The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I have tested it in my own person.Ⓐtextual note It did not protect GeorgeⒺexplanatory note through the most of his campaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity of the proverb stood confirmed.

“ItⒶtextual note looks like a mystery, gentlemen, but it isn’t a mystery after it’s explained. That is a grooved Ⓐtextual note alley; you’ve only to start a ball down it any way you please and the groove will do the rest; it will slam the ball against the northeastⒶtextual note curve of the head pin every time, and nothing can save the ten from going down.”Ⓐtextual note

It was true. The boys made the experiment,Ⓐtextual note and they found that there was no art that could send a ball down that alley and fail to score a ten-strike with it. When I had told those boys that I knew nothing about that game I was speaking only the truth,Ⓐtextual note but it was ever thus, all through my life:Ⓐtextual note whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn’t strength of mind enough to believe it.

So I was a liar,Ⓐtextual note in Dolby’s belief. He thought he had been sold, and at a cheap rate; but he divided his sarcasms quite fairly and quite equally between the two of us. He was full of ironical admiration of his childishness and innocence in letting a wandering and characterless and scandalous American load him up with deceptions of so transparent a character that they ought not to have deceived the housecatⒶtextual note. On the other hand, he was remorselessly severe upon me for beguiling him, by studied and discreditable artifice,Ⓐtextual note into bragging and boasting about his poor game in the presence of a professional expert disguisedⒶtextual note in lies and frauds, who could empty more balls in billiard pockets in an hour than he could empty into a basket in a day.

In the matter of fifteen-ball pool I never got Dolby’s confidence wholly back, though I got it in other ways, and kept it until his death. I have played that game a number of times since, but that first time was the only time in my life that I have ever pocketed all the fifteen in a single inning.

I arrived on time, and we began the game—with a large and eager free-list to superintend it. These superintendents were outside, with their noses pressed against the window-pane. The bankers described the game to me. So far as I recollect, the pattern of it was this: they had a pile of Mexican dollars on the table; twelve of them were of even date, fifty of them were of odd dates. The bankers were to separate a coin from the pile and hide it under a hand, and I must guess “odd” or “even.” If I guessed correctly, the coin would be mine; if incorrectly, I lost a dollar. The first guess I made was “even,” and wasⒶtextual note right. I guessed again, “even,” and took the money. They fed me another one and I guessed “even” again, and took the money. I guessed “even”Ⓐtextual note the fourthⒶtextual note time, and took the money. It seemed to me that “even” was a good guess, and I might as well stay by it, which I did. I guessed “even” twelve times, and took the twelve dollars. I was doing as they secretlyⒶtextual note desired. Their experience of human nature had convinced them that any [begin page 383] human being as innocent as my face proclaimed me to be, would repeat his first guess if it won, and would go on repeating it if it should continue to win. It was their belief that an innocent would be almost sure at the beginning to guess “even,” and not “odd,” and that if an innocent should guess “even” twelve times in succession and win every time, he would go on guessing “even” to the end—so it was their purpose to let me win those twelve even dates and then advance the odd dates, one by one, until I should lose fifty dollars, and furnish those superintendents something to laugh about for a week to come.

But it did not come out in that way; for by the time I had won the twelfth dollar and last even date, I withdrew from the game because it was so one-sided that it was monotonous, and did not entertain me. There was a burst of laughter from the superintendents at the window when I came out of the place, but I did not know what they were laughing at nor whom they were laughing at, and it was a matter of no interest to me anyway. Through that incident I acquired an enviable reputation for smartness and penetration, but it was not my due, for I had not penetrated anything that the cow could not have penetrated.

Mr. Clemens shows that poor billiard tablesⒶtextual note and bowling alleysⒶtextual note furnish better amusement, and require more skill than good ones—examples: billiard tableⒶtextual note at Jackass Gulch and bowling alleyⒶtextual note at Bateman’s PointⒺexplanatory note.

The last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race—that is to say, the study of myself, for, in my individual person, I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. When it is small, as compared with the same ingredient in somebody else, there is still enough of it for all the purposes of examination. In my contacts with the species I find no one who possesses a quality which I do not possess. The shades of difference between other people and me serve to make variety and prevent monotony, but that is all; broadlyⒶtextual note speaking, we are all alike; and so by studying myself carefully and comparing myself with other people, and noting the divergences, I have been enabled to acquire a knowledge of the human race which I perceive is more accurate and more comprehensive than that which has been acquired and revealed by any other member of our species. As a result, my private and concealed opinion of myself is not of a complimentary sort. It follows that my estimate of the human race is the duplicate of my estimate of myself.

