106 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
We might have read the newspapers if there had been any 
in the house, but there were none, except an old copy of 
the ‘‘ Blank City Screamer,” which was almost solely de- 
voted to abusing the opposition paper 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.” 
“Ts 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.” 
“Tl 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 
