The clerk began by recommending tennis.  “Yes,” he said, “that would be very nice.  Everybody is playing tennis now.”

But that got him into trouble, for after a pause he said:  “I’m sorry I can’t tell you everything about it.  I don’t play tennis myself.  Al could tell you, though.  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 renewed.

The Gilmer was still new when the Battle of Shiloh was fought, and several thousand of the wounded were brought to Columbus.  The hotel and various other buildings, including that of the former Female Institute, were converted into hospitals, as were also many private houses in the town.