Neither my friends nor myself were satisfied with the result of this game, during the progress of which I had met with some hard luck, and which I was certain that I might have played better, and as a result we at once made another match at the same game to be played that night, the stakes this time being increased to $150 a side. The game was played in the presence of quite a crowd of billiard enthusiasts, and again Gallagher won by 309 to 280, but even this defeat did not convince me that he was a better player, and the result was still another match of 400 points up at the same game for stakes of $100 a side. This was played the following evening, and for the third time Gallagher carried off the honors, the totals showing 400 points for him as against only 183 for myself, and by this time I had come to the conclusion that he was a "leetle bit" too speedy for me, and that he could look for somebody else to pay his board-bills.

That same fall Wyman McCreary, of St. Louis, then as now recognized as one of the strongest amateur players in the country, dropped into Slosson's room, and the result was that I played him two matches at the fourteen-inch balk-line game, each one being for $50 a side, winning both, the score in the first one being 300 to 164, and in the second 300 to 194, my average in the last being 8 14-17, a performance that was at that time something better than the ordinary. Even as far back as those days there was a craze for angle games, and at three cushions Eugene Carter was especially strong, he having a standing challenge to play any man in the world at that style of billiards. He finally offered to play me so points, his backer to wager $300 to $100 that he could beat me, and this offer I accepted. The story of that game, as told in verse by a Chicago newspaper man under the title of "A Match of Slosson's Room," was as follows:

It was some time in the winter, and, if I remember right,
There were snowflakes softly falling, through the darkness of the night,
When I wandered into Slosson's, where the lights were all ablaze,
In the hopes of seeing billiards, for I had the billiard craze.

'Round the table there had gathered all the sporting men in town,
Putting money up in handfuls; each was anxious to take down.
Some would yell out, "I'll take Anson at the odds of three to one,"
Then another'd cry, "I've got you," and the betting had begun.

'Twas a match game at three cushions, fifty points up, for a stake,
'Tween the base-ball man and Carter, and it wan't an even break,
For the odds were all in money and the playing even up,
But the horse that packs the top weight does not always win the cup.

Odds in money cut no figure from a betting point of view,
As I've found in life quite often, and, I doubt not, so have you.
If a man can't win at evens then he cannot win at all,
Be the odds they bet against him very large or very small.

Carter had the style and finish, but the Captain had the nerve
That in base-ball oft had helped him solve a pitcher's meanest curve!
And he seemed to know the angles just as well as "You-Know Me."
That he wasn't a beginner was as plain as plain could be.

'Round the table stood the bettors, looking on with eager eyes,
While first one and then another certain seemed to take the prize.
On the wire the clustered buttons sat like sparrows in a row,
'Neath the lights that gleamed and glistened while there outside fell the snow.

Carter stood about and chattered just as Carter always will
(If you have a talking parrot you can never keep him still)
Anson only laughed and listened, saying as he chalked his cue:
"Frogs' legs measured up in inches don't tell what the frog can do,

"When it comes to jumping, Carter, and the best fish in the brook
Finds at last he's met his master when he grabs the angler's hook.
Talking does not win at billiards, nor at any other game,
When you come to count your buttons, then perhaps you'll think the same."

Went the buttons up together, one by one, upon the string,
Like two yachts that skim the waters, they were racing wing and wing.
Hushed was all the noisy clamor and the room was as still as death,
As they stood and watched the players chalk their cues with bated breath.

"Even up!" the marker shouted, and the buttons on the line
Counted up stood right together—each had stopped at forty-nine.
It was Anson's shot—a hard one—as the balls before him lay,
And he stopped to count the chances—then he chalked his cue to play.

"Call it off; I'll give you fifty," said George Wheelock, sitting near.
He had found the stakes for Carter and his voice was low and clear.
"Take your stakes down, Captain Anson, and take fifty 'plunks' of mine."
With a nod the Cap consented; Carter's backers bought the wine.

In that billiard-room of Slosson's, Carter argued half the night,
While the snowflakes drifted earthward like a mantle soft and white.
And he swore that he'd have won it if it wasn't for a miss
That he'd made up in the corner when he'd played to get a "kiss."

Now it may be that he would have, but I'm still inclined to believe
That he weakened o'er the billiards that he found up Anson's sleeve.
For I've noticed that the "sucker," or the chap you're thinking one,
Proves the "shark" that gets the money, "doing" 'stead of being "done."

The only match that I have engaged in since those days was one that I played last fall with Conklin, a West Side amateur in Chicago, and was at the eighteen-inch balk-line game, 400 points up for stakes of $50 a side, 200 points to be played in my own room and 200 in Clark's resort. The first night in my own room I obtained such a lead as to make the result look like a foregone conclusion, but the next night he came back at me like a cyclone and averaging over seven, a rattling good performance at that style of billiards, he beat me out and did it in such a handsome manner as to challenge my admiration and respect. Since then he has beaten Morningstar, a Boston, Mass., professional in the same easy fashion, and it would not be surprising were he yet to make his mark in the billiard line.

I may say right here that I intend to devote more time to billiards in the future than I have in the past, and that I am always willing to match, provided that the game is a fair one, in which I have an even chance, as, unlike some players that I could name, I am not always looking for the best of it.

[CHAPTER XXXVII. NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPING.]

The proposed New American Base-Ball Association, of which so much was heard during the fall and winter months of 1899 and 1900, is not dead, as some people fondly hope, but only sleeping. That the National League fears the birth of a new rival has been time and again shown, and in my judgment without good and sufficient reason, for I hold that "competition is the life of trade," and that with a strong and healthy competitor in, the field the rivalry would be of benefit to both organizations.

From personal experience I know that the National Game was never in as healthy condition as it was when the League had the old American Association for a rival and when such a thing as syndicate base-ball was unheard of. The Harts, the Friedmans and the Robisons were not then in control, and the rule-or-ruin policy that now prevails had at that time not even been thought of.

Base-ball as at present conducted is a gigantic monopoly, intolerant of opposition and run on a grab-all-that-there-is-in-sight policy that is alienating its friends and disgusting the very public that has so long and cheerfully given to it the support that it has withheld from other forms of amusement.

It was Abraham Lincoln, I believe, who once remarked that you can fool some of the people all the time but that you cannot fool all the people all the time, and yet it is this latter feat that the League magnates are at the present time trying to perform.