The white and yellow balls are cue balls. To the huge majority of players there are one or more clubs in which they cannot affect to feel much confidence. There was whirr on whirr and click on click. Next minute, I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. The butler, who was nearly bent double with old age, said so. The business of offering sympathy had been reduced to a system by the civilisation which these ladies helped to maintain; and, as it happened, there was one present who was familiar with this system. The third shift was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dog-cart. Away she tripped, while the major remained standing where she had left him, feeling a better man than he had done since he was a young ensign and kissed his mother for the last time at the Portsmouth jetty before the great transport carried him off to India. A golfer by practice may improve his play with a club, but he very likely will find that, during the time he has occupied himself with this club, another has mysteriously failed him; and in any case the terrible ordeal of putting has to be gone through, and it is the painful experience of bad putters that practice does by no means perfect, but only causes new terrors to appear.

I do not pretend to say that an average player is always "off" with this or that club, but as every golfer knows there come times or spells of times when all skill with one class of club seems to vanish. In the parlour there were two card-tables, what is billiards and every other convenience for any who preferred sedentary amusements. It was an absurd fear; because creatures who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. Now it is only the best players who are masters equally of five or six clubs, and I doubt if this can be said truly even of them. The table and the cushioned rail bordering the table are topped with a feltlike tight-fitting cloth. From an outdoor sport, it moved indoors, where it required a wooden table. It is not placed back on the table until that player’s turn. Anytime the red ball is pocketed, it is automatically placed back on the billiards table. If you pot your cue ball after the ball contacts the red ball, it is worth 3 points. A "cannon" is worth 2 points and occurs when your cue ball makes contact with the two other balls.

Also, you do not earn any points. It has been said, that every match is won by the short game; this, like many much-quoted sayings, is a half-truth. As I smoked I heard the game begin again-with a miss in baulk this time, for the whirr was a short one. I argued the matter out at great length with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, and two chairs-all the furniture of the room next to mine-could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. This is a fine Fear-a great cowardice, and must be felt to be appreciated. Some reading was done; and much smoking and sewing, though not by the same parties; there were the monsters of the deep to be looked after and wondered at; strange ships had to be scrutinized through opera-glasses, and sage decisions arrived at concerning them; and more than that, every body took a personal interest in seeing that the flag was run up and politely dipped three times in response to the salutes of those strangers; in the smoking-room there were always parties of gentlemen playing euchre, draughts and dominoes, especially dominoes, that delightfully harmless game; and down on the main deck, "for’rard"-for’rard of the chicken-coops and the cattle-we had what was called "horse-billiards." Horse-billiards is a fine game.

There were three rooms, besides my own, which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through dingy white doors fastened with long iron bars. This makes snooker the youngest of the three. There was an interview with the butler, but as he promptly lost his head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, in the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in three separate stations-two of them fifty miles away. When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy-palms outside. No other sound is like it. It's a chapel-of-ease for the devil to preach in-don't tell me not to be eloquent: I don't know what you mean, Mr. Caudle, and I shall be just as eloquent as I like.