The Champion of Outer Mongolia

So far, I haven't done too badly this year. We had a fire in the tennis shop that burned 12 new racket frames, I lost three of my middle-aged pupils to the golf pro when they OKd those motorized golf carts for our hotel course, and yesterday I cut my hand in three places opening a can of tennis balls the hard way.

You think that isn't such a good start on the summer for a tennis pro? Well, let me clue you about last year and this feather merchant, George Fessler, then. As long as that Jonah doesn't show up again, anything that happens this summer will be all right. I'm still trying to forget the guy and all the trouble he caused before he finally left.

I think it was a Wednesday, that day in July I first saw him duck-walking across the lobby toward me. He was short and dumpy and pretty bald. He looked about as much like a tennis player as a friend of my Cousin Al, who is in the linoleum business in Garden City. This linoleum boy is as unco as they come. That is, he's not too well coordinated. If you put a tennis racket in his hand, he would probably beat himself to death with it.

Anyway, old butterball stands there in the lobby, blinking up at me.

"Are you Barnes, the pro?" he said.

"That's right, sir," I said. "May I help you?"

It would have taken about eight years in a steam bath to help him.

"My name is Fessler," he said. He paused for a moment."George Fessler." He said it very slowly, as though it tasted good.

"Let me see now," I said. I concentrated. "It seems like an awfully familiar name."

To be a tennis pro you have to lie like hell.

"Well, of course, I haven't been very active in tournaments," he said, "but I'm pretty well known around New York, Forest Hills – all the tennis circles. I thought maybe you would have heard of me."

"The name is very familiar," I said.

"It was hot down in the city," he said.

"Thought I'd run up here to Saranac for a little change. How are your courts?"

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"The courts are in excellent condition," I said. "The hotel has assigned an extra detail this year to look after them because of the increased tennis activity."

I gave him the old sales spiel.

"What kind of surface?" he said. He had taken out a cigar.

"Clay with red brick dust," I said.

"They give a very true bounce."

I wanted to get away for lunch. He was lighting his cigar and rocking back on his heels.

"How do you play?" he said.

"What?" I said.

"How do you play? How good are you?" he said.

"Well, I'm not too sure myself right now," I said. "I've been giving lessons all summer, and there hasn't been anyone I could really play with."

"What are you doing this afternoon?" he said.

"Lessons from one to four, then from five till dinner," I said. "I could work you in around 4:30 for half an hour." It was hot and I wasn't wild on teaching straight through to dinner without a blow.

"But I don't want lessons," he said, flicking ashes on the rug impatiently.

"I want to play you. A few sets."

"Of course," I said, confused. "That's what I had in mind. Make it at four if you like."

"Fine," he said. "I'll be there."

He turned and duck-walked out of the lobby.

After lunch, it started raining. It didn't come down hard, but it was steady. I went over to my room and sacked up. The next time I looked at the clock it was almost five and the sun was out again.

I walked over to the courts slowly, yawning. The courts were probably playable already. I doubted that anyone would show for a lesson, though. On afternoons when it rained, most of the guests drove into town to shop or see a movie.

The courts were dry. There was even someone playing on court four. I went over. It was my boy Fessler playing with Clara Roberts. Clara Roberts had taken the game up because she had felt her good figure would show to advantage in tennis togs. It had taken her 15 years to learn how to hold the racket, and by then she could have played in a snow suit. They were having a battle royal I guess. When Clara came to the net to pick up a ball, she whispered to me that the score was 9-all. I looked over at Fessler. He was dripping with sweat and gasping for air. Let him take out his cigar and rock back on his heels now.

Clara served, and the first point must have lasted five minutes. They both stood at the base-line as though they were rooted and plooped the ball back and forth. I started yawning again. It was pretty awful. I had always imagined that Clara Roberts was the only human on earth who could swing a tennis racket and make it look like a signal for the funeral party to move on through the stop light. Fessler had her lashed to the mast. When he hit the ball, it sounded like a wet mackerel bouncing around in the bottom of the rowboat.

