THE “SCIENTIFIC” PLAYER
Sporting Times, Saturday 29 December 1917
BILLIARD NOTES.
By WlNNING HAZARD.
Without any desire to challenge comparisons with Pinero, Barrie or any other contemporary scribe, I beg to submit the first of My series of Billiard Comedies, entitled
THE “SCIENTIFIC” PLAYER.
Scenario-a public room. On left of stage, marker is engaged in reading the rules of snooker. Rumble of traffic can be heard unceasingly. When marker is in last throes of despair, door opens and admits two men in search of game.
Scientific Player: “Marker.”
Marker (rising joyfully): “Yessir.”
S.P.: “Are the tables occupied!”
M.: “I don’t think so, sir” (but looks round to make sure).
S.P. (grandiloquently): “Then we will have a game. (Watches effect of announcement on marker, who manages, with an effort, to preserve his natural calm.)
M. (going to cupboard): “Ivories or crystalate, sir!”
S.P.: “Let me see! Yes. I think we’ll try the crystalates to-day. Mr. Dud (the opponent), what do you say!”
Mr. Dud (nervously): “Ah—Oh, yes, of course! Whatever you choose will do for me.”
S.P. (removing overcoat, jacket and hat): “Got any decent cues, marker!”
M.: “Yessir.” (Leads S.P. to cue rack.) “These are pretty good.’’ (Mr. Dud follows the other two, anxious to note the difference between decent and indecent cues; but his curiousity is not rewarded; the cues seem exactly alike.)
S.P. (testing cue by bending and looking along it in telescopic style): “Hum! seems a bit squew-whiff at the end, marker.”
M.: “It’s a 16” (meaning weight).
S.P. “Oh, I’m not particular about the length.”
Mr. D. (grabbing first cue he comes across joins his opponent at table, and, wishing to appear familiar, says): “I’ve got a decent cue, anyhow.”
M.: “Yessir; it’s a decent cue, but (insinuatingly) wouldn’t you rather ’ave one with a tip on it, sir!”
Mr. D.- (miserably): “Oh, yes, of course” (and is handed another).
S.P.: “I’ll give you 20, old chap, in 100 up. Will you break!”
Mr. D.: “With pleasure.” (Goes to baulk, smites his ball lustily on to the red, which comes back and kisses white in a middle-pocket)
S.P. (opens his game by trying for and failing at a cannon off a side cushion, leaving a nice position): “D —–. Bally chalk is rotten.”
Mr. D. (sympathetically): “Off your game a bit”
S.P. (brightening up): “Oh, that’s all right” (Crosses over to where Mr. D. is about to take a stroke.) “Now, then, you want to play to skim the white. Very thinly, mind; on to the red to leave another cannon on.” (Mr. D. faithfully follows instructions and brings off the shot). “Good shot!” (Then, a little sourly as an easy score is left) “I’d play a cannon now if I were you.”
Mr. D. plays a terrific shot, scoring 5 for a cannon and red pot
M. calls: “28-love!”
(The game progresses slowly, with Mr. D. making some wild and wicked flukes, the while S.P. misses shots by the merest hair’s breadths! Finally, with the scores roading, “Mr. Dud, 93; S.P., 32,” a 3-cushion cannon, combined with the disappearance of a white and the red ball, wins the game for Mr. D.)
M. “Game!”
Mr. D. (exultant, but somewhat nervous): “You were most unlucky!”
S.P. (wickedly): “Unlucky?”
Mr. D. (still anxious to appease): “And the balls ran for me.”
S.P. (still wrathful): “D —– the balls!”
Mr. D. (hurt): “But I pulled off one or two good shots.”
(S.P. looks at him and laughs scornfully; pays for the table and begins to put on his hat, coat and overcoat again. Then, sotto voce): “Of all the blessed flukers—–’’
(Slow music and curtain.)