Chapter IV: An Unpleasant Surprise

The captain of the Tramp Club leaned back and, clasping his hands about his knees, gazed reflectively at the blue sky overhead. The eyes of the Meadow-Brook Girls were fixed inquiringly on his brown face. Captain George appeared to be in no hurry to tell them of the surprise that the Tramps had in store for the girls. Tommy was the first to break the silence.

“Thith thuthpenthe ith killing,” she observed.

“Oh, don’t hurry him,” scoffed Crazy Jane. “He won’t be half so interesting after he has told it; and, what’s more, he knows it. That’s why he’s so long about telling. Suppose you wait until after supper, George? The evening is so much better for telling fairy stories. Then we can all go to bed and have nightmares!”

“This isn’t a joke,” protested Sam Crocker a trifle impatiently. “This is dead serious business, as you will realize before you have done with it.”

“Indeed?” commented Buster sarcastically.

“Yes, indeed,” returned Sam sharply. “Better tell them and have it out of your system. I’m getting a little tired of their not believing us. They will believe all right after they hear the glad and joyous tidings.”

“We believe motht anything,” Tommy informed them solemnly. “And we believe you folkth don’t know what you are talking about. Do you!”

“If you will give me half a chance, I will tell you,” answered George. “Did you ever hear of Newtown, on the coast?”

“Oh, yes. That is a fashionable summer resort,” said Harriet.

“Just so. Ever hear of the Atlantic Coast Tennis Tournaments?”

The girls shook their heads.

“I have,” said Miss Elting. “I have understood that they were a feature of the summer at Newtown.”

“They are,” agreed George. “They are the biggest and most important affairs ever pulled off along the coast, and don’t you lose sight of that for a minute.”

“We won’t. What next?” demanded Grace.

“In this tournament,” continued Captain Baker, “there are many classes and many valuable prizes. No money prizes, of course, for this is purely an amateur tournament, but it brings out some crack players, you may depend upon that. The best players there are in New England come down to Newtown to match their skill against their fellows. People journey many miles to attend this tournament, which usually lasts several days, sometimes a week. Most of the contests are bitterly fought. More national tennis players have graduated from that tournament than from any other in the United States. I know, because Jack Herrington, the manager of the tournament, told me so.

“It is a great honor even to be entered at Newtown,” declared George. “Believe me, not every one can get an entry there. Oh, it’s very select and one has to be well up in the lists to get an entry, but once having entered there is no backing out. The entries are closed now.”

“When is this tournament to take place?” questioned Miss Elting, interested, though she could not satisfactorily explain to herself why.

“Five weeks from now.”

“Are you boys going?”

“Are we going?” fairly shouted George. “You couldn’t keep us away with a team of elephants. I rather guess we are going, and we shall stay till the last ball is batted over the net and the prizes awarded.”

“Then you are going to play?”

He shook his head.

“Wish we might, but there are no classes for boys. Herrington promises to have a class for us next season. You will see the Tramp Club on hand with the racquets then and you’ll all come to see us cover the name of the Tramp Club with glory.”

“You have done that already,” said Harriet.

“Thank you.” The boys took off their hats and bowed gravely.

“But,” continued George, “I feel that I have scored a greater triumph this year than I ever shall by playing.”

“How so?” asked the guardian politely.

“Because I’ve entered a winning team, entered a team that all the amateurs along the coast couldn’t beat. Why? Because the team, my team, I call them, wouldn’t know it if they were beaten. They’d keep right on playing till the Atlantic itself froze over, if somebody didn’t cut in and stop them. That’s why. You watch our entry and see if they don’t set the State of New Hampshire howling like a parcel of mad Indians. Ever see a mad Indian?”

“I have seen what I thought was one,” answered Jane significantly.

“You haven’t seen the real thing nor——”

“We are still waiting for the great mystery to be solved,” reminded Miss Elting.

“I’m solving it as rapidly as possible. Nor will you see the genuine article till after the tournament at Newtown is finished.”

“We’re all agreed on that point,” interjected Charlie Mabie. “There isn’t another team in the State that can hold its own with our entries.”

“I sincerely hope you young gentlemen may not be disappointed. I should like to see your team play and——”

“See them play?” exploded Davy. “I should say you would. If you didn’t, we could never forgive you. Of course you will see them play. The idea of your having any doubts on the subject!”

“But, my dear boys, why should I be so interested, not knowing any of the contestants, not even knowing who your team may be?” expostulated the guardian.

“Not—not—not know?” shouted Dill Dodd. “That’s so, you don’t,” he added in a lower voice. “I had forgotten that you didn’t know them. But you will—you will—and when you do you’ll be just as enthusiastic as we are, maybe more so.”

“That would be impossible,” said Harriet, smiling and nodding.

The boys themselves were becoming excited. They were fairly bursting with impatience to blurt out the whole story. George Baker was not telling it nearly fast enough to suit them. Tommy and Margery shared their impatience. Tommy’s face was working nervously and Margery was making a desperate effort to be calm. They felt sure that there was more to the story, more of interest to themselves than they could even guess.

They were not wrong in their surmise. There was more to tell, as they were speedily to learn.

“Are the prizes worth while?” asked Harriet.

“A silver cup for the winning team. It’s worth more than a hundred dollars, and will have the name of the winning club engraved on it. Then there will be individual prizes. There are second and third prizes, too, but I don’t know what they are. I didn’t ask Herrington, for the reason that I wasn’t interested. I was interested in the first prize. Our team will get it, of course.”

Harriet was regarding him with narrowed eyes now, her forehead wrinkled into lines of perplexity. The way George was looking at her set the girl to wondering.

“Who is your team, George?” she asked.

“Who is my team? Don’t you know?” he almost shouted.

“Naturally not. You haven’t told us.”

“They aren’t mind readers, George,” reminded Billy Burgess. “I’ll confess that you’ve almost got me guessing. You’ve so befuddled me that I’m beginning to wonder if I know who they are myself.”

The boys burst out into a jolly laugh.

“Oh, tell them and be done with it. For goodness’ sake, quit circumnavigating the globe,” scoffed Davy. “I could walk to town and back while you are saying ‘No, thank you.’ Speak up.”

“And you haven’t guessed yet?” questioned George.

“We are more in the dark than when you began,” replied Harriet. “Who is to play on your team?”

“Why, _you_ are, of course. The Meadow-Brook Girls are our team. You are the players who are going to win the tennis championship for the coast, and you’re going to put all the others so far back of the lines that they won’t be able to find themselves for the rest of the summer. Now, what do you think of that?”

“What?” Harriet sat up very straight, looking George Baker squarely in the eyes. “Why, Mr. Baker, none of us has ever played a game of tennis in her life.”