The only difference between them was that if Clara had to shift her feet much, she would get confused and hit into the net. Not old dragged-out Fessler, though. If lightning had started digging up the service line, he would have gone on taking those same awful jerks at the ball. That had been drummed into him, and I don't think you could have changed his swing with a bone-grafting.

Fessler won it at 13-11. It was pretty depressing. He staggered over to me and leaned on the net, breathing hard.

"It happens every time," he said finally.

"What's that, Mr. Fessler?" I said.

"I play lousy when I play with a lousy player," he said.

Clara had gone back to the clubhouse to slash her wrists.

"You played all right," I said.

"No, I played lousy," he said. "I only beat her 13-11."

"Well," I said, "she's pretty good."

"She's rotten," he said, "I only beat her 13-11, and I take over some of the best in the game without even pressing."

I took a deep breath.

"That's pretty interesting, Mr.Fessler," I said."Who are some of the best in the game you take over without even pressing?"

"Oh, almost all of them," he said.

"Who in particular?" I said. I could go it as long as he could.

"Well, Pancho, for instance," he said.

"I beat Pancho 6-1, 6-3 just this spring."

"You mean Pancho Gonzales, I suppose," I said.

"No, I mean Pancho Segura," he said. He was wiping his face with a towel. "I think Gonzales is trying to duck me."

I cleared my throat. "Mr. Fessler, do you have a pro you practice with back in the city?" I said.

"I sure do," he said. "I work out with Harry Phelan almost every day. You know him?"

"I know him," I said.

"He helps me some with my court tactics," Fessler said, "but of course I always outsteady him when we play."

We made a date for the next morning. That night I put in a person-to-person call to Harry Phelan in New York.

I knew Harry from my amateur days.

He had creamed me after a rough night at Spring Lake, love and 2. The only other time we met was in the semis of a small tournament in Massachusetts. I was leading 6-2, 6-3, 4-1 when it began to rain. For eight days. By then everyone had forgotten about the tournament, including the sponsors, so I never did get to beat him in a match.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello, Phelan," I said. "This is Carl Barnes: Saranac Lake."

There was a silence.

"Oh – Barnes! Of course!" he said. "Good old Barnesey. I was just thinking about you the other day."

"You were?" I said.

"Yes, sir," he said, "I was just thinking back on the good old days when we used to play the circuit together."We had hated each other's guts."What do you want?" he said casually.

"I have a nut up here called Fessler," I said.

"Oh, my god!" he said. "Has he played yet?"

"Just one set," I said. "Today."

"Did he win?" Phelan said. He was shouting.

"I suppose you could call it that," I said. "We have the world's worst woman player up here. He almost had a stroke beating her."

There was a pause.

"Barnesey?" he said.

"Yes?" I said.

"You remember that time in Massachusetts when it started raining?" he said.

"Now that you mention it, I do," I said.

"Well," he said, "you would have beaten me."

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "I was only ahead by two sets and leading in the third."

"You would have beaten me all hollow," he said. There was another pause. "But anyway, Barnesey, old bean, our days of competition are left on the road behind us. And in a business like ours where we have to be on the lookout for ourselves all the time, it's good to have tried friends we know we can bank on in the midst of a storm."

"What do you want?" I said casually.

"I want you to keep an eye on Fessler for me," he said.

"I keep an eye on all our guests who play tennis," I said. "It's part of my job."

"Yes, but this is something special," Phelan said. "I want Fessler coming back to the city with the same attitude he had when he left."

"What attitude is that?" I said.

"The attitude that if he wanted to enter the Nationals tomorrow, he could sweep through the field without losing

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a set," Phelan said.

"If he's crazy enough to believe that with the game he's got, he'll still believe it when he leaves here," I said. "Why do I have to watch him?"

