I listened to a mob in Piccadilly singing about how British arms would "tame the frantic autocrat and smite the Russian slave," and consoled myself with the thought that I would be snug and safe down at Woolwich, doing less than my share to see that they got the right guns to do it with. And so I might, if I hadn't loafed out one evening to play pool with Speed in the Haymarket.
As I recall, I only went because Elspeth's entertainment for the evening was to consist of going to the theatre with a gaggle of her female friends to see some play by a Frenchman—it was patriotic to go to anything French just then, and besides the play was said to be risque, so my charmer was bound to see it in order to be virtuously shocked.4 I doubted whether it would ruffle my tender sensibilities, though—not enough to be interesting, anyway—so I went along with Speed.
We played a few games of sausage in the Piccadilly Rooms, and it was a dead bore, and then a chap named Cutts, a Dragoon whom I knew slightly, came by and offered us a match at billiards for a quid a hundred. I'd played with him before, and beat him, so we agreed, and set to.
I'm no pool-shark, but not a bad player, either, and unless there's a goodish sum riding, I don't much care whether I win or lose as a rule. But there are some smart-alecs at the table that I can't abide to be beat by, and Cutts was one of them. You know the sort—they roll their cues on the tables, and tell the bystanders that they play their best game off list cushions instead of rubber, and say "Mmph?" if you miss a shot they couldn't have got themselves in a hundred years. What made it worse, my eye was out, and Cutts' luck was dead in—he brought off middle-pocket jennies that Joe Bennet wouldn't have looked at, missed easy hazards and had his ball roll all round the table for a cannon, and when he tried long pots as often as not he got a pair of breeches. By the time he had taken a fiver apiece from us, I was sick of it.
"What, had enough?" cries he, cock-a-hoop. "Come on, Flash, where's your spirit? I'll play you any cramp game you like—shell-out, skittle pool, pyramids, caroline, doublet or go-back.5 What d'ye say? Come on, Speed, you're game, I see."
So Speed, the ass, played him again, while I mooched about in no good humour, waiting for them to finish. And it chanced that my eye fell on a game that was going on at a corner table, and I stopped to watch.
It was a flat-catching affair, one of the regular sharks fleecing a novice, and I settled down to see what fun there would be when the sheep realized he was being sheared. I had noticed him while we were playing with Cutts—a proper-looking mamma's boy with a pale, delicate face and white hands, who looked as though he'd be more at home handing cucumber sandwiches to Aunt Jane than pushing a cue. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, but I'd noticed his clothes were beautifully cut, although hardly what you'd call pool-room fashion; more like Sunday in the country. But there was money about him, and all told he was the living answer to a billiard-rook's prayer.
They were playing pyramids, and the shark, a grinning specimen with ginger whiskers, was fattening his lamb for the kill. You may not know the game, but there are fifteen colours, and you try to pocket them one after the other, like pool, usually for a stake of a bob a time. The Iamb had put down eight of them, and the shark three, exclaiming loudly at his ill luck, and you could see the little chap was pretty pleased with himself.
"Only four balls left!" cries the shark. "Well, I'm done for; my luck's dead out, I can see. Tell you what, though; it's bound to change; I'll wager a sovereign on each of the last four."
You or I would know that this was the time to put up your cue and say good evening, before he started making the balls advance in column of route dressed from the front, and even the little greenhorn thought hard about it; but hang it, you could see him thinking, I've potted eight out of eleven—surely I'll get at least two of those remaining.
So he said very well, and I waited to see the shark slam the four balls away in as many shots. But he had weighed up his man's purse, and decided on a really good plucking, and after pocketing the first ball with a long double that made the greenhorn's jaw drop, the shark made a miscue on his next stroke. Now when you foul at pyramids, one of the potted balls is put back on the table, so there were four still to go at. So it went on, the shark potting a ball and collecting a quid, and then fouling—damning his own clumsiness, of course—so that the ball was re-spotted again. It could go on all night, and the look of horror on the little greenhorn's face was a sight to see. He tried desperately to pot the balls himself, but somehow he always found himself making his shots from a stiff position against the cushion, or with the four colours all lying badly; he could make nothing of it. The shark took fifteen pounds off him before dropping the last ball—off three cushions, just for swank—and then dusted his fancy weskit, thanked the flat with a leer, and sauntered off whistling and calling the waiter for champagne.
The little gudgeon was standing woebegone, holding his limp purse. I thought of speeding him on his way with a taunt or two, and then I had a sudden bright idea.
"Cleaned out, Snooks?" says I. He started, eyed me suspiciously, and then stuck his purse in his pocket and turned to the door.
"Hold on," says I. "I'm not a Captain Sharp; you needn't run away. He rooked you properly, didn't he?"
He stopped, flushing. "I suppose he did. What is it to you?"
"Oh, nothing at all. I just thought you might care for a drink to drown your sorrows."
He gave me a wary look; you could see him thinking, here's another of them.
"I thank you, no," says he, and added: "I have no money left whatever."
"I'd be surprised if you had," says I, "but fortunately I have. Hey, waiter."
The boy was looking nonplussed, as though he wanted to go out into the street and weep over his lost fifteen quid, but at the same time not averse to some manly comfort from this cheery chap. Even Tom Hughes allowed I could charm when I wanted to, and in two minutes I had him looking into a brandy glass, and soon after that we were chatting away like old companions.
He was a foreigner, doing the tour, I gathered, in the care of some tutor from whom he had managed to slip away to have a peep at the fleshpots of London. The depths of depravity for him, it seemed, was a billiard-room, so he had made for this one and been quickly inveigled and fleeced.
"At least it has been a lesson to me," says he, with that queer formal gravity which a man so often uses in speaking a language not his own. "But how am I to explain my empty purse to Dr Winter? What will he think?"
"Depends how coarse an imagination he's got," says I. "You needn't fret about him; he'll be so glad to get you back safe and sound, I doubt if he'll ask too many questions."
"That is true," says my lad, thoughtfully. "He will fear for his own position. Why, he has been a negligent guardian, has he not?"
"Dam' slack," says I. "The devil with him. Drink up, boy, and confusion to Dr Winter."
You may wonder why I was buying drink and being pleasant to this flat; it was just a whim I had dreamed up to be even with Cutts. I poured a little more into my new acquaintance, and got him quite merry, and then, with an eye on the table where Cutts was trimming up Speed, and gloating over it, I says to the youth:
"I tell you what, though, my son, it won't do for the sporting name of Old England if you creep back home without some credit. I can't put the fifteen sovs back in your pocket, but I'll tell you what—just do as I tell you, and I'll see that you win a game before you walk out of this hall."