 
remark that if they would only dry the 
clothes in the same place they kept the 
soda-water all would be well 1 
To close an article on tournaments without 
any mention of Eastbourne, that most 
gigantic winding-up tournament of the season, 
would be absurd. Hither flock players of 
all sorts and conditions, from the very best 
to the very worst, all anxious to have one 
more knock before the grass season closes. 
Twenty years ago this tournament comprised 
about a couple of hundred matches, and was 
run on eight courts. Last year there were 
over eleven hundred matches to be got 
through and twenty-four courts to be kept 
filled — a striking testi- 
mony to the growth of 
the game’s popularity. 
With everybody in the 
highest spirits, there is 
always fun to be had at 
Eastbourne, whether in 
watching the play on the 
courts or the reproduc- 
tion of it cinematogra- 
phically in the Devonshire 
Park Theatre in the even- 
ing. As Mecca is to the 
Mohammedan and St. 
Andrews to the golfer, so 
is Eastbourne to the 
lawn- tennis enthusiast, 
and when the last match 
is out of court, even in 
these days of winter play 
on hard courts, the vast 
majority of players put 
away their racquets till 
the sun shines once more 
on the courts at Surbiton 
in the following year. And 
I think from the point of 
view of enjoyment they 
do wisely. 
