THE TARARUA CLUB, PAHIATUA, N.Z., WHERE MR. INMAN MET WITH SEVERAL AMUSING EXPERIENCES.
From a Photograph.
The table itself wasn't at all bad, but when I looked at it closely I noticed that the billiard spot (the black spot on the table which indicates where the red ball is usually placed) was at least three inches too far to one side.
I had become fairly hardened to trying conditions by this time, but to attempt to play with the red ball inches out of its recognised position was more than I dared do.
"What's the matter with that spot?" I asked. "It isn't right, is it?"
The man of the needle slued around on the cloth and squinted at the spot.
"Seems sorter crooked," he agreed, slowly; "but the fac' of the matter is that we change the position of that yere spot once a week. Otherwise it'd work a hole in the cloth!"
That beat me. I fled for the hotel and sought out the gentleman who had invited me to come there. He listened to my tale of woe and then, asking me to wait for a moment, disappeared.
I don't know whether they balloted or not, but the spot was moved into its right place, and the situation—so far as I was concerned—saved.
I had been told when I arrived there that, although there were no passenger trains from Pahiatua to Wellington at that hour of the night, I should still be able to get to Wellington when the game was over, as a goods train, known locally as the "Wild Cat," stopped at Pahiatua some time about midnight on its way down-country.
When the game was over, however, and I got back to the hotel, I found that the "Wild Cat" was a very doubtful kind of train and only stopped at Pahiatua when it thought it would! This particular night, it soon appeared, was one of its "off" nights—it never showed up at the station at all!