Hal v. Stice, continued: the honor call as craft-etiquette

Internal E.T.A. matches have no linesmen, so the etiquette is its own discipline. Stice's ace is "literally too close to call," and Hal, who couldn't see it, gives it to him anyway — "Not your job to see it... You hit it too hard to see, you deserve the point." The craft includes a code: a ball struck past the limit of the eye earns the point on the strength of the strike alone, and the opponent administers the rule against himself. Good-friends-off-court, remorseless-on-court, and scrupulously fair in the same gesture.