THE return to something of his true form—it is, nevertheless, but a shadow of his once great ability—has engendered a large public interest in the doings of William Spiller. In him they are pleased to think that a formidable rival to the backmarkers of the Burroughes and Watts' Tournament has been unearthed. And so it would seem.
He is in quite a different class to his latest opponent, W. Cook, a scion of the one time champion player of that name. Cook is quite a cut above the ordinary professional cueist in the matter of deportment, and also gave proof of considerable knowledge of the game. It took him a very long while to somewhat accustom himself to the idiosyncrasies of the table. Through the two first games Cook barely hinted that he was such a capable player as we now know him to be, for Spiller, going great guns, completely outclassed and outplayed him. This can the more readily be appreciated when it is pointed out that Cook respectively succumbed by 853 and 1,070 points—exceptionally large winning balances. The commencement of the final game was marked by quite another order of procedure, Cook scoring in vastly different fashion to the impotent progress he had previously made. Breaks of 254 and 271, the most notable feature of each of which efforts was his excellent close-cannon play, showed him to be no mean opponent.
Yet these were only flashes of brilliancy upon a sea of mediocrity, and Spiller, showing much the greater consistency, got the better of a most interesting game, and finally won by 263 points. The players' averages for the week's play work out as follows:
| Innings | Points | Average | |
| SPILLER | 220 | 7,161 | 32.55 |
| COOK | 217 | 3,774 | 17.39 |