SOME HUMOURS OF A “HUNDRED-UP”

Modern Man, Saturday 03 June 1911

BILLIARD SMILES.

SOME HUMOURS OF A “HUNDRED-UP.”

Just as it is undoubtedly the most attractive indoor game to play, so is billiards one of the pleasantest to watch, for there are innumerable causes, even in so short a game as a hundred-up, for a burst of that hearty laughter that seems so typically characteristic of a billiard-room.

“Flukes” are often productive of much merriment. For instance, in a recent club handicap in the City a player who had run up a very good break had the bad luck to miscue, and was cursing his luck under his breath when a roar of laughter made him look up. His ball had had just enough strength to travel up the table and pot the red!

Most billiard-rooms are adorned with cards requesting you to use the rest whenever it is required—and there is a moral in this, especially to stout men who wear clothes of thin texture. Not long ago the writer saw such a man who “could just reach it, thanks,” clamber on to the table, and, with a violent stroke, manage to split his trousers with an ominous crack. The unfortunate man did a record sprint for the bathroom, where he stayed until the marker brought him a needle and cotton, which the utilised to perform a very bad tailoring task.

Have you ever, in attempting to leave a safety miss just under a middle pocket and against the cushion, managed to let your ball trickle “into the hole”? The writer has; and though on that occasion he himself did not see the humour of the situation the spectators did.

Snooker, too, is productive of many a smile, for when you are snookered, and in trying a cushion-shot on to the yellow, you come back on to the green, or else when you masterfully put down the black and then go in after, the expression of your face is apt to be vastly funny, to everybody but yourself.                                                                                                                                                                   

J. W. Hallows.