IT hath been told me that Lupino Lane, to get the (h)atmosphere for a new sketch, is taking up billiards to learn his cue.
He never played seriously before.
After all, it's a long lane that has no turning. And I have heard funnier things than that. For instance...
I had a conversation with a well known billiard journalist the other day, and he commented on the difficulty of finding new expressions with which to point out the beauties of the game.
"I wonder how Shakespeare would do it?" was his final question.
That set me thinking. How would the immortal bard describe a game?
I wondered. Then, with due meekness and in all humility, I tried to don, for the briefest of moments, his mantle and do it for him.
Behold the result.
A newly-discovered scene. Scene 5.—The Duke's palace. Enter Thurio, Proteus.
Thurio: Sir Proteus, an' it please you, will you join me in a quiet game?
Proteus: Aye, surely, sir. Indeed, I long have waited for a chance to lean above the good green cloth again, and test the skill and virtue of my cue.
Thurio: Then let us go. I warn you, though, fair sir, that I have passing skill. My hazards are of wondrous neatness; and, though loth to boast, good judges have me in their eye as one who may some day be hailed as champion!
Proteus (aside): A boastful braggart, this. (Aloud): Methinks, then, I had better claim a handsome start from thee, so that the game be worthy of the name. What odds dost offer?
Thurio: Nay, Sir Proteus, no man lays odds against a force unknown, unless he courts disaster. Still, if thou art satisfied on level terms to meet, in this our first encounter, we will stake some little sum—say, fifty florins—on't?
Proteus (aside): The rogue feels mighty sure of beating me. (Aloud): The stake is high, and yet I would not have you fancy me a faint heart.
We will play. Come, lead me to the room.
Thurio: Pray step this way.
(Exit).
Scene 6.—The billiard room.
Proteus and Thurio playing.
Proteus: How stands the game, now, marker?
Marker: Ninety all, fair sir; the miss Sir Thurio gave away just now has made thy score creep level, and 'tis thee to play.
Thurio: A thousand furies seize this thrice-accursed cue. 'Tis mine, 'tis true, but some foul fiend has cast a spell on it. It twists, it writhes— a serpent of a cue.
Proteus: And yet it seems the scores are much alike, and neck and neck we two have battled on to reach the goal of our ambitions dear.
Thurio: Aye, but I have had infernal luck. Have you not marked how, scores of times, the balls flew at a tangent to the cushions, and left utter safety when 'twas I to play?
Proteus: I have not marked; but you say 'tis so, and so it must be.
(He plays and gains his points.
Thurio casts away his cue in disgust and stalks away.) Proteus: A poor loser, this; and, therefore, a poor man. He who shows his chagrin at the losing of a game will show but poorly in the game of life. Marker, the stakes are mine.
Marker: They are, fair sir, and ne'er was stake won fairer. (Exit.) Curtain.
If you say this three times you won't have as much breath left as would waft the white froth off a pint o' the best:— A curious cuer once cueist of Kew, Couldn't score with his curious cue, So a curious curate Said "The curious cue's rate Is a cure for the cueist of Kew."
I suppose that you have all met at some time or other the individuals who "just got knocked out" by two or three. But I doubt very much if any of you have ever been so pestered with their attentions as I.
Unfortunately for myself, I am of a deeply sympathetic nature. Kindness, and other things, simply beam out of my eyes, and the weary and.
heavy-laden fasten on to me with leech-like pertinacity.
And their tales, alas! are so very, very similar.
"Not a ha'porth of luck the whole game," they will wail; "twice my ball just rolled up to the pocket, looked in, and said 'no thank you!' Missed hundreds of difficult cannons by inches. Always seemed to be 'just room round,' you know. Even the marker said..." etc., etc.
You all know the yarn; you will have heard it before.
But here is where my absolute stupidity comes in. I feel that that man wants bucking up. I look into his eye and think that I can see signs of lurking madness, signs which tell me that if something doesn't cheer the poor fellow up he will go away home and do something.
Visions of him beating his wife; of striking a policeman; of investing in a pound or two of rat poison, flicker before me and my heart softens.
"Never mind, old chap," I will say, placing my hand on his heaving shoulder, "come and play me a hundred up for a couple of bob or so. Your luck might change now."
It always costs me the game and whatever money we've staked. Even if I could beat him (and the chances are about a million to one against that!) it would be simply murder to do so. Coming on the head of his other bitter defeat he might not even wait until he got home; he might suicide himself in full view of the marker and myself there and then. So I always pay.