h. He plays."

Then, after a much longer pause: "Well, ma'am, you see, in a game of
lawn tennis everybody owns their own racquet."

At this juncture a tall, thin man in what is known (excepting at Palm
Beach) as a "Palm Beach suit," entered the shop and the clerk asked his
inquisitor to hold the wire while he made some inquiries. After a long
conversation with the new arrival he returned to the telephone and
resumed his explanation.

"Well, you see, they have a net, and one stands on one side and one on
the other--yes, ma'am, there _can_ be two on each side--and one serves.
What? Yes, he hits the ball over the net, and it has to go in the
opposite court on the other side, and then if that one doesn't send it
back--Yes, the court is marked with lines--why, that counts fifteen. The
next count is thirty. What? No, ma'am, I don't know why they count that
way. No, it's just the way they do in lawn tennis. If your opponent has
nothing, why, they call that 'love.' Yes, that's it--l-o-v-e--just the
same as when anybody's _in_ love. No, ma'am, I don't know why.... So
that's the way they count.

"No, ma'am, the lines are boundaries. You have to stand in a certain
place and hit the ball in a certain place.... No, I don't mean that way.
You've got to hit it so it _lands_ in a certain place; and the one
that's playing against you has to hit it back in a certain place, and if
it goes in some _other_ place, then you can't play it any more. Oh, no!
Not all day. I mean that ends _that_ part, and you start over. You just
keep on doing like that."

But though it was apparent that he considered his explanation complete,
the lady at the other end of the wire was evidently not yet satisfied,
and as he began to struggle with more questions we left the shop and
went to the Gilmer Hotel to see if any mail had come for us.

The Gilmer was built by slave labor some years before the war, and was
in its day considered a very handsome edifice. Nor is it to-day an
unsatisfactory hotel for a town of the size of Columbus. Its old brick
walls are sturdy, and its rooms are of a fine spaciousness. Downstairs
it has been somewhat remodeled, but the large parlor on the second floor
is much as it was in the beginning, even to the great mirrors and the
carved furniture imported more than sixty years ago from France. Most of
the doors still have the old locks, and the window cords originally
installed were of such a quality that they have not had to be r