"Lunch here," he said, "and we'll try the new billiard-table."
I acknowledged that I had never played more than a few games of pool, and
those very long ago.
"No matter," he said "the poorer you play the better I shall like it."
So I remained for luncheon, and when it was over we began the first game
ever played on the "Christmas" table. He taught me a game in which
caroms and pockets both counted, and he gave me heavy odds. He beat me,
but it was a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a closer relation
between us. We played most of the afternoon, and he suggested that I
"come back in the evening and play some more." I did so, and the game
lasted till after midnight. I had beginner's luck--"nigger luck," as he
called it--and it kept him working feverishly to win. Once when I had
made a great fluke--a carom followed by most of the balls falling into
the pockets, he said:
"When you pick up that cue this table drips at every pore."
The morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a boy, he was
looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it seemed never to come
quickly enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and he
was inclined to cut the courses short that we might the sooner get
up-stairs for billiards. He did not eat the midday meal himself, but he
would come down and walk about the dining-room, talking steadily that
marvelous, marvelous talk which little by little I trained myself to
remember, though never with complete success. He was only killing time,
and I remember once, when he had been earnestly discussing some deep
question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was ending.
"Now," he said, "we will proceed to more serious matters--it's your
--shot."
My game improved with practice, and he reduced my odds. He was willing
to be beaten, but not too often. We kept a record of the games, and he
went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed a balance in his favor.
He was not an even-tempered player. When the game went steadily against
him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks.
Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and
attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying
to render this service. I wished he would not do it. It distressed me
that he should humble himself. I was willing that he should lose his
temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined--his age, his
position, his genius gave him special privileges. Yet I am glad, as I
remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes
the sum of his humanity. Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an
onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor. I
gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only
he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has
passed by. Presently he said:
"This is a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and
when I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you."
It was but natural that friendship should grow under such conditions.
The disparity of our ages and gifts no longer mattered. The pleasant
land of play is a democracy where such things do not count.
We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day.
He invented a new game for the occasion, and added a new rule for it with
almost every shot. It happened that no other member of the family was at
home--ill-health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers,
telegrams, and congratulations came, and a string of callers. He saw no
one but a few intimate friends.
We were entirely alone for dinner, and I felt the great honor of being
his only guest on such an occasion. On that night, a year before, the
flower of his profession had assembled to do him honor. Once between the
courses, when he rose, as was his habit, to walk about, he wandered into
the drawing-room, and, seating himself at the orchestrelle, began to play
the beautiful "Flower Song" from Faust. It was a thing I had not seen
him do before, and I never saw him do it again.
He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening, and at night when
we stopped playing he said:
"I have never had a pleasanter day at this game."