Love Among the Chickens, P. G. Wodehouse [top non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

full face of the racquet, and then I seemed to be stopping a bullet. I returned it into the net. The last of the series struck the wooden edge of my racquet, and soared over the back net into the shrubbery, after the manner of a snick to long slip off a fast bowler.

“Game,” said Mr. Chase, “we’ll look for that afterwards.”

I felt a worm and no man. Phyllis, I thought, would probably judge my entire character from this exhibition. A man, she would reflect, who could be so feeble and miserable a failure at tennis, could not be good for much in any department of life. She would compare me instinctively with my opponent, and contrast his dash and brilliance with my own inefficiency. Somehow the massacre was beginning to have a bad effect on my character. All my self-respect was ebbing. A little more of this, and I should become crushed⁠—a mere human jelly. It was my turn to serve. Service is my strong point at tennis. I am inaccurate, but vigorous, and occasionally send in a quite unplayable shot. One or two of these, even at the expense of a fault or so, and I might be permitted to retain at least a portion of my self-respect.

I opened with a couple of faults. The sight of Phyllis, sitting calm and cool in her chair under the cedar, unnerved me. I served another fault. And yet another.

“Here, I say, Garnet,” observed Mr. Chase plaintively, “do put me out of this hideous suspense. I’m becoming a mere bundle of quivering ganglions.”

I loathe facetiousness in moments of stress.

I frowned austerely, made no reply, and served another fault, my fifth.

Matters had reached a crisis. Even if I had to lob it underhand, I must send the ball over the net with the next stroke.

I restrained myself this time, eschewing the careless vigour which had marked my previous efforts. The ball flew in a slow semicircle, and pitched inside the correct court. At least, I told myself, I had not served a fault.

What happened then I cannot exactly say. I saw my opponent spring forward like a panther and whirl his racquet. The next moment the back net was shaking violently, and the ball was rolling swiftly along the ground on a return journey to the other court.

“Love-forty,” said Mr. Chase. “Phyllis!”

“Yes?”

“That was the Tilden Slosh.”

“I thought it must be,” said Phyllis.

In the third game I managed to score fifteen. By the merest chance I returned one of his red-hot serves, and⁠—probably through surprise⁠—he failed to send it back again.

In the fourth and fifth games I omitted to score. Phyllis had left the cedar now, and was picking flowers from the beds behind the court.

We began the sixth game. And now for some reason I played really well. I struck a little vein of brilliance. I was serving, and this time a proportion of my serves went over the net instead of trying to get through. The score went from fifteen all to forty-fifteen. Hope began to surge through my veins. If I could keep this up, I might win yet.

The Tilden Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. The Johnson Slam brought the score to Deuce. Then I got in a really fine serve, which beat him. ’Vantage In. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another Slam. ’Vantage out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken by the flood⁠—. I served. Fault. I served again⁠—a beauty. He returned it like a flash into the corner of the court. With a supreme effort I got to it. We rallied. I was playing like a professor. Then whizz⁠—!

The Slosh had beaten me on the post.

“Game and⁠—” said Mr. Chase, tossing his racquet into the air and catching it by the handle. “Good game that last one.”

I turned to see what Phyllis thought of it.

At the eleventh hour I had shown her of what stuff I was made.

She had disappeared.

“Looking for Miss Derrick?” said Chase, jumping the net, and joining me in my court, “she’s gone into the house.”

“When did she go?”

“At the end of the fifth game,” said Chase.

“Gone to dress for dinner, I suppose,” he continued. “It must be getting late. I think I ought to be going, too, if you don’t mind. The professor gets a little restive if I keep him waiting for his daily bread. Great Scott, that watch can’t be right! What do you make it? Yes, so do I. I really think I must run. You won’t mind. Good night, then. See you tomorrow, I hope.”

I walked slowly out across the fields. That same star, in which I had confided on a former occasion, was at its post. It looked placid and cheerful. It never got beaten by six games to love under the very eyes of a lady-star. It was never cut out ignominiously by infernally capable lieutenants in His Majesty’s Navy. No wonder it was cheerful.

XIV A Council of War

“The fact is,” said Ukridge, “if things go on as they are now, my lad, we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We don’t seem to be making headway. Why it is, I don’t know, but we are not making headway. Of course, what we want is time. If only these scoundrels of tradesmen would leave us alone for a spell, we could get things going properly. But we’re hampered and rattled and worried all the time. Aren’t we, Millie?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You don’t let me see the financial side of the thing enough,” I complained. “Why don’t you keep me thoroughly posted? I didn’t know we were in such a bad way. The fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn’t had one for a week.”

“Edwin knows as well as possible when he’s done wrong, Mr. Garnet,” said Mrs. Ukridge. “He was so sorry after he had killed those other two.”

“Yes,” said Ukridge, “I saw to that.”

“As far as I can see,” I continued, “we’re going strong. Chicken for