BILLIARDS AND CROQUET
There seems to be some very intimate connection between croquet and billiards. But while croquet is a very old game and now rapidly lapsing into disuse, billiards is a comparatively new one enjoying very wide popularity. The fact that small billiard tables are being made to fit conveniently into the drawing-room at home, proves that the modern host and hostess recognize the popularity of the game.
Croquet, we find from studying the history of games, was played in the thirteenth century. Billiards, which we speak of as being "comparatively new," was known in the seventeenth century, for does not Shakespeare have Cleopatra say in Antony's temporary absence:
| "Let us to billiards: |
| Come, Charmian." |
Billiards is a game that lends itself to betting. While this may be permissible in a public billiard place, it is not good form in a private home where the hostess invites a few friends to enjoy the game with her. She should not invite many people unless she has several tables to place at their disposal.
Croquet is played on the lawn. Hidden in the forgotten origin of billiards, there must be some connection between the green lawn of croquet and the green baize cloth of the billiard table. Croquet is played with mallets and balls, very much on the same order as the game of billiards.
The game of croquet is derived from the same source as hockey. The old French word "hoquet," meaning a "crooked stick" has very much the same meaning as the word "croquet." Both are excellent outdoor sports that guests at a house party will find enjoyable and interesting.
One hostess we know, who is a billiard enthusiast, has six tables in her "billiard room," as she calls it, where she entertains several guests almost every afternoon. On the wall is a large picture showing two stately old gentlemen playing a game of billiards, and beneath it in bold hand-lettering, the following bit of verse from Cotton's book, "The Compleat Gamester":
| Billiards from Spain at first derived its name, |
| Both an ingenious and a cleanly game. |
| One gamester leads (the table green as grass) |
| And each like warriors, strive to gain the Pass. |