"Twice," corrected Robin.

"You don't play," Dick explained to her; "you just whack round and
trust to Providence."

"I don't whack round," said Robin; "I always aim at something. When
you try and it doesn't come off, you say it's 'hard luck;' and when I
try and it does come off, you say it's fluking. So like a man."

"You both of you," I said, "attach too much importance to the score.
When you try for a cannon off the white and hit it on the wrong side
and send it into a pocket, and your own ball travels on and makes a
losing hazard off the red, instead of being vexed with yourselves--"

"If you get a really good table, governor," said Dick, "I'll teach
you billiards."

I do believe Dick really thinks he can play. It is the same with
golf. Beginners are invariably lucky. "I think I shall like it,"
they tell you; "I seem to have the game in me, if you understand."

'There is a friend of mine, an old sea-captain. He is the sort of
man that when the three balls are lying in a straight line, tucked up
under the cushion, looks pleased; because then he knows he can make a
cannon and leave the red just where he wants it. An Irish youngster
named Malooney, a college chum of Dick's, was staying with us; and
the afternoon being wet, the Captain said he would explain it to
Malooney, how a young man might practise billiards without any danger
of cutting the cloth. He taught him how to hold the cue, and he told
him how to make a bridge. Malooney was grateful, and worked for