"Because he won't still believe it if he starts losing to players as bad as he is,"Phelan said.

"The only place he could win a match would be somewhere in Outer Mongolia," I said. "You talk as though he had never lost before."

"He never has," Phelan said. "At least, not since I got my – since I began instructing him."

"He tells me he beats you all the time," I said.

"Oh, he does, he does," Phelan said. "Every day."

"Why?" I said.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "Fessler is a very highly regarded tennis player at the Universal Export Corporation. They like the way he hits his forehand."

"He's popular with the other employees in the company then," I said.

"He owns the company," Phelan said.

"I see," I said.

"Last month I got myself a new Cadillac," he said. "I didn't get it selling old women ankle wraps."

"He told me he beat Segura," I said.

"He did, he did," Phelan said. "A lot of others, too. At first, I thought I was going to have to pay them all off. But it didn't work out that way. It turns out they all get a bang out of losing to him. Don't ask me why. All I know is they call him up in the middle of the night from California or Miami to challenge him to a game a month later. It's great with me."

"Well," I said, "what do you want me to do?"

"Just play with him yourself every day and make sure he beats you," Phelan said. "If he tries to get a pick-up game, talk him out of it. Tell him that playing inexperienced amateurs will only dull his edge."

"I'll do my best," I said.

"And Barnesey, old bean," he said, "I just got word of a nice little winter opening in Florida. I'm already set myself, but if everything goes right up there and Fessler doesn't get beaten by anyone, I don't see why I couldn't swing it your way."

I liked Phelan putting it all on a friendship basis.

"Everything will go right," I said.

Fessler was out on the court the next morning at the appointed time. He carried four rackets and wore an eggshell polo shirt with a maroon monogram on the pocket. Before we began, he threw up some grass to see which way the wind was blowing.

The next hour was the toughest I put in all summer. Fessler was so awful you had to be a creative genius to think of ways to lose. I finally managed to throw the first set 6-4 by serving a deluge of double faults.

"Gosh, I just can't seem to get that second ball where I want it today," I said. We were changing courts.

"I know," he said. "I have that trouble myself sometimes."

"That seems hard to believe," I said.

"Almost lost to Kramer that way," he said, chuckling.

I couldn't foul up quite so much in the second set. There's such a thing as being obvious. I tried juggling the score as I got the balls to serve at 2-all.

"Let's see," I called out. "That makes it 1-3, your favor."

"No," Fessler called back, "it's only 2-all."

"Are you sure?" I said. "As much as I like to win, I wouldn't want you to cheat yourself."

"I'm positive," he said. "I always keep close track of the score."

I lost my service by hitting two forehands against the net-cord, a backhand just over the base-line, and getting caught flat-footed on a drop shot I could have reached pushing a piano.

"That's some drop shot you've got there," I said. "It's so deceptive it just sneaks up on you."

"I drive Budge out of his mind with it," Fessler said, cackling like a lunatic.

Things weren't going too badly until the end of the last set. Junior Casswell, who had a lesson for the next hour, came and sat down on the grass by the side of the court.

He watched uneasily for a few minutes. Then it was too much for him.

"Say, why don't you tell him what he's doing wrong, Carl?" Junior said.

I didn't say anything. We played another point.

"Why keep on just blooping the ball back to him, anyway?" Junior said. "Why don't you show him how to swing?"

"We're playing a set," I said.

"You never let me play a set till I learned how to swing," Junior said. His voice was beginning to rise.

"He's got a nice swing," I said.

"Sure thing," Junior said with all the irony a 13-year-old can muster. "He's got a jim-dandy swing."

His voice was getting louder and between points I could see Fessler straining to overhear. We had another long rally in back court. Junior was standing up and sitting down and squirming around like an eel. Until that moment, I had been – in a small way – his athletic idol.

I was within two games of losing the set and getting it over with. I tried to hurry things along. I missed balls completely and fell down on ankles that twisted without warning. The racket slipped out of my hand in the middle of rallies and I staggered around drunkenly from momentary spells of sun blindness.

