Burt L. Standish

“ In the throng was the entire membership of both the Brook Club and the Bowling Green Country Club, reënforced overwhelmingly by their friends and partisans.
A big contingent from the county at large was there, drawn by the lure of a championship match, and by the chance that the title might change hands. The news had gone out that a new champion would arise—a man of the people, not one of the idle rich; these people wanted to see the event take place, and to cheer for Johnny Gerrity. Clavering was not a popular champion. ”

“ The next two weeks were sunny, happy, long-to-be-remembered days for Gerrity. A large part of each day was spent in playing tennis with Larry on the Marlinghue courts, and with such other members as cared to play on the Brook Club courts. Then there were long afternoons, when the sun was too hot to play tennis, spent in sitting in the shade with Sylvia, talking on every subject that a young man and a young woman can discuss in their idle time. ”

“ He would have declined the proposition had it not presented an opportunity not only to help Sylvia Marlinghue, but to enjoy her companionship. It was something like an impossible dream becoming true.
The servants did not, by word or deed, betray any evidence that they knew he was not just what he purported to be—with the exception of Delia Moriarty. This personable young woman had taken a strong fancy to Gerrity from his first appearance, and it exasperated her—to say the least—that he should be taken out of her sphere by just a flip of the hand, so to speak, of her employers. ”

“ Old Mr. Marlinghue had always called his superintendent of the horses an equerry. He had lived abroad a great deal, and had taken a fancy to the title. When his son succeeded to the estate at Cedar Cove he continued the custom of his father. Thus it fell out that Gerrity was called the equerry. He looked the word up in the dictionary, learned that it meant master of the horse in a royal establishment, and had a good laugh over it. He had been engaged with his duties as equerry just two days when Sylvia Marlinghue nearly dashed out his brains with a tennis racket. ”

“ She turned to her brother excitedly.
“I know, Larry!” she exclaimed. "I have it! Your new man, Gerrity! He can do it!”
Her brother looked mystified. “Gerrity! The man in charge of my horses! Why, he can't belong to the Brook Club—and you must be a member to compete for this title.”
“Of course he can belong to the Brook Club, if you say so!” she flung back at him. “Anybody can belong who has your O.K. Don't you see the point? Nobody knows him here yet—he has been here only a day or two, and he has met his assistants only at the stables. ”

“ The guileless, straight look, with which he accompanied the words, robbed them of any sinister meaning they might have had.
“Is there any chance of your competing?” said Clavering.
“Maybe,” put in Sylvia, seeing that the conversation was taking an embarrassing trend. “Larry's put Johnny up for membership in the Brook, you know. If he can beat the best we have, why——” She left the rest to his imagination.
“Well, I think I'll give a fairly decent account of myself, when the title match comes off,” said Clavering with his usual boastfulness. ”

“ Another thing that Johnny knew exceedingly well was tennis. He learned originally on the Central Park tennis courts. On bright summer afternoons, if you stood at the east end of the tennis courts and looked west, you would see six rows of nets stretching out into the far distance to westward, placed side by side, hundreds of them; and by each net you would see a group of players, battling earnestly. ”

“ He looks to be a better man than many of those who were born into membership. And, oh, Larry, don't you see what a splendid humiliation it will make? Guy Clavering loses his tennis title to one of our employees!”
She paused here and regarded him. “And after all,” she continued after a moment, as she saw he was wavering, “why shouldn't he belong to your old club? In this country a man is supposed to be what he makes himself, not what he's born.” ”

“ There was no wire netting around each court to catch the ball and bounce it back to some waiting hand. If your opponent sent over one you could not stop, it usually traveled a couple of city blocks before stopping. You had to run for it at top speed, before some other earnest player claimed it. After a while you either got so expert that very few got by you—or you quit playing in Central Park.
When it is said that Johnny Gerrity was a graduate of the Central Park tennis courts, it is meant that he began in a difficult school. ”

“ He saw that he had made some sort of a bull, and he sensed that this Wagner was in some way connected with the opera.
“Just joking.” He smiled at her easily, as though it was too deep a joke to expect a girl to understand. “What can one say of Wagner?” he said meaningly, deeply. “Wagner is always—Wagner,” he announced, and breathed more easily. ”

