Our billiard handicap
It was considered a very open race; there were thirty-two runners, all tryers, and the betting started at ten to one on the field, with any price outsiders. The difficulty at first was in finding a favourite. But after old Captain Snooker had boldly stepped in and taken £25 to £2 about himself, offering to go on at the price in a most reckless manner, it became a case of eight to one bar one. Many of us, of course, fancied ourselves highly, but not to the extent of risking money; it being always safer to bet, so to speak, in opinions rather than in bullion. Young Buttock, however—he was a big butcher and could therefore speculate in actual money—took £30 to £3 about his chance, which was virtually nil. One sees many bad players on ordinary country tables, but it was impossible to find a worse one than Buttock. He was a hard hitter in the cricket field, and if the first straight ball did not bowl him—though it almost invariably did—he would quickly knock up a big score. He tried to play the same game at billiards, slashing at the red as though he could get six off it every time, and despite his flukes, which were outrageous, there was scarcely one of us who could not give Buttock almost any start. It was generally believed that he was as good as money in the funds to old Snooker.
The calibre of the competitors in a country billiard handicap is pretty nearly everywhere the same, and the humours of the situation are pronounced. There is our sporting medico, for instance, who plays, he says, because the game is healthful, and who would doubtless find it more so if he did not consume quite so many whiskies and sodas during its progress. He played a fair game in his youth, and though his nerves are not what they were in the old student days, ho quietly backed him self to win our annual handicap. Then there is old Squire Tupton who has been playing billiards (and other games) all his life, and has consistently declined to do anything else. Despite the devotion of a life, Tupton can’t play for toffee, and his chief characteristic is that when he has fluked—most clearly and palpably fluked—he will assure you with all sincerity that “he played for it.” Of course nobody believes the statement—except Tupton. There was only one reason why Tupton did not back himself to win a good stake. He chronically suffers from a lack of ready money, and our bookmaker politely declined to stand him on the nod. He had had previous transactions with Tupton, and was a man who learnt useful lessons from experience.
Our bookmaker was no other than Mr. Sharpton, the well- known gentleman rider, so famous on the metropolitan circuit, whom wary punters liked to back—when they got to know that he was, as they termed it, “on the job.” Mr. Sharpton was the sort of gentleman rider—by no means a solitary type of the species—who make more out of the game than the professionals, and who do not race so much for honour and glory or love of the sport, as for a settled income. The outside public must not interfere with his good things, and if they helped themselves too precipitately, thus prejudicing his commercial interests, he had peculiar methods of “putting them away.” He liked to win at five or six to one, and had an unconquerable repugnance to even money.
Well, Mr. Sharpton honoured us by residing in our district, and he not only made a book on our annual handicap, but also entered as a player, laying liberal odds against the other competitors, while his own mission was “to run for the book.” He was not much of a player, and old Snooker and I, who were on the scratch mark, were handicapped to give him 40, the heats being 200 up; while Tupton had a start of 60, and Buttock 100. It was believed by local experts that the winner was sure to spring from the number mentioned, as the others had mostly entered on the “make-up-a-race ” principle, and for any chance of winning might just as well have been kept in their stables— or rather beds.
The first round left the favourites in, and did not develop any latent talent, except in the case of young Stubbins, the bank clerk, who with a start of 80 looked really formidable. After he had played his first heat, showing quite unexpected form, the wildest rumours agitated our small circle. It was openly alleged that Stubbins had been “readying” himself for the handicap for a long time, playing badly so as to get well in, and that he had taken £50 to £3 from Sharpton was a fact which the latter gentleman did not regard with any particular satisfaction. Captain Snooker made no attempt to control his emotion. He said “We must certainly have Stubbins up before the stewards. A more outrageous case of roping has never been perpetrated, and for doing less many a man has been warned off for life. Why, gentlemen, in the old days in India, when I was bleeding for my country, I should have had a man out on much less provocation. And the pity of it too—a mere youngster trying to do us old ones, and by Jove he looks like bringing it off!”
As it happened in the second round the irate captain and the wily Stubbins were drawn together, and though the ancient warrior—hero of a hundred similar fights—struggled valiantly to avert defeat, he could not give the start away. The young one got home comfortably, and Snooker’s language was a lesson in objurgation. He did not mind, he said, being beaten in a fair- and-square game—he could take a thrashing with any man—but he objected to sharping tricks, and he denounced the proceedings of his opponent in “getting weight off” as despicable. Hereupon his late antagonist asked him to “Have a drink, old man, and not make a blooming owl of himself,” which would have led to immediate assault and battery had not the captain been surrounded by his friends and earned from the arena.
I t will thus be perceived by the impartial reader that the atmosphere of our billiard-room was getting somewhat heated, and that the progress of our handicap did not encourage the social amenities. Stubbins declared by all his gods that he had not been “qualifying” for the event, and that, although he had lately been quite out of form, he had not systematically played many games in which, as the captain asserted, he had “never tried a yard.” Needless to say, none of us believed Stubbins. His record did not inspire implicit trust. He killed rats on Sunday mornings, and backed horses S.P., and was not particular about the settling when things went against him. He could always owe, he said, if he could not win, and he owed a great deal to the local merchants who combined the science of book making with the sale of strong drink.
After the weeding-out process had been duly got through, the two left in the handicap to play the final were Sharpton and Stubbins, and while there was practically little or no difference in their play, Sharpton had to concede a start of 40. Thus it looked good odds on his opponent, but Sharpton was not at all dismayed by the position of affairs. He declined to save a penny of his money, and said that he could win with another 7lbs up, adding confidentially “Don’t you see what’s the matter? Stubbins can’t play in the pit. He has won all his games so far because he has never met any one good enough to pinch him, but if fairly collared, the man has no heart. Here, I’ll take odds I have him under the table before the game is over.”
There is no doubt that a keen racing man is a good judge of human character, and that Sharpton had correctly summed up the calibre of his opponent was proved by the event. When really required to gallop, Stubbins, like many horses, could hear the whips crack, and his heart failed him. He went all to pieces just when an effort was wanted. Towards the finish ho did not seem to know which end of the cue to play with, nor which was the red ball. So the good thing did not come off, whereat we all rejoiced exceedingly, and congratulated Sharpton most heartily on his clever victory. His only remark was that another 10lbs. would not have stopped him; arid the venerable Snooker said he had performed a great public service.
But the revels were not over. Sharpton was a really good fellow at heart, as we all declared when he announced his intention to stand us a tripe supper, one of the old-fashioned sort, with porter ad lib., and gin for those who liked it. Even the hearts of the losers could scarce forbear to cheer; for, after all is said and done, there is something in tripe, properly cooked, which produces poetry (or other windy manifestation) in the coarsest minds, and which sheds, cheerfulness around. The only man who went home on his hands and knees was, of course, Snooker.
G. G.
Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Saturday 09 January 1892