“Shall we go in yet, or knock the balls about for a bit?” said Gus. “This fellow Tom’s a regular swell at billiards. Do you remember thrashing me last time we met, Tom—the summer after I’d left Randlebury?”
Tom could not deny he had beaten Gus on the occasion referred to, and felt it was useless for him to protest—what was the case—that he was only a very indifferent player. He agreed to the idea of a game, however, as he hoped he might at its close be able to make his escape without accompanying his two companions to the music-hall attached to the restaurant, and which he already knew by reputation as one of the lowest entertainments in London. “You two play,” said Gus, “and I’ll mark. You’ll have to give Jack points, Tom, you know, you’re such a dab.”
It was vain for Tom to disclaim the distinction, and the game began.
“Hold hard!” said Gus, after the first stroke; “what are you playing for?”
“Weally, I don’t know; thillingth, I thuppothe,” lisped Mr Mortimer.
“All serene! Go on.”
And they went on, and Mr Mortimer made no end of misses, so that, in spite of the points he had received, Tom beat him easily. In the two games which followed the same success attended him, and he won all the stakes.
“Didn’t I tell you he was a swell?” said Gus. “Upon my word, Tom, I don’t know how you do it!”
“It’s just the sort of table I like to play on,” said Tom, elated with his success, and unwilling to own that half his lucky shots had been “flukes.”
“I tell you what,” said Gus; “you owe me my revenge, you know, from last time. I’ll play you to-morrow for half-crowns, if you’ll give me the same points as you did to Jack.”