Three balls and a mug

One of the most startling events of the year in our peaceful hamlet is our annual billiard handicap, for which some of the most respectable inhabitants “ready” themselves for months.

It is curious that these gentlemen never seem to have good luck in their play. Up to a certain point all goes well. With 10lb in hand they knock out a few competitors who scarcely know which end of their cue to chalk; but when they come across someone who goes all the way, they fall to pieces just when they ought to pull themselves together, and at the finish quiver like an aspen leaf. At least, I believe it is an aspen leaf; if not, no harm is intended, and I still maintain that a man who quivers like that or any other recondite form of shrub when he is only a few points off “game” will probably have his head in a spittoon under the settee, groaning desperately, when the other man has won.

A properly organised billiard handicap when all are “on the pinch”, so to speak, serves to illustrate in a lurid light the predatory instincts of mankind. Some of the players work together on the beneficent principle of self-help. That is, they say, “If you can do me a bit of good you won’t do yourself any harm; if you can’t win, help your most deserving brother (that’s me), and there is sure to be something to cut up between us at the end.”

Thus do some of the competitors arrange matters. Not infrequently they are fighting instead of sharing after the event; for many of them only part with money on those terms. But in my heart of hearts I believe that Snooker is champion. I have previously introduced this gay old warrior to my readers. It is impossible to exaggerate his force of character. His wiles are endless. Most men have only one or two ways of getting the best of their neighbours—such as charging for goods they have never had, borrowing money, or seeing their wives home.

But Snooker has constantly something fresh to bring before the public. If he cannot “get a bit” in one way he is sure to find another—probably a better—way. That is what makes the old gentleman—for gentleman he was before his money and conscience left him—so dangerous; and when I have a considerable sum of money on my person (when, indeed!) I always keep feeling for it in Snooker’s society. No one is fonder of social intercourse than I am, but it is not pleasant when with congenial friends to be obliged to keep one’s hands in one’s pockets so as to keep the hands of others out.

Yet one can’t help liking Snooker; he is so delightfully unconventional, his ideas are so quaint and original, his actions so unrestrained humorous.

“I never feel so cheerful,” he said to me, “as when I get up in the morning without sixpence in the world. The consciousness of that fact sharpens one’s faculties like nothing else can; and I give you my word, old boy, that when a man goes on the war-path with no scalp to lose he has quite six to four the best of it with a Johnnie who still retains the top of his head.”

And when Snooker emerged from his chamber of a morning, possessing what he stood up in, it was a very cold day when he was not able to thoroughly warm himself at the expense of others, whether known to him or not.

He had won several of our billiard handicaps,  and could no doubt have won more if he had not been backing someone else. We never knew when he was trying, but on his going days he took a lot of beating. He was such a warrior in the pit. His spirit rose to the occasion; the greater the emergency the more conspicuous were his ability and skill; and it was never safe to lay odds against Snooker unless you had arranged matters to that effect with him before he started. The old man, running in moderate class, was never really beaten until it suited him to be so.

In our last handicap (the prize being a clock that chimed beautifully, but wouldn’t go) Snooker was left in to play the final with Dick Blinks, one of our most respected tradesmen and churchwardens, who, away from the shop and the sacred edifice and his wife, was keen on sport and liked a little racket now and then. Yet, when the usual Sunday morning crowd assembled to be good together, male and female feeling better than on the previous evening, no one looked more evangelical than Blinks, and when the clergyman said, “Let us pray” at the usual stage of the performance, no worshipper turned his eyes up with greater rapture and success than Richard did after consuming enough whisky the night before to paralyze three ordinary souls. Far be it from me to insinuate that he was a hypocrite, but there seemed a certain incongruity in some of his achievements which induced me to accomplish most of my own devotions in the open air.

The final heat of our handicap was to be played on Saturday night, and Snooker called on me during the afternoon, which I thought suspicious. He rarely called upon anyone without a design on their treasury or their refreshment department.

“I suppose,” he said, with his usual sweetness of expression, “that you want to bet on this game to-night.”

“Not until I know which you are going for—yourself or Blinks,” I replied, with engaging candour. “I don’t like to back talking horses unless I have had a talk with them myself.”

“Ah!” replied Snooker, sighing, “suspicious as ever—no faith in man or woman unless they are locked up. Well, I’m going for Blinks. I couldn’t back myself to win anything worth speaking of, and old Dick is really well in the handicap with me not going out, and if he does not get stage-fright on the night of the show.”

“Well, tell him that he has nothing to fear,” I suggested, “that you are backing him, and that all he has to do is to make the best of his way home.”

“That would settle the thing at once,” replied Snooker. “He would become so nervous that he would not be able to hit a ball; so I want you to come down to back Blinks and get what you can in the room. Of course, on the old terms—you take some and I take some, both wishing it were more.”

In the evening we assembled in great force to see the game, some of our prominent citizens being in the front row with a long cigar and an expression of radiant happiness they cannot assume in church, however hard they may try to do so. When the combatants entered the arena I offered to take the slightest shade of odds, looking as though I knew nothing. Many of those present believed that to be my mental condition, for they were eager to lay seven to four on Snooker, and during a few brief, all too-fleeting moments I felt like Mr. R. H. Fry with his gaiters on. Then Blinks came to me.

“For Heaven’s sake don’t back me,” he said, nervously. “This old screamer will make a hack of me at the finish, and there’ll be nothing left of me but perspiration.”

“Forrard on, my boy!” I replied, encouragingly, and then, lowering my voice, said, “Look here, Richard, here’s a secret for you. Snooker lost his grandmother last night; the old lady died hurriedly, murmuring his name, though leaving him nothing, and he can’t play for nuts. You keep on banging at the red ball, and you’ll have him beat before you have time to order another drink.”

As the game progressed Snooker got nearer to his opponent, who had a long start, in the hope that more people would lay longer odds on him, but I could see that the danger of being caught was demoralising Blinks, and I gave Snooker a caution to that effect. But the old man was slightly reckless, and whether he wanted to give me a fright or Blinks, I don’t know, for he caught that worthy at 190 (ten from home), and succeeded in terrifying both of us.

Poor Blinks was in a pitiable condition. He was ghastly pale; he clutched the table as he tottered round it; his hands shook so painfully that he constantly dropped his cue and someone had to pick it up for him; he could not hit a ball. Snooker left them over the pockets close to him, and tried to hold his jaws so as to keep his teeth from chattering when he tried to make a stroke—but all to no purpose. When Mr. Blinks, weeping bitterly, eventually collapsed backwards into the pool box with a yell of despair, we saw the game was up, and his wife was sent for.

“No good in the pit,” I remarked to Snooker, as the body was removed.

“The bottomless pit is about his form,” snarled the old man; and we left together with not enough money between us to purchase poison.

Great Scot the Chaser. By G.G. 1897