"What is the story, Jacky?" said the Squire down the table.
"Cockles will tell it," said Jacky. "He'll make much more of it than I can."
The patrician humourist, thus flatteringly introduced into the conversation, readily took up his parable.
"Well, it fell out on this wise, ladies and gents," he began. "Old Cully here regards himself as an absolutely top-hole pill-player, and one day he was laying off to some of us in the Pitt—"
"In the what?" exclaimed Mrs. Chell.
"Undergraduates' Club," interpolated her husband swiftly. "Go on, Cockles."
"Well, suddenly Pip cuts in and says, 'Look here, you've talked about your billiards for the last twenty minutes. I'll play you a hundred up now and beat you!'"
"And did he?" said several ladies.
"Wait a bit, if you please. None of us knew much about Pip's game, as he had just joined the club, but we all went into the billiard place next door, and I stood on a sofa and made a book—"
"What price?"