We had three more points to go when Junior suddenly jumped up. I looked over. He was starting to cry.

"You're letting him beat you!" Junior whined in a high, shrill voice. "You're letting him beat you, and – and – I could beat him myself! I could beat him myself!"

Fessler had come to the net. He was glaring, taking it all in.

"No, ou couldn't Junior," I said.

"Now please sit down on the grass again and wait till we're finished."

"I won't sit down! I won't!" he screamed. "I could beat him. I could! He's nothing but a . . . bum . . . a big, fat bum!"

"Oh, you think so, do you?" Fessler shouted. He waddled around the net and joined the happy group. "I tell you what we'll do, then. We'll play a set and see how much of a bum I am!"

"That's OK with me," whined Junior. "That's OK with me."

I thought for a moment. If Junior had an off-day and Fessler played way over his head, Junior would win about 6-3.

"Well, it's not OK with me," I said.

"Junior, you get back to the clubhouse, and I'll talk to you later. Now move!" He had always been my favorite, but the job in Florida was bigger than the two of us.

Junior knew he had spoken out of line, anyway. Rubbing his eyes with one hand and dragging his racket along behind him with the other, he trudged off to the clubhouse sniffling.

"Why wouldn't you let me play him?" Fessler said. "It would teach the young upstart a good lesson."

"Yes, but grudge matches aren't permitted here," I said. "If the hotel found out about it, I could be fired for negligence."

"All the same," he said, "I would have enjoyed beating him."

"You would have torn him apart," I said.

After that, I decided pretty definitely that my best plan was to get Fessler the hell back to the city as fast as possible. It wasn't safe to let him out on the court with one of the chambermaids, and I couldn't watch him every second. Besides, if I was going to have to play him myself, I would have to come up with a new script for losing each day. I'd have to win the Academy Award to get to Miami, and I wasn't that good an actor.

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That night I found him in the hotel lobby. He was sitting back in an easy-chair, puffing on a cigar.

"Well, Mr. Fessler," I said, "are you enjoying your little stay with us?"

"Yes," he said jovially, "I'm having a very fine time."

"The place does have a lot to offer," I said. "It's too bad it gets so dull at night."

"Dull?" he said. He shifted his cigar.

"I mean, after New York with all its many facets of entertainment," I said.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I sort of enjoy the change."

"Well, it's nice as long as the weather holds out," I said. I looked over my shoulder for Norton, the manager. "It's too bad about the cold wave."

He took the cigar out of his mouth.

"Cold wave?" he said.

"You know," I said. "The one they call Old Faithfull. From Canada. Never had a season yet it didn't bring along Jack Frost and a barrel of snowbound fun. We hose over the courts for skating."

Fessler thought about it.

"Seems strange to have a cold wave in midsummer, even up this far," he said. "I hope none of this nonsense happens over the weekend, anyway."

"You're staying over the weekend?" I said.

"Of course," he said. "The tournament's being held in my honor."

I cleared my throat. "Tournament?" I said.

"Why, certainly," he said. "Didn't Norton talk to you yet? I told him all about my tennis background this afternoon, and he said he thought while I was here we ought to give the other guests a treat and put on a weekend tournament. He probably didn't have a chance to see you."

I wet my lips. "This will all be crackerjack, Mr. Fessler," I said. "But frankly, in your own interests, do you think it's wise risking your reputation in a smalltime tournament? There won't be any national recognition for winning, and if a miracle should happen and you were a shade off and lost . . ."

He was shaking his head.

"I've made up my mind," he said firmly. "I need a tournament under my belt. Norton has promised a trophy for the winner."

I was going to have to do something fast. I tried excusing myself, but Fessler was lost in his own thoughts.

"You know, Barnes," he said, "tennis is a wonderful game."

"It's fine, health-giving recreation,"

I said automatically. I glanced at my watch.

