“I believe that I am now a perfect master of the subject,” said Mr. Seymour; “what say you, vicar?”
“I understand it; and it appears to me to be capable of some scientific calculation; but the practical results must, of course, differ very widely from the theory, for the unevenness of the ground, and the inaccurate construction of the marble, are circumstances which never can be duly estimated.”
“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Seymour; “these difficulties even exist at the game of billiards[(25)], where the table is smooth and perfectly horizontal: but we do not require perfect accuracy, an approximation to it will be sufficient for the purposes of illustration; we will, therefore, if you please, proceed at once to the game, and I will endeavour to point out to Tom the nature and direction of the several forces by which each marble will be influenced.”
Tom, accordingly, like the son of Cornelius Scriblerus, converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and described, with the toe of his shoe, the necessary circle upon the ground. Each party, by agreement, placed two marbles upon the ring, and it fell to the lot of the vicar to open the campaign. Mr. Twaddleton then advanced, and with the assumed air of a true knight-errant, approached the ring, exclaiming with a loud voice, and with a gesture of inexpressible drollery, “I demand gracious leave that I may be delivered of my vow, and forthwith combat in the lists;” so saying, he unfurled his red banner, and sounded a trumpet; or in more humble phraseology, he extracted his hand-kerchief from his pocket, and applying it to his nasal organs, produced a loud and thrilling blast, which frightened every sparrow from its resting-place. After this preliminary ceremonial, he marshalled his limbs into the most appropriate attitude, and thrusting one hand behind the exuberant tail of his coat, he, with the other, shot forth his missile at the largest marble opposite to him. His taw faithfully delivered its errand, and inflicted such a blow upon the paunch of his antagonist, that although nearly twice the size of its assailant, like a true bully, it skulked off, and retreated several feet beyond the lists; but, alas! the little marble of the vicar, unlucky wight! was so stunned by the operation, that it staggered, and reeled backwards into the ring, and thus, according to the established law of the field, completed by one act the total defeat of its luckless commander.
“Your marble is left in the ring!” exclaimed Tom, with a shout of triumph.
“I see how it happened,” said Mr. Seymour; “the vicar struck the marble plump, or ‘played a full ball,’ as we say at billiards, and the result easily admits of explanation. You already know that a marble possesses elasticity; when, therefore, the one in the ring was struck, it went off with a velocity equal to that with which the striking marble approached it, while the latter, in return, received a blow equal to that it gave, which destroyed its motion. When we go back into the library, I will exhibit a very pretty experiment in farther elucidation of this philosophical truth.”[(26)]
It was now Mr. Seymour’s turn to enter the lists. He carefully applied his knuckles to the ground, and taking aim at a little marble which he had selected as his victim, gallantly shot the missile from his thumb and finger; but, alas! alas! the goddess, whatever may be her name, who presides over this species of tournay, doubtless saw the impending fate of her favourite, and, after the example of Venus, who turned aside the weapon from Æneas, assumed the shape of a small pebble, and thus arrested the fatal course of the marble, and gave it a new direction, which sent it curveting through the ring, without committing one single act of devastation.
“Bravo! bravo!” exclaimed Tom, “it is now my turn.”
The boy, according to the usage of the field, might at once have won the game by striking his father’s marble; but he was too magnanimous to take such an advantage, and too eager to display his own skill, to cut the game short by a manœuvre: he had determined to win his laurels by hard fighting and generalship. He accordingly proceeded to strike a ring marble; in effecting which he had, like the vicar, challenged a gigantic knight as his antagonist; but, instead of striking it plump, he struck its upper quarter, so that it was rolled out of the ring, while the striking marble, imparting only a portion of its momentum, continued to move forward after the impact. This course was greeted with the acclamations of Mr. Seymour and the vicar, the latter of whom declared it to have been “nobly run,” and gallantly accomplished; and extracting a sixpence from his waistcoat pocket, exclaimed, after the manner of chivalry, “Largesse, largesse, glory to the sons of the brave! glory to the invincible knight of the taw!”
The boy had not only struck the marble out of the ring, but he had, at the same time, contrived to place his own marble in the most favourable position for his future operations; and, indeed, it may be here observed, that in this consists the art of playing the game. It is almost unnecessary to add that Tom won every marble in succession.