Brian had seldom been seen on court since he took on the post of chairman. Not that he was the type to complain about the administrative burden. On the contrary, he enjoyed the cut and thrust of committee meetings and newsletters, and his enthusiasm was now reaping its rewards. Within weeks of his appointment, he was producing more paper than any of his predecessors. The name pegs were in pristine condition, colour-coded and arranged in alphabetical order. The tennis balls were all identified by a court number neatly scribed in indelible ink - and woe betided anyone who came off court 3 without the requisite number of number 3 balls! The new notice board was resplendent with its display of colour-coded minutes - white for general committee meetings, blue for the social sub-committee, yellow for the amenities sub-committee and so on and so forth. There were rotas for this and rotas for that. The cupboard always contained exactly the right number of chocolate muesli bars for every league match. Upper Gummtrey Tennis Club ran like the proverbial well-oiled machine.

On this particular Saturday morning, Jez and Mike found Brian rearranging the pegs as usual, puffing at his pipe and muttering oaths whenever he found discrepancies.

"Brian, I need to speak to you," said Jez, earnestly.

"Good morning, young man. Morning, Mike," said Brian. "Look at this! How can Rogers come before Parker, eh? Anyway, how are you Jeremy? I hear your flight back from Egypt was, um, eventful?"

"Yeh," replied Jez. "It was a real pain! We'd been in the air about an hour or so and the captain announced one of the engines had failed."

"Palmer, Pettit, Reynolds, . . ." mumbled Brian, surveying the pegs. "Carry on - I am listening!"

"Well," Jez went on. "The captain said the journey would take an hour longer, partly because of the engine and partly because of fog. Then a second engine failed and our arrival time was postponed another two and a half hours. Then I fell asleep for a while. When I woke up, my neighbour said a third engine had gone. He said the stewardess had assured everyone the plane flew fine with one engine, but we were looking at a further three hour delay!"

"That's terrible!" said Brian.

"Bet you're glad the last engine didn't fail," said Mike. "You'd have been up there all day!"

Brian coughed and dropped his pipe. "Well, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" he said.

"Well, what it is," Jez began, "I'm thinking of getting a coaching qualification."

Mike continued where Jez left off. "And we want to know if the Club will take him on as Club Coach when Tim leaves," he said. "If he qualifies, of course."

"What's your interest in this, Mike?" Brian interrupted.

"Oh, I'm going to act as his agent - manage his finances and so on."

"Agent? Mmm," mumbled Brian, nursing his pipe, looking quizzically from one to the other. "I haven't thought much about replacing Tim yet. Mmm. I suppose it's a possibility. What sort of arrangement did you have in mind?"

Mike waved a piece of paper and said, "Well, we've put our heads together and come up with a few proposals. So, let's say 20K a year retainer - that would include training camps."

"What!" said Brian, dropping his pipe for a second time. "Twenty thousand a year?"

"He'll be very popular with the juniors. The club will benefit."

"In my experience, popularity is often in inverse proportion to quality," said Brian. "Tabloids compared to broadsheets, pop music compared to classical, soaps to Shakespeare, etc, etc."

"No, he'll be good - really!" said Mike. "Now where were we? Ah yes. Exclusive use of one court for private lessons. Priority use of the meeting room as an office for administration and stringing . . ."

At this point, Brian coughed, tapped his pipe and said "What would you say to a package including a sponsored car, free tickets to the Grand Slams - all expenses paid, 5 weeks paid holiday and free medical and dental insurance?"

Jez's jaw sagged. "Crikey!" he exclaimed, "You're joking!"

"Yes, I think he is," said Mike, temporarily conceding defeat.

"Well, you started it!" said Brian. "Anyway, start by giving Tim a hand with the juniors this morning and we'll talk about all this in more detail later."