106 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTIKG. 



We might have read the newspapers if there had been any 

 in the liouse, but there were none, except an old copy of 

 the *' Blank City Screamer," which was almost solely de- 

 voted to abusing the opposition pajier and the party it 

 advocated, or to giving local scraps of news which had 

 no interest for anybody on earth, or out of it, except the 

 local Smiths and Browns. 



While we were discussing what to do, the landlord said 

 we might, perhaps, like to play a game of billiards. 



" The very thing," said one of our party; " where is 

 your table?" 



*'In the back room." 



"Is it fit to play on?" 



*' Well, it ought to be; I paid forty dollars for it." 



*' Bravo! This is fortunate; we won't die of ennui 

 while that's in the house, anyway." 



"I'll show it to you, gentlemen, and you can judge for 

 yourselves if it ain't first-class." 



"All right; go ahead." We then followed him in a 

 bunch into a dingy back room, whose windows were 

 almost opaque with dirt. The table was certainly a first- 

 class one, so far as size was concerned, for it occupied 

 nearly the whole of the room, and boasted six pockets, 

 whose orifices were as capacious as the mouth of a stump 

 orator, while it looked as if it had been built in the red 

 sandstone period, and had experienced many a rough 

 knock in its long life. 



As grumbling at its appearance could not mend mat- 

 ters, we were content to smile at it, and guess at its age, 

 but we could not apparently come within a million years 

 of that, for while one said it belonged to the Mesozoic 

 Age, others insisted that it could not be more than three 

 or four million years old, or that it was a pre- Adamite 

 production. Not being able to agree on this point, we 

 decided to play a four-handed game, the fifth member 

 being placed near the middle to keep count, so that he 