"That's not what I mean," Fessler said. He looked at me closely. "Barnes, do you love tennis?"

Somehow, the way he said it, I felt embarrassed.

"Sure, Mr. Fessler," I said. "Sure I do. I like it better than golf or swimming ---"

"You like it, but do you live for it?" Fessler said. "Do you feel every time you walk out on the court that you're the luckiest guy in the world to be an athlete who can enjoy the game to its fullest?"

I looked down at my feet. I tried to figure out how Fessler had managed to get me on the defensive. Then for a moment, I thought back to my first year of playing through the East and the excitement of winning my first grass court tournament and the telegrams that had been waiting for me when I got back to my room in the evening.

"I felt like that when I was an amateur," I said at last. "I mean, I like teaching – we work very hard – or, not exactly that ..."

When I finally got that dragged-out conversation over with, I left Fessler blowing smoke rings in his easy chair, planning how he was going to fit the winner's trophy into his suitcase.

The first thing I did after telling Norton to turn blue was to make a list of all the players at the hotel who know how to keep score and could hit the ball on the first bounce. I put them all in the lower bracket.

Then I seeded Fessler first and put him in the upper bracket.

For the first round, he had a bye.

For the second round, he had a bye.

I had to match him up against someone before he could get to the semifinals, so in the third round I had him play Henri Barduch. I was reasonably sure that Fessler would win. Henri Barduch was the hotel's grounds keeper. He was lame in the left leg and quite lazy besides. Also, he couldn't speak much English. He had never seen a tennis match and thought he was being punished for not having kept the hedges clipped.

All through the match he kept up a steady stream of abuse at me and Fessler. Fessler thought he was being complimented on his play and was beaming when he came off the court a victor. I had told him he was playing a former French Davis Cup star.

"That didn't take me long, did it?" Fessler said.

Henri was wiping his face with a red bandana, swearing at us in French.

"You were in control all the way," I said. "Now you're a semifinalist."

"Who do I play?" he said.

"A lefty named Stan Harrison," I said. "He's a very good player. He won our Labor Day tournament last year."

"And then when do I play the finals?" Fessler said.

"Sunday afternoon," I said.

Stan Harrison was a good player. He was also checking out of the hotel about three hours before I had scheduled his match with Fessler.

"Congratulations, Mr. Fessler," I said, "you're in the finals."

"What about my match with this lefty?" he said.

"I just had a call from the hotel," I said. "He got cold feet and ran out on you. You win by default."

"Who do I play in the finals?" Fessler said.

"Scott Whitney," I said. "He's only a sophomore at Princeton, and he's number three man on their team already."

"You sure he'll play me?" Fessler said with concern. "I'd hate to win the finals by default."

"I have a hunch he'll see it through," I said.

"Just how far he'd see it through was the problem.I was having trouble with scott.

"Sure I want you to have the job, Carl," Scott said. "I'll do anything reasonable to help out. But there's going to be all those people there watching. That's the thing. I'm going to feel like an awful jackass losing in front of all those people."

"Then stop worrying," I said. "I've worked out everything with Norton. He wants to make up for the egg he laid. He's got a program that will keep the guests running until their tongues are hanging out. The hotel's staging a scavenger hunt, an organized nature hike, free aquaplaning, a movie short, Archery and you, and a bridge tournament with prizes. If there's anyone left over, the boat boy is going to put on a track meet. There won't be 20 people at the match."

"I hope not," Scott said. He was gloomy. "It's just that everyone around here knows I'm from Princeton."

Sunday was bright and fair. Notices of the scavenger hunt, the organized nature hike, the free aquaplaning, the movie short, archery and you, and the bridge tournament with prizes were posted all over the lobby. At 1:30, everyone left the dining room and stood around reading the notices.

At three o'clock, every guest in the hotel walked straight across the lawn and over to the tennis courts.

