"There is a capital court at Zermatt," he said. "You might almost
fancy yourself at Wimbledon."
A mutual acquaintance whom I subsequently met told me that at the
top of the Jungfrau he had said to him, his eyes fixed the while
upon a small snow plateau enclosed by precipices a few hundred feet
below them -
"By Jove! That wouldn't make half a bad little tennis court--that
flat bit down there. Have to be careful you didn't run back too
far."
When he was not playing tennis, or practising tennis, or reading
about tennis, he was talking about tennis. Renshaw was the
prominent figure in the tennis world at that time, and he mentioned
Renshaw until there grew up within my soul a dark desire to kill
Renshaw in a quiet, unostentatious way, and bury him.
One drenching afternoon he talked tennis to me for three hours on
end, referring to Renshaw, so far as I kept count, four thousand
nine hundred and thirteen times. After tea he drew his chair to
the window beside me, and commenced -
"Have you ever noticed how Renshaw--"
I said -
"Suppose someone took a gun--someone who could aim very straight--
and went out and shot Renshaw till he was quite dead, would you
tennis players drop him and talk about somebody else?"
"Oh, but who would shoot Renshaw?" he said indignantly.
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