f the little brown house. So Davie, smothering his
longing, got into a front row with several boys of his set, and bent all
his attention to the game just beginning.

Sharp at two o'clock the four went on to the court--Joel and Fred
Ricketson against Tom Beresford and Lawrence Greene, otherwise "Larry."
And amid howls of support from the "rooters," the game began.

At first Joel's luck seemed to desert him, and he played wild, causing
much consternation in the ranks violently rooting for him. David's head
sank, and he leaned his elbows on his knees, to bury his hot cheeks in
his hands.

"Wake up," cried Paul Sykes, his very particular friend, hoarsely,
giving him a dig in the ribs. "Don't collapse, Dave."

"Oh!" groaned David, his head sinking lower yet, "I can't look; I simply
can't. It will kill Joel."

"Stiffen up!" cried Paul. "Joe's all right; he'll come to. _Ha!_"

A shout, stunning at first, that finally bore down all before it in the
shape of opposing enthusiasm, swept over the whole yard. Screams of
applause, perfectly deafening, rent the air. And look! even the visitors
from St. Andrew's are leaping to their feet, and yelling, "Good--good."
Something quite out of the common, even in a close tennis match, was
taking place. David shuddered, and crouched down on the ground as far as
he could. Paul gave him an awful whack on the back.

"You're losing it all," he cried as he stood on his tiptoes. "Hi! Hi!
Tippety Rippety! Hi! Hi!"

It was Joel's especial yell; and there he was, as David scrambled up to
see him, head thrown back, and black eyes shining in the way they always
did when he worked for Mamsie and Polly, and that dealt despair to all
opponents. He had just made a brilliant stroke, returning one of Larry's
swiftest balls in such a manner that it just skimmed over the net and
passed the boys before they could recover themselves, and fairly taking
off from their feet the St. Andrew's men who had been misled by Joel's
previous slow playing in the first set, which Tom and Larry had won.

"Who is he? Gee Whiz! but that's good form!" declared Vincent Parry, the
St. Andrew's champion, excitedly.

"Pepper--don't you know Pepper?" cried a dozen throats, trying to seem
unconscious that it was Parry, the champion, who was asking the
question.

"Oh, is that Pepper?" said the St. Andrew's boy. While "Pepper--Pepper.
Hi! Hi! Tippety Rippety! Hi! Hi!" rolled out, till there wasn't any
other sound to be heard