I saved more in proportion of my money than my customers did of the ginger beer I had sold them. This was one consolation.
[CHAPTER XXXVI. WITH THE KNIGHTS OF THE CUE.]
There is no more fascinating game in existence at the present day than billiards, and no game that is more popular with gentlemen, and for the reason that it can be played indoors and in all kinds of weather and that it does not require the frame of an athlete nor the training of one 1111 to play it successfully, though it may be set down as a fact that the experts at billiards are few and far between, for the reason that it takes not only natural ability and constant practice to be even a moderately successful billiardist, the real geniuses at the game being born and not made. Since the days of my early boyhood billiards has divided my attentions with base-ball, and what little skill I have attained at the game is due as much to good habits and constant practice as is the success that I achieved on the ball field.
The game itself has undergone many and frequent changes since I first began to play in the old hotel at Marshalltown, and with tools of such a primitive character that they would be laughed at in a modern billiard resort. The four-ball game and the old-fashioned six-pocket table have both been relegated into the shadows of obscurity, and the new standard 5x10 table, without pockets, that is a model of the builder's art, has taken the place of the one and three-ball games of various styles, from straight rail to three-cushion caroms of the other. Each and every game that has been played has been an improvement on the style of game that preceded it and each and every style of game has had its own special votaries, some players excelling at one style of billiards and some at another, the players who excelled at all being few and far between.
It has been my good fortune to enjoy the acquaintance and friendship of nearly all of the billiard players who have become famous in the annals of the game since I first began ball playing for a livelihood in Rockford, among them being Frank C. Ives, the "Young Napoleon of Billiards," who, like myself, was a ball player before he ever became known as a knight of the cue, and whose early death was so greatly regretted by every lover of the game, both at home and abroad; Jacob Schaefer, "the Wizard of the Cue," who, as a ball-to-ball player, ranks at the head of the profession and who plays any and every game that can be played upon a billiard table with a skill that is akin to genius; George F. Slosson, the "Student," whose persistent application and studious habits have combined to make him one of the greatest prayers of his day and generation; Eugene Carter, "You-know-me," whose stalwart form and ready tongue are as well known in the majority of the European capitals as in the larger cities of our country; Thomas J. Gallagher, "Gray Tom," who is a hard man for any of the second-class experts to tackle; Edward McLaughlin, the little gentleman who first came into prominence at Philadelphia; Frank Maggioli, who has grown gray in the service of billiards, but who still retains his title of Champion of the South; Billy Catton, "the Rock Island Wonder," George Sutton, and many others, with the most of whom I have crossed cues either for money or in a friendly way at some time or other.
The first expert of any note that I ever met over a billiard table was Eugene Kimball, of Rochester, N. Y., who, in 1871, was a member of the Forest City Club of Cleveland, Ohio, and who at that time enjoyed a wide reputation as a billiardist as well as a ball player. Kimball, it had been generally conceded, played a strong game of billiards for those days, and on one occasion when the Cleveland Club visited Rockford he and I engaged in a game that attracted considerable attention both on the part of the members of the two teams and of other outside friends and admirers. There were no stakes up if I remember rightly, and I am not just certain as to how the game resulted, though, unless I am very much mistaken, it was in Kimball's favor, but not by such a large margin of points as to make me ashamed of myself.
It was while a member of the Athletic Club of Philadelphia that I made my debut as a billiardist in public. I played the game a great deal in those days and had acquired quite a reputation for skill in handling the cue among my fellow ball-players, nearly all of whom could play the game after some fashion, there being seemingly quite an affinity between base-ball and billiards. James Lentz of Trenton, N. J., at that time enjoyed quite a reputation as a billiard expert in the land of sandflies and mosquitoes, and he being in Philadelphia we came together at Nelms' billiard room in a match game, 300 points up, at the old three-ball style of billiards, for stakes of $100 a side, and I beat him by a score of 300 to 252, no account of the averages or high runs being kept for the reason, as I presume, that nobody thought them worth keeping, though enough of the filthy lucre changed hands on the result to keep some of my ball-playing friends in pocket money for some days.
That game was played on the fourth day of February, 1875, and it was not until more than ten years afterwards that I again appeared in public as a billiardist. Frank Parker, the ex-champion in the days of the old four-ball game, now dead, was then a resident of Chicago, and his friends thought so well of his abilities at the fourteen-inch balk line game, which up to that time had never been played in public, that they offered to match him against me for stakes of $250 a side, the game to be 500 points up. After some talk back and forth this match was finally made, and March 25th, 1885, we came together in Central Music Hall, Chicago, before a fair-sized crowd, and I won by a score of 500 to 366, averaging in the neighborhood of five, and astonishing both Parker and his friends.
Slosson's billiard room on Monroe street, Chicago, was at that time and for several years afterwards the scene of more billiard matches than any similar resort in the United States, it being the headquarters of the bookmaking fraternity as well as the billiardists from all sections of the country, and it is more than probable that larger sums of money changed hands over the result of the games that were played there during the winter of 1885 and 1886 than changed hands in any other hall in the country, the leading billiard rooms of Gotham not excepted. Among the billiardists who were making Chicago their headquarters that winter were Jacob Schaefer, George F. Slosson, Eugene Carter, Thomas F. Gallagher, and William H. Catton, while among the bookmakers that made Slosson's room their lounging place were such well-known knights of the chalk and rubber as Dave Pulsifer, who afterwards owned the famous race horse, Tenny; James H. Murphy, whose pacer, "Star Pointer," was in after years the first horse in harness to beat the two-minute mark; William Riley, who, under the sobriquet of "Silver Bill," is known from one end of the country to the other; Charlie Stiles, for years the trusted lieutenant of Bride and Armstrong, the Grand-Circuit pool sellers; George 'Wheelock, then hailing from St. Louis, but now known as one of the nerviest of New York's betting brigade; Joe Ullman, who then as now was a plunger; Johnny O'Neil, Frank Eckert, and many others, the place also being a favorite resort for the horsemen.
Thomas J. Gallagher was that fall in good form and there were several members of the book-making fraternity who stood ready to back him whenever he said the word. I had taken a notion into my head that I could beat him, nor was I alone in the opinion, for my friend, "Bart" White, thought the same way. The result was that I agreed to play him a match 300 points up at the fourteen-inch balk-line game for stakes of $100 a side. We came together on the afternoon of November 23d at Slosson's room, and Gallagher won by seventeen points, after a close and exciting contest, the game standing at 300 to 283 in his favor.