Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures/Lecture 22

Then came the ratub-a curious meal, half native and half English in composition-with the old man babbling behind my chair about dead and gone masters and the wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the mosquito-curtains. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room down the other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from the far walls. I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of the case. Half-a-dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and a hyæna stood afar off and mocked them. I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open door. The shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, flung back, and the inner door opened. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within and a fresh breeze without. Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows. Skilful tactics are at least as necessary as skilful execution to enable the player so to dispose the balls on the ground while making a break that they may most effectively assist him in scoring his points. I stayed for the night, while the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong "hundred and fifty up".

The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round the house, and the toddy-palms rattled and roared. He endeavoured to pass his arm round her waist, but she sprang up from the sofa and stood upon the rug, facing him with an amused and somewhat triumphant smile upon her buxom features. And therefore every one should leave town well provided with books sufficient to make the weary hours pass happily. I approve of your rugged simplicity," said Jimmy, "but what you're wearing is a town suit. Good for you. Got what? I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. I did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the echoing room behind the iron-barred door. The player, however, what is billiards must decide whether he will star or not before the next stroke is played. Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward-stroke after stroke. After a long, long while, the game stopped, and the door banged.

The door shut and I thanked Providence that I was to be left in peace. To be left to oneself under some circumstances is apt to be a drawback, but in this case there was never any lack of amusements. LORD DREEVER, meanwhile, having left the waterside, lighted a cigarette, and proceeded to make a reflective tour of the grounds. Of all the young gentlemen whose privilege it had been to make the acquaintance of Mr. Cripps-and there were a good many-he professed the greatest esteem and admiration for Loman, of Saint Dominic’s school, to whom he had been only recently introduced. By playing games (a generally good approach to giving kids a good introduction to sports), they can practise quick geometry lessons, patience, agility, and concentration. For all I care,' he concluded, 'he can do what he likes in future. The skin of the head tightens and you can feel a faint, prickly bristling all over the scalp.

Click here to contact us and ask us any questions you may have about leagues you can join or places you can play casually. Sometimes there was a double click and a whirr and another click. Next minute, I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. But I would, first of all, put eighty miles of sound assessed crop-land between myself and that dâk-bungalow before nightfall. Ain't I to get busy at all, den? If folks have the bad taste and bad feeling to use their money for this purpose they will always get a following, always obtain popularity; but what is a purchased popularity worth? People would use wooden sticks to shove the balls. Beyond any sort of doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he intended to commit if he lived.