I am not proposing to discuss all of the peculiarities of the human race, at this time; I only wish to touch lightly upon one or two of them. To begin with, I wonder why a man should prefer a good billiard tableⒶtextual note to a poor one; and why he should prefer straight cues to crooked ones; and why he should prefer round balls to chipped ones; and why he should prefer a level table to one that slants; and why he should prefer responsive cushions to the dull and unresponsive kind. I wonder at these things, because when we examine the matter we find that the essentials involved in billiards are as competently [begin page 384] and exhaustively furnished by a bad billiard outfit as they are by the best one. One of the essentials is amusement. Very well, if there is anyⒶtextual note more amusement to be gotten out of theⒶtextual note one outfit than out of the other, the facts are in favor of the bad outfit. The bad outfit will always furnish 30 per centⒶtextual note more fun for the players and for the spectators than will the good outfit. Another essential of the game is that the outfit shall give the players full opportunity to exercise their best skill, and display it in a way to compel the admiration of the spectators. Very well, the bad outfit is nothing behind the good one in this regard. It is a difficult matter to correctly estimateⒶtextual note the eccentricities of chipped balls and a slanting table, and make the right allowance for them and secure a count; the finest kind of skill is required to accomplish the satisfactory result. Another essential of the game is that it shall add to the interest of the game by furnishing opportunities to bet. Very well, in this regard no good outfit can claim any advantage over a bad one. I know, by experience, that a bad outfit is as valuable as the best one; that an outfit that couldn’t be sold at auction for sevenⒶtextual note dollars is just as valuable for all the essentials of the game as an outfit that is worth a thousand.

I acquired some of this learning in Jackass Gulch, California, more than forty years ago. Jackass Gulch had once been a rich and thriving surface-mining camp. By and by its gold deposits were exhausted; then the people began to go away, and the town began to decay, and rapidly; in my time it had disappearedⒺexplanatory note. Where the bank, and the city hall, and the church, and the gambling densⒶtextual note, and the newspaper office, and the streets of brick blocks had been, was nothing now but a wide and beautiful expanseⒶtextual note of green grass,Ⓐtextual note a peaceful and charming solitude. Half a dozen scattered dwellings were still inhabited, and there was still one saloon of a ruined and rickety character struggling for life, but doomed. In its bar was a billiard outfit that was the counterpart of the one in my father-in-law’s garret. The balls were chipped, the cloth was darnedⒶtextual note and patched, the table’s surface was undulating, and the cues were headless and had the curve of a parenthesis—but the forlorn remnant of marooned miners played games there, and those games were more entertaining to look at than a circus and a grand opera combined. Nothing but a quite extraordinary skill could score a carom on that table—a skill that required the nicest estimate of force, distance, and how much to allow for the various slants of the table and the other formidable peculiarities and idiosyncrasies furnished by the contradictions of the outfit. Last winter, here in New York, I saw Hoppe and Schaefer and SuttonⒶtextual note and the three or four other billiard champions of world-wide fame contend against each otherⒺexplanatory note, and certainly the art and science displayed were a wonder to see;Ⓐtextual note yet I saw nothing there in the way of science and art that was more wonderful than shots which I had seen Texas Tom make on the wavy surface of that poor old wreck in the perishing saloon at Jackass Gulch forty years before.Ⓐtextual note Once I saw Texas Tom make a string of seven points on a single inning!Ⓐtextual note—all calculated shots, and not a fluke or a scratch among them. I often saw him make runs of four, but when he made his great string of seven, the boys went wild with enthusiasm and admiration. The joy and the noise exceeded that which the great gathering at Madison Square produced when [begin page 385] SuttonⒶtextual note scored five hundred points at the eighteen-inchⒶtextual note game,Ⓐtextual note on a world-famous night last winter. With practice, that champion could score nineteen or twentyⒶtextual note on the Jackass Gulch table;Ⓐtextual note but to start with, Texas Tom would show him miracles that would astonish him; also it might have another handsome result: it might persuade the great experts to discard their own trifling game and bring the Jackass Gulch outfit here and exhibit their skill in a game worth a hundred of the discarded one, for profound and breathless interest, and for displays of almost superhuman skill.

