"HOW DO I KNOW?

"Ha, Mr. Caudle! I only wish I didn't know. No; you were not at any
of these places; but I know well enough where you were.

"THEN WHY DO I ASK IF I KNOW?

"That's it: just to prove what a hypocrite you are: just to show
you that you can't deceive me.

"So, Mr. Caudle--you've turned billiard-player, sir.

"ONLY ONCE?

"That's quite enough: you might as well play a thousand times; for
you're a lost man, Caudle. Only once, indeed! I wonder, if I was to
say 'Only once,' what would you say to me? But, of course, a man can
do no wrong in anything.

"And you're a lord of the creation, Mr. Caudle; and you can stay away
from the comforts of your blessed fireside, and the society of your
own wife and children--though, to be sure, you never thought anything
of them--to push ivory balls about with a long stick upon a green
table-cloth. What pleasure any man can take in such stuff must
astonish any sensible woman. I pity you, Caudle!

"And you can go and do nothing but make 'cannons'--for that's the
gibberish they talk at billiards--when there's the manly and athletic
game of cribbage, as my poor grandmother used to call it, at your own