"Ha-ha!" laughed Shakespeare. "Pool, eh? Does Nero play pool?"

"Not as well as he does the fiddle, sir," said the Janitor, with a
twinkle in his eye.

Shakespeare entered the house and tossed up an obolus. "Heads--Bacon;
tails--pool with Nero and Johnson," he said.

The coin came down with heads up, and Shakespeare went into the
pool-room, just to show the Fates that he didn't care a tuppence for
their verdict as registered through the obolus. It was a peculiar custom
of Shakespeare's to toss up a coin to decide questions of little
consequence, and then do the thing the coin decided he should not do. It
showed, in Shakespeare's estimation, his entire independence of those
dull persons who supposed that in them was centred the destiny of all
mankind. The Fates, however, only smiled at these little acts of
rebellion, and it was common gossip in Erebus that one of the trio had
told the Furies that they had observed Shakespeare's tendency to kick
over the traces, and always acted accordingly. They never let the coin
fall so as to decide a question the way they wanted it, so that
unwittingly the great dramatist did their will after all. It was a part
of their plan that upon this occasion Shakespeare should play pool with
Doctor Johnson and the Emperor Nero, and hence it was that the coin bade
him repair to the library and chat with Lord Bacon.

"Hullo, William," said the Doctor, pocketing three balls on the break.
"How's our little Swanlet of Avon this afternoon?"

"Worn out," Shakespeare replied. "I've been hard at work on a play this