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In the first place a valuable hint may surely be found in the development of Rugby football. I had found my ghost and would have given worlds to have escaped from that dâk-bungalow. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and peered into the dark of the next room. It was an absurd fear; because creatures who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. To prove how much nerve is the first, second, and third necessity in putting, you may take a man of thirty years old who has been and perhaps still is a good cricketer, and has a good eye for games generally. It is trying perhaps to find oneself beaten by youths, who a few years before used to touch their caps to you, and you presented with a third; but it is odd that everybody does not realise that this development is inevitable, and should therefore have come naturally and not as a violent surprise.

In billiards it is equally true to say that only a few men play equally well at different shots, the long losing hazard or the long winner, the screw, follow on, &c.; but at billiards it is far easier to regulate and engineer your game so as to avoid having to attempt a stroke you cannot play. I argued the matter out at great length with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, and two chairs-all the furniture of the room next to mine-could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. All billiards games require the basic equipment of a table, cue sticks, what is billiards and balls. What are the basic rules for billiards? In conclusion, understanding the rules of billiards is essential for players of all levels. In billiards every stroke requires thought of the question of strength; even a safety miss may easily be altogether defeated in its object if played too hard or too soft. We believe that something might even be done by borrowing from hockey the principle of the semi-circle, outside of which a goal may not be shot.

Some people call this an angle shot. You need 15 balls, but some people play with just nine. People wouldn't be so keen to play with their legs. Certain players, therefore, hate and cannot play with certain clubs; perhaps it may be said of a few, very few, that they play equally well or badly with all clubs. But it is true of golf that you will find it impossible to avoid being compelled some time or other to play with a club you have little confidence in, and to negotiate distances you hate. For some reason which it is impossible to explain, golfers always seem to be far more frightened at being two yards beyond the hole than they are at being two yards short. I have mentioned golf and billiards together as the two games that give the hardest test of nerve, and the reason is this, that in both games strength is the all-important matter: strokes that require calculation of strength want nerve, but frequently are played without it. The traditional mahogany billiards table is still in use, but tables are now generally made of other woods and synthetic materials.

The foot spot lies in the middle of the foot string and indicates where to rack the balls or where to return a previously sunk object ball to the table. The short rail is where you rack the balls at the start of the game. He either cuts it too fine and is very short in the attempt to lay it dead, or else, frightened of the bunker that lies so dangerously near to him, he determines to get over at all risks and overruns the green by forty or fifty yards. The hideous feeling of discomfort that comes over a player when he has topped his ball and made a deep hole in it, the terrible persistency with which ball after ball is sliced, the missing of one or two really short putts, the bad luck that attends him when putting really well, the way the hole is missed by a tenth of an inch, the frequent bad lies-all these combine to make life a burden. If you don't want to talk yourself you can be as dumb as a drum with a hole in it, as Sam Weller says, and you may go farther, and forbid anybody to speak to you; but to stamp and swear because somebody within hearing distance of you chooses to talk to a friend is ridiculous and silly, partly because it is contemptible, and partly because, as you are not in a position to stop all conversation on the links, you must grin and bear it.