In my experience, games played with a fiendish outfitⒶtextual note furnish ecstasies of delight which games played with the other kind cannot match.Ⓐtextual note Twenty-seven years agoⒶtextual note my budding little family spent the summer at Bateman’s Point, near Newport, Rhode IslandⒺexplanatory note. It was a humble and comfortableⒶtextual note boarding placeⒶtextual note, well stocked with sweet mothers and little children, but the male sex wasⒶtextual note scarce; however, there was another young fellow besides myself, and he and I had good times—Higgins was his name, but that was not his fault. He was a very pleasant and companionable person. On the premises there was what had once been a bowling alleyⒶtextual note. It was a single alley, and it was estimated that it had been out of repair for sixty years—but not the balls,Ⓐtextual note the balls were in good condition; there were forty-one of them, and they ranged in size from a grapefruit up to a lignum-vitae sphere that you could hardly lift. Higgins and I played on that alley day after day. At first, one of us located himself at the bottom end to set up the pins in case anything should happen to them, but nothing happened. The surface of that alley consisted of a rolling stretch of elevations and depressions, and neither of us could,Ⓐtextual note by any art known to us,Ⓐtextual note persuade a ball to stay on the alley until it should accomplish something. Little balls and big, the same thing always happened—the ball left the alley before it was half wayⒶtextual note home and went thundering down alongside of it the rest of the way and made the gamekeeper climb out and take care of himself. No matter, we persevered, and were rewarded. We examined the alley, noted and located a lot of its peculiarities, and little by little we learned how to deliver a ball in such a way that it would travel home and knock down a pin or two. By and by we succeeded in improving our game to a point where we were able to get all of the pins with thirty-five balls—so we made it a thirty-five-ball game. If the player did not succeed with thirty-five, he had lost the game. I suppose that all the balls, taken together, weighed five hundred pounds, or maybe a ton—or along there somewhere—but anyway it was hot weather, and by the time that a player had sent thirty-five of them home he was in a drench of perspiration, and physically exhausted.

Next, we started cockedⒶtextual note hat—that is to say, a triangle of three pins, the other seven being discarded. In this game we used the three smallest balls and kept on delivering them until we got the three pins down. After a day or two of practice we were able to get the chief pin with an output of four balls, but it costⒶtextual note us a greatⒶtextual note many deliveries to get the other two; but by and by we succeeded in perfecting our art—at least we perfected it to our limit. We reached a scientific excellence where we could get the three pins down with twelve deliveries of the three small balls, making thirty-six shots to conquer the cocked hat.

Having reached our limit for daylight work, we set up a couple of candles and played at night. As the alley was fifty or sixty feet long, we couldn’t see the pins, but the candles indicated their locality. We continued this game until we were able to knock down the invisible pins with thirty-six shots. Having now reached the limit of the candle game, we changed and played it left-handed. We continued the left-handed game until we conquered its limit, which was fifty-four shots. Sometimes we sent down a succession of fifteen balls without getting anything at all. We easily got out of that old alley five times the fun that anybody could have gotten out of the best alley in New York.

One blazing hot day, a modest and courteous officer of the regular army appeared in our den and introduced himself. He was about thirty-five years old, wellⒶtextual note builtⒶtextual note and militarily erect and straight, and he was hermetically sealed up in the uniform of that ignorant old day—a uniform made of heavy material, and much properer for January than JulyⒶtextual note. When he saw the venerable alley, and glanced from that to the long procession of shining balls in the trough, his eye lit with desire, and we judged that he was our meat. We politely invited him to take a hand, and he could not conceal his gratitude;Ⓐtextual note though his breeding, and the etiquette of his profession, made him try. We explained the game to him, and said that there were forty-one balls, and that the player was privileged to extend his inning and keep on playing until he had used them all up—repeatedly—Ⓐtextual noteand that for every ten-strike he got a prize. We didn’t name the prize—it wasn’t necessary, as no prize would ever be needed or called for. He started a sarcastic smile, but quenched it, according to the etiquette of his profession. He merely remarked that he would like to select a couple of medium balls and one small one, adding that he didn’t think he would need the rest.

ThenⒶtextual note he began, and he was an astonished man. He couldn’t get a ball to stay on the alley. When he had fired about fifteen balls and hadn’t yet reached the cluster of pins, his annoyance began to show out through his clothes. He wouldn’t let it show in his face; but after another fifteen balls he was not able to control his face; he didn’t utter a word, but he exuded mute blasphemyⒶtextual note from every pore. He asked permission to take off his coat, which was granted;Ⓐtextual note thenⒶtextual note he turned himself loose, with bitter determination, and although he was only an infantry officer he could have been mistaken for a battery, he got up such a volleying thunder with those balls. Presently he removed his cravat; after a little he took off his vest; and still he went bravely on. Higgins was suffocating. My condition was the same, but it would not be courteous to laugh; it would be better to burst, and we came near it. That officer was good pluck. He stood to his work without uttering a word, and kept the balls going until he had expended the outfit four times, making four times forty-one shots; then he had to give it up, and he did;Ⓐtextual note for he was no longer able to stand without wobblingⒶtextual note. He put on his clothes, bade us a courteous good-byeⒶtextual note, invited us to call at the Fort, and started away. Then he came back, and said,Ⓐtextual note

“What is the prize for the ten-strike?”

We had to confess that we had not selected it yet.

He said, gravely, that he thought there was no occasion for hurryⒶtextual note about it.

I believe Bateman’s alley was a better one than any other in America, in the matter [begin page 387] of the essentials of the game. It compelled skill; it provided opportunity for bets; and if you could get a stranger to do the bowling for you, there was more and wholesomer and delightfulerⒶtextual note entertainment to be gotten out of his industries than out ofⒶtextual note the finest game by the best expert, and played upon the best alley elsewhere in existenceⒶtextual note.