She was gentle with her mother and they got their first rally, and when it was over Mr. Pope had to explain to Marjorie that if she returned right up into his corner of the court he would have to run backwards very fast and might fall over down the silly slope at that end. She would have to consider him and the court. One didn't get everything out of a game by playing merely to win. She said "All right, Daddy," rather off-handedly, and immediately served to him again, and he, taken a little unawares, hit the ball with the edge of his racquet and sent it out, and then he changed racquets with Daffy--it seemed he had known all along she had taken his, but he had preferred to say nothing--uttered a word of advice to his wife just on her stroke, and she, failing to grasp his intention as quickly as she ought to have done, left the score forty-fifteen. He felt better when he returned Marjorie's serve, and then before she could control herself she repeated her new unpleasant trick of playing into the corner again, whereupon, leaping back with an agility that would have shamed many a younger man, Mr. Pope came upon disaster. He went spinning down the treacherous slope behind, twisted his ankle painfully and collapsed against the iron railings of the shrubbery. It was too much, and he lost control of himself. His daughters had one instant's glimpse of the linguistic possibilities of a strong man's agony. "I told her," he went on as if he had said nothing. "_Tennis!_" For a second perhaps he seemed to hesitate upon a course of action. Then as if by a great effort he took his coat from the net post and addressed himself houseward, incarnate Grand Dudgeon--limping. "Had enough of it, Mummy," he said, and added some happily inaudible comment on Marjorie's new style of play. The evening's exercise was at an end. The three ladies regarded one another in silence for some moments. "I will take in the racquets, dear," said Mrs. Pope. "I think the other ball is at your end," said Daffy.... The apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister strolled thoughtfully away from the house. "There's croquet here too," said Daffy. "We've not had the things out yet!".... "He'll play, I suppose." "He wants to play."... "Of course," said Marjorie after a long pause, "there's no _reasoning_ with Dad!" § 6 Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but some Englishmen have it to excess. Mr. Pope had. He was one of that large and representative class which imparts a dignity to national commerce by inheriting big businesses from its ancestors. He was a coach-builder by birth, and a gentleman by education and training. He had been to City Merchant's and Cambridge.