COUNTRY-HOUSE GAMES
I now pass on to a class of games in which ladies can take part, and which provide plenty of amusement for those who do not care for a more serious game. Not but that cork pool and skittle pool may not be made highly scientific, but when ladies take a cue, such games are generally regarded as a pleasant recreation pour passer le temps, or as an excuse for a mild bet.
SELLING POOL
This is an eminently simple game, in which any number can take part. There are no lives, no pool, and no end, till the players are tired. Any one who chooses to leave can do so by giving notice, and taking his ball off the table when his turn comes round next. A small stake is agreed upon, and it is lawful to play on any ball, but no ball can be taken up. There is of course no safety and no star, but the usual rules of pool govern the game in other respects. To make the game go, however, it is well to have plenty of threepenny bits, sixpences, or shillings ready, according to the stake, as giving change is always a trouble, and cash down is necessarily the rule.
CORK POOL
This is another amusing game, which admits of any amount of skill and of any reasonable number of players. Two balls are used, white always playing upon red. The cork is put on the centre spot (sometimes on the pyramid spot), and on the cork the pool is placed. The object is to cannon from red on to the cork. Sometimes it is obligatory that the cannon be made off a cushion. Each player in turn—the order is decided by giving out the pool balls—plays from where white stops, the first playing from baulk, as is also the case if the white goes in. Each player has only one stroke. If he cannons on to the cork and knocks it over—it is not enough merely to shake it—he takes the pool, which is then renewed. If he misses the red, holes the red or his own ball (even after hitting the cork, so that white must never be stopped), or cannons without first hitting a cushion (if this is the rule of the room), or plays out of turn, he has to put the amount of his original stake on the cork, in addition to what is already there. Sometimes he is only fined for an illegitimate cannon, but in this class of game the more forfeits that can be invented the better.
Not a bad variety of the game is to make the red hit the cork, a sort of winning hazard, any other way of knocking it over carrying a penalty; or this may be further restricted by insisting that the red must hit at least one cushion before it overthrows the cork.
I used to play another excellent and really amusing variation of this, which we dignified by the name of ‘bumble-puppy.’ A ring about three inches in diameter was drawn round the cork with chalk. The pool was put as usual on the cork, and each player who failed to hit the cork over—we used to play the winning hazard game—was fined a penny, which was added to the pool, and when the cork was hit the striker secured only as many coins as fell outside the ring, those that were more than half outside counting as over. The fun of this was that sometimes there would be five or six shillings in copper and silver on the cork, and only a few meagre coppers would fall to the successful striker, all that was left in the ring being put back on the cork and a fresh stake added by each player. I can strongly recommend this form of the game, as it is full of incident and amusement.
NEAREST BALL POOL
This may best come under the category of country-house games, though it may be played with lives and a star and be treated as seriously as ordinary pool, the rules of which apply throughout. The striker is bound to play on the nearest ball, whatever the colour, under the penalty of losing a life; but there is no particular science in the game beyond that required in ordinary pool, except as far as spoiling an easy stroke for the next player is concerned.