At Bow County Court recently there were actions "Inman v. Cook" and "Newman v. Taylor."
Newman is no longer a "new man" in billiards, but Inman, it is understood, intends to continue to be an "in man."
It has been said of the billiard-marker that he hands the rest, sends down the ball, and marks many things besides the game.
In a billiard-room in the Kaap Valley there is a notice that is pathetic in its sincerity: "Don't put the balls in your pocket; they are of no use to you, and we can't get any more here."
In an exhibition game in London several years ago, Reece was making a fairly big break and had occasion to play a rather tricky shot with his left hand, whereat a gentleman in the front row of seats said to the lady by whom he was accompanied: "Amphibious, my dear, amphibious."
Punctuality of starting was not the leading characteristic in the professional championship matches played in the last season before the war, and when the marker, after one of the sessions, announced in a loud voice that play would be resumed next day at three o'clock, a sporting spectator exclaimed: "A dollar it won't."
John Roberts, when last in Australia, encountered that well-known type of young marker who is always read) to give a customer 40 or 50 in a hundred. Roberts, in reply to his persistency, ended with: "I happen to be John Roberts," adding the information "retired billiard champion." "Well, I'll give you 20," was the rejoinder Mark Twain once happened to be in a Nevada billiard-room, and the proprietor offered to play him lefthanded.
"It hurt my pride," said Mark in telling the story, "but I played him. He ran to game when I had done little else but chalk my cue, and I asked him if that was his left-handed play what could he do righthanded.
' Nothing,' was the reply. ' I 'm a lefthanded man.'" During Mr. Sydenham Dixon's nine years of theatrical life (says Baily's Magazine) a company to which he was attached was playing for a week at the Grand Theatre, Islington, and the neighbouring streets were promenaded by boardmen whose burdens bore the inscription: "Grand Theatre. 'Our Regiment.' Mr. Sydenham Dixon as 'Mr. Ellaby.'" On the other side of the road, entirely by a coincidence, other boardmen conveyed the intimation that "The Rev. Sydenham Dixon will preach on Sunday next on 'The Curse of Drink.'" The preacher was, as it happened, a cousin of Mr. Dixon, but it was long before he heard the end of the references by his fellow-players to the awful double life that he was evidently leading.