[Illustration: "THAT'S THE HOTEL YOU'RE GOING TO STAY AT."]
He went to one corner of the room, lifted a small three-feet-by-six
miniature table top, and placed it on the dining-table in front of me.
"This is our table," he said, proudly.
I felt as though it was taking money under false pretences to try to
teach billiards on such a makeshift affair, and said as much, but the
old gentleman would have none of it, so I set to work and did my best.
But it was an ordeal which I have no wish to repeat, for cue, balls,
and everything else were in proportion to the size of the table. In
fact, I believe that the old fellow could do more on the thing than
I could. Anyhow, he seemed a little hurt at my inability to run up a
three-figure break on it, and on the way back to town again regaled
me with yarns of what several of his squatter friends could do on that
table in the way of piling up centuries.
We parted good friends, but I don't think he thought quite so much
of my billiard-playing then as he had done at first. He was pained,
perhaps, to find that it had limitations, and that a three-feet-by-six
table was one of them!
[Illustration: When "Tenderfeet" Go Hunting Bears.]
"Tenderfeet," as our readers probably know, is the expressive
term applied out West to new-comers, or greenhorns. When
such men meet Bruin, or Bruin meets them, there is apt to be
trouble sometimes ending in tragedy, sometimes in the
broadest comedy. The instances here given belong to the latter
category, and will be found extremely amusing.