Billiard Incident and Humour

• Riso Levi tells of two brothers named Brown, one of whom is a commercial traveller who plays an ordinary game of billiards, whilst his brother is a very fine player. The two are so much alike that the "hot" one is sometimes taken on by mistake when he happens to be in the billiard room of a commercial hotel, with comical results—although not to the challenger.
• Of Falkiner's cue delivery "Regent," in The Daily News, says that it is about the last word in exact precision. He does not swing his cue in the ordinary acceptance of the word 'swing'; he merely moves it a few inches back, and then makes contact between cue tip and ball. He works on a small canvas, and his effects are as brilliant as a fine miniature painted by a great craftsman of the brush. There is as much difference between his style and that of, say, Inman as there is between an etching and Frith's 'Derby Day' picture
• "Polaris," in The Star, records of Falkiner that, walking round the top of the table at Thurston's, he suddenly pulled up short, rubbed his leg, and then regarded the marker with an injured expression. I asked him, when the break was over, what had happened, and he replied: 'I very nearly put my knee out; went full tilt against a knob on the table; it made me feel sick, and put me clean off my game.' So now you know the hidden dangers which lurk in a game of billiards!
• Reporting the match at Bristol between Inman and McConachy, The Bristol Evening News told how McConachy just failed at a difficult screw loser at the top of the table, and Mr. Goundrill, the referee, remarked, 'The break, gentlemen, is—,' when the red went down at the bottom end, and he added, 'not yet finished.' It was a smart recovery on the part of Mr. Goundrill, and it was greeted with laughter, in which both players joined heartily. Writing to The Billiard Player on this incident, Goundrill says:—"I was calling out the break immediately upon seeing that McConachy was missing his shot. Then I saw that the red was in a good line for the bottom pocket, and got my 'correction' in as the ball dropped in."
• Inman says that red ball play is "generally a wearing, tearing, and worrying way of scoring the points for the other fellow to watch." he adds: "When George Gray was running up 'thousand' breaks in this way two or three times a week, they sent for 'Little Mel,' as I was more or less affectionately called, to try and 'stop the rot.' What happened to me in this 'forlorn hope' sort of business sends me hot and cold whenever I think about it. As far as I can remember, I had plenty of time at my disposal and excellent opportunities of watching Gray's strokes and methods. He red-balled me to desperation. But my revenge came in the championship of 1912, when his party were so confident he would win. He found, Like so many others have done, and yet will do, that billiards with ivory balls is entirely different from composition ball play."
• He: "Five hundred elephants are needed every year for making billiard balls. She: "How strange that people can teach such great beasts to do such delicate work."—Pearson's Weekly.
• Exactly when the billiard table came into use is not clear, but reference is made to it in a manuscript dated 1591, the writer classing billiards with "dice and cards and other thriftless games."#151;Tit-Bits.
• Riso Levi tells of a professional billiard player who, on returning to his seat after missing a long-range loser, remarked: "How can anyone expect to get a shot like that when his ball has to travel so far through the long grass." This reference to the cloth almost parallels Inman's complaint on one occasion as to the squareness of the balls.
• The practice by spectators of whispering instructions to players seems to be growing, and in this connexion a story comes from the north. Two of the leading London lights were giving an exhibition game in a northern town, and a young man sitting near the table was getting excited. "Pot red," "Cannon," "In-off red," he murmured. At last a spectator, who had no advice to give, got annoyed and said: "Hey, man! Let him play his own game!"
• To billiard players (writes a correspondent), as old age approaches, there sometimes seems to be a halo round the ball at a distance, whilst others actually think they can see two balls. A gentleman who was coaxed to play in a public hall, after many years' absence from the green cloth, made the excuse that he could always see two balls. "Well, you will hit one of them," was the jocular remark of a friend. He missed, and then explained: "I saw two cues as well!"
• The first historical mention of the game of billiards is in the following striking lines from the Persian:—
  
  The ball no question makes or ayes or noes, But, more or less as strikes the player, goes; But he who whispers audible asides He knows about it all, he knows, HE knows. What can avail your highfalutin' talk, Your champion cue, the colour of your chalk, If your opponent thinks it is the game To pot the white and leave a double baulk?
• The game of billiards was known in Egypt, though the Pharaohs were more in favour of pyramids. Potiphar was the first player of note, but his fame was eclipsed later by Marker Antony and Cleopottera. Billiards was introduced into England by the Lombardy bankers, who displayed the three balls as a sign over their doors. They settled for the most part at Cue Gardens.—Tit-Bit