“ And remember, whenever you're asked for an opinion about any one or anything, it's always safe to say that it's amusing. Suppose somebody asks you about Bernard Shaw. Why, just remark that the chap amuses you. Or if they want to know what your opinion is of Newport—why, it's an amusing place. You're on safe ground there. Only keep watching your g's at the ends of words. Don't drop any more of them than you can help.”
“Right-o, Sylvia,” Gerrity replied, “but what I'd like to know is why you are so anxious to have me put it over on Mr. Clavering?” ”

“ Gerrity and Larry Marlinghue were on opposite sides of the draw, so it was not until the third day of the tournament that they met, in the finals. Each had gone through his own side of the draw without defeat.
If the crowd was looking for an exciting match, they were not disappointed. Johnny began winning on his cannon-ball service—a love game. He won the match in three straight sets, with the loss of only one game in each set.
“Well,” said the referee, congratulating him, “at last the Brook Club has some one who can give Clavering a battle.” ”

“ There was a square set to Gerrity's jaw and the usual smile was absent from his eyes. He was grim; he was going to fight with all he had of brain and brawn.
His racket slashed back, poised for an instant at the top of the stroke; then a white ball flashed past Clavering.
“Fifteen love!” announced the referee. The men changed to the other sides of their courts.
Crash! The ball went on a dead line over the net. No human being could have returned it in time.
“Thirty love!” announced the referee.
In a dazed silence Johnny Gerrity took the first game on four served balls ”

“ It was an amazing thing to Clavering—and probably it would have been to the Marlinghues, too—but it was the same thing all along the line. The story of Johnny's real business in life made no sensation at all among the young people. They didn't care what he did for a living—despite the reputation for snobbishness that they had! What interested them was the fact that Johnny was “the right sort,” and they liked him.
Meanwhile, Sylvia and Larry Marlinghue did not quite know what to do. The next day was the date of the important tennis match—the match Johnny had been booked to win from Clavering. ”

“ You sorta learn to see with the eyes of another sometimes.”
She made no reply to this, and thus they went on, skirting the dangerous edge of too great intimacy, yet always fascinated too much to stay very far away from it. Gerrity was indeed discovering a new world. As he said, he found that people were very much the same, and a beautiful girl was a beautiful girl regardless of her station.
They went to the dance that night at the Brook Club, and Gerrity got on famously with everybody—men and women alike. ”

“ Because you don't belong in this crowd, that's all. No stable boy does.” He paused to let this sink in.
Gerrity strove hard to keep his temper, and for the moment succeeded. “The Marlinghues said I was a horse-man, and that's what I am. Don't let nobody tell you different. And as far as——”
“Talk, Gerrity, talk!” snapped Clavering. “You were employed in the Marlinghue stables—I know that. An equerry, I believe they call you. Well, call it anything you like. You're a stable boy all the same. I guess the Brook Club board of governors'll have something to say about it when I tell them.” ”

“ A little later Clavering came in, and when he saw Sylvia sitting alone with Gerrity—it was just after a dance—he hurried over to her and they greeted each other as though there had never been anything between them. Gerrity had a chance to get a square look at him now; he had seen him the night of his visit to the Marlinghues, but had had no occasion to look at him closely at that time. He saw a tall, dark young man, keen of eye, athletic in his bearing—a man well satisfied with himself and with the world in general.
“This is Mr. Gerrity, Guy,” said Sylvia. “Mr. ”

“ There's very little tennis played in the county except at these two clubs—practically every good player belongs to one or the other—and it's generally recognized that the winner of the match between the champions of the two clubs is the county champion—sort of family affair, you know. ”

“ They volleyed the ball back and forth. So piqued was Larry at his failure several times to make anything of the shots sent across the net by his equerry that he suggested they play a set. Sylvia added the tinkle of her merry voice to the urgings of her brother.
“Go on, Mr. Gerrity,” she said. “You can beat him. He needs a beating, you know.”
They played, and from the, first it was apparent that Larry was a child in the hands of his opponent. Johnny was smiling and calm, seeming scarcely to hurry, hardly accelerating his pace at any part of the game ”