"Look at all those people," Scott said in the tennis house. He was peering out the window. "Look at them all. I thought there weren't going to be 20 people here."

"They'll all leave after the first set,"I said. My stomach didn't feel so good.

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"Look at them all just sitting there," he said.

"Probably half of them don't know what end of the racket to hold," I said.

"All of them know I'm from Princeton," he said.

Fessler arrived and walked right out on the court. He had five rackets and was wearing a cream polo shirt with a tan monogram on the pocket. He received quite an ovation. He acknowledged it by looking down scowlingly at his armful of rackets. He took several minutes deciding which one to use, and then he did a few deep – knee – bends to limber up.

"You'd better get out there before he cripples himself," I said to Scott.

Scott was white. He picked up his rackets mechanically.

"They'd better leave after the first set," he said.

"Sure they'll leave," I said.

"They'd better," he said. "They all know I'm--"

"I know, I know," I said, pushing him out of the door. "Pretend you're playing for Yale. And don't worry so much. They'll leave before you know it."

He walked down to the court, shaking his head and muttering. I looked around at the crowd. If there was ever a bunch who had settled down for a full afternoon of tennis, this was it.

Scott and Fessler began to warm up. I didn't feel much like watching. I took the brochure I had sent for, Florida Is Calling, and threw it in the wastepaper basket. I opened the drawer labeled "Used Balls" and poured myself a drink. I just sat there for a while hearing bursts of applause from outside and remembering the time I passed up the salesman's job with the moth ball company.

Then Norton walked in. He was looking chargrined.

"That's quite a gallery you have out there," he said.

"It is that," I said. "By way of conversation, whatever of the scavenger hunt, the organized nature hike, the free aquaplaning--"

Norton flushed. "Look, I want to apologize for starting all this. He had me sold he was another Tilden."

"When I'm picking up refuse for the city of New York this winter, I'll remember that you apologized," I said. "Is there any chance this convention outside will break up?"

"I'm afraid not," Norton said, flinching. "Fessler passed word around the hotel this morning he may be in the next Davis Cup matches. If America needs him."

I had one more chance. I grabbed a water pitcher and filled it. I hustled down the stairs and over to the side – lines, spilling water.

When they changed courts at the fifth game, I got Scott off to the side.

"No one looks like they're going to leave," he said.

"So they stay for the whole match," I said. "They're probably after a tan."

"Well, then I'm sorry, Carl," he said, "But I've carried him as far as I'm going to. I'm not making a jackass out of myself for two more sets. There's a limit to everything."

He started back on court.

"Look, Scott," I said, grabbing him, "old Droopy Drawers over there is sort of in a world of his own. I mean, maybe tennis is all he has--"

But the crowd was getting impatient and Scott pulled away. He went to the base-line and tossed up his first ball. His racket swept in a smooth, graceful arc. There was a sudden, sharp whip of tight gut, and a blinding blur of white rocketed across the court and bounded high against the backstop.

Fessler's mouth dropped open as the crowd burst into applause. He had never seen a ball hit that hard at him before, and he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. The next three points of the game were exactly the same.

I didn't watch the rest, I went back up to the tennis house and stayed there.

They were playing the last point of the match when I came out again. Scott charged the net and Fessler sent up a feeble lob. Scott has the hardest over – head smash in the East. Once, in a mixed doubles match, his ball accidentally hit a girl right in the middle of the fore – head. For a month, she had gone around looking like a unicorn.

With a lightning smash, Scott sent this one screaming across the net. It bounced once and was gone. The boat boy found it the next day floating around in the lake.

Scott jumped the net and shook Fessler by the hand. Then the crowd was around them, congratulating Scott.

I stood on the porch and watched Fessler as the crowd filed away. He seemed to be in a daze. He walked over to the sidelines. After awhile, he sank down in the chair by the net. He was soaked in sweat and breathing through his mouth.

I straightened up around the tennis house. I patched a racket and started on another. Then I went out on the porch instead. Fessler was still sitting there.

