Captain Sheldrick’s Letter

Admin’s Note: Original scans and a transcription of the letter were kindly provided by Peter Ainsworth, to whom I am most grateful. I have made a small number of minor amendments to the transcription after comparison with the original manuscript; none affects the substance of the text.

S.S. Oriental
Calcutta
Feb 2nd ’86

My dear brother William,

Very glad to see your copperplate old boy, sorry you have had such a duff[?] lot of markin[?] what a dam nuisance servants are to be sure always some little or big things that don’t suit blast them I say, it is a pity we could not get on without them. By jove old man I should liked to have been there when old Byerly told you to “hit em up” of course the devils were bound to be knocked over I thought you knew Skittle Pool old boy, of course Byerly was delighted when the devils turned their toes up and called you a “silly mug” for hitting em up I suppose. At our Club in Rangoon we play a game called Snookers a first rate game any amount of fun in it specially if one of you get snookgered. The way it is played is the same as Shell out but you put in the Yellow, Brown, Green & Black balls, if you take the Yellow it is double the ordinary life, if the Brown treble, if the Green four times, & if the Black 5 times as much as the ordinary life, of course you must pot a red ball in before you can play on one of the other beggars but some times you run in of one of them and got to pay up the price of the ball it is 2, 3, 4th or 5th ball. I played the other night and very soon tumbled into it they thought they had a mug. I think but[?] before we had finished playing I had “Snookgered” them for 14 Rupees almost 25 bob. They didn’t asked me to play Snookers again that evening. They were rather cold I think — you ought to start that game old man it will take first rate I should think with a lot of young fellows it is just the same as shell-out only these other balls are put on the spots up the centre of the table. Of course in a large company like this we have a few of all sorts of fellow, well one or two of them are rather fond of a little gamble at nap (you recollect what I used to play at Byerlys). Well one of them came to me the other night in Calcutta and said, I hear you are a good Nap player, Shell, (I am generally called Shell for short) and a good Whist player as well, of course I said I played a little, now I flatter myself I can play both those games at cards as well as any ordinary person does, this Captain that asked me is a noted beggar for Nap and generally wins and the consequence is that the other fellows funk him, but I thought I might as well have a go at him so we started after dinner about 9 PM four of us and played till 2 o’clock in the morning, they had all got tired by that time, two of us had won. I had won about £6 off the cuss that asked me to play and who thought I was a griffin he told me afterwards, so I did not do so bad on the voyage. I had won £5 at Whist so I am not a loser by my gambling propensities am I old boy, of course I lose sometimes but when I do it is very small [there is one thing?] old boy they can play as long as they like but I am just as clear headed at the finish as I am at the start and they are not. Whiskey and Sodas wont stand along side Water it is bound to tell in the end and they generally find it is — I do wish I could handle the Cue as well as I can play Whist I would not funk any of the beggars I see out there. As it is it is only fellows living onshore and continually playing every night that do manage to give me a whollopping at Billiards, at Pool, shell out or Snookers I hold my own of all sorts of fellows