When the table was first put up, Mr. Wilkins and Graves, the farrier, and one or two more of that sort, thought it was being put up for them.
Mr. Wilkins said he thought it was a better game than bagatelle, and he should have to practise, and then he would soon give Harry a beating.
Harry said, “You can practise as much as you like, Wilkins; but it’ll be sixpence a game if you play anybody, two shillings an hour if you practise, and a guinea if you cut the cloth.”
You should have seen Wilkins’s face at that!
“Two shillings an hour!” he said; “I thought you were putting it up for the good of the house.”
A nice idea, wasn’t it, that we had gone to the expense of a billiard-room and a table, and were going to engage a boy to mark, and all for the amusement of Mr. Wilkins and his friends! That is the worst of old customers. They don’t advance with the business, and they seem to think that they are to have their own way in everything.
The day after the table was up Harry asked Mr. Wilkins to come and look at it. The balls were put on the table, Harry having been knocking them about to try the cushions.
Of course, Wilkins must take up a cue, and show how clever he was. “See me put the white in the pocket off the red,” he said. He hit the white ball so hard, that it jumped off the cushion and went smash through the window.
“Wilkins, old man,” said Harry, “I think you’d better practice billiards out on the common. This place isn’t big enough for you.”
I shall always remember our opening the billiard-room, from the young fellow who came to us to be our first marker.