I walked over to him.

"Mr. Fessler, it's about time for dinner now," I said in a loud voice.

He didn't answer me.

"Look, Mr. Fessler," I said, "it's getting cold out here and you haven't even put your sweater on. You'll have to rush to get a shower before dinner."

I thought he wasn't going to answer again.

Then, from a long distance, he said, "I didn't even give him a game." That was all.

I went back and finished stringing my racket. I was angry now. I'd lost my deal, hadn't I? So that was the end of it. I had enough troubles of my own. I got dressed for dinner. I slammed the door to the shop and locked up.

It was getting dark and colder, so I tried once more.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "All right, why don't we come along now?" I said to him.

This time Fessler stood up obediently. He looked around for a moment, and started off across the court with me. No one said anything. I looked down at the ground, feeling gloomy about the way things had worked out for me and Fessler, too. Then I realized he had left his fine new rackets strung with the best tournament gut stacked neatly by the side of the court.

"Hey, you don't want any of your rackets, Mr. Fessler?" I said.

He shook his head and we went on across the lawn toward the hotel . . .

It must have been about 10:30 that night when I finally wended my way to the bar. I had trouble getting my order taken. My summer was spoiled, I had no job after September, and I couldn't even get a drink in the hotel where I worked. It figures, I thought, feeling sorrier for myself.

I looked down at the other end of the bar in disgust, and suddenly, there was Fessler. He was sitting up on one of the stools as big as life. He had a throng around him, listening to his every word. Whatever he was telling them, they were spellbound. When he paused to light his cigar, his audience watched with the rapt silence of a scout troop rallying around its leader on the first night out in the Belgian Congo.

I pushed my way down there in disbelief. Fessler had resumed telling them about the time he had battled Talbert and Mulloy single-handed. He had marked out the court on the bar with soda straws. Talbert and Mulloy were represented by shot glasses, and Fessler by a beer mug. As the ball, a cashew nut, was passed from side to side, the shot glasses broke into a wild frenzy of abortive maneuvers. They bounced around on the bar-top like confused Mexican jumping beans. The beer mug, though, remained in stolid control of the situation, aloofly anchored at mid-court.

When the shot glasses had finally expended themselves by rattling off to opposite sides of the bar, the cashew

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nut was promptly catapulted down the vulnerable passage that was their center court for a game-winning point. Everyone around the bar broke into spontaneous applause.

This was too much. I broke through the circle of camp followers and grabbed Fessler by the arm.

"Mr. Fessler, I'd like to see you for a minute," I said.

He excused himself and followed me over to the corner. He looked up at me blinking, as sober as a judge.

"Mr. Fessler," I said, "you certainly got over your afternoon's hard luck in a hurry."

"Luck?" he said. "There wasn't any hard luck about me losing this afternoon. I was just beaten."

"Well, then," I said, "you certainly have taken it in stride."

He looked around us. "To tell you the truth, Barnes, I was feeling pretty down in the mouth for awhile there tonight," he said. His voice had taken on a confidential tone. "But after dinner, I called Phelan to tell him I was through with the game, and he explained everything."

"Everything?" I said.

"He told me all great athletes have to taste one crushing defeat to bring out the killer instinct that makes a champion," Fessler said. "He knew I was about due for it because he had sensed a trace of overconfidence in my attitude."

I couldn't think of anything to say.

"If you look back on it objectively," he said, "you can see where I was a shade too much sure of myself."

I cleared my throat. "Your feet are on the ground now, though," I said.

Fessler chuckled. "I'm rushing back to New York tomorrow," he said. "Phelan's got everything arranged. I'm playing Pancho Tuesday morning."

He chuckled again and started back to the bar.

"Pancho Segura?" I said calling after him.

"No," he said, turning back, "Pancho Gonzales. I told you I've already beaten Segura. Why should I play him again?"

He had never seen a ball hit that hard.