They and I | Page 7

I feel is my real form, and then it led to argument. I
was staying at an hotel in Switzerland, and the second evening a
pleasant-spoken young fellow, who said he had read all my books--later,
he appeared surprised on learning I had written more than two--asked
me if I would care to play a hundred up. We played even, and I paid for
the table. The next evening he said he thought it would make a better
game if he gave me forty and I broke. It was a fairly close finish, and
afterwards he suggested that I should put down my name for the
handicap they were arranging.
"I am afraid," I answered, "that I hardly play well enough. Just a quiet
game with you is one thing; but in a handicap with a crowd looking
on--"
"I should not let that trouble you," he said; "there are some here who
play worse than you--just one or two. It passes the evening."
It was merely a friendly affair. I paid my twenty marks, and was given
plus a hundred. I drew for my first game a chatty type of man, who
started minus twenty. We neither of us did much for the first five

minutes, and then I made a break of forty-four.
There was not a fluke in it from beginning to end. I was never more
astonished in my life. It seemed to me it was the cue was doing it.
Minus Twenty was even more astonished. I heard him as I passed:
"Who handicapped this man?" he asked.
"I did," said the pleasant-spoken youngster.
"Oh," said Minus Twenty--"friend of yours, I presume?"
There are evenings that seem to belong to you. We finished that two
hundred and fifty under the three-quarters of an hour. I explained to
Minus Twenty--he was plus sixty-three at the end--that my play that
night had been exceptional. He said that he had heard of cases similar. I
left him talking volubly to the committee. He was not a nice man at all.
After that I did not care to win; and that of course was fatal. The less I
tried, the more impossible it seemed for me to do wrong. I was left in at
the last with a man from another hotel. But for that I am convinced I
should have carried off the handicap. Our hotel didn't, anyhow, want
the other hotel to win. So they gathered round me, and offered me
sound advice, and begged me to be careful; with the natural result that I
went back to my usual form quite suddenly.
Never before or since have I played as I played that week. But it
showed me what I could do. I shall get a new table, with proper pockets
this time. There is something wrong about our pockets. The balls go
into them and then come out again. You would think they had seen
something there to frighten them. They come out trembling and hold on
to the cushion.
I shall also get a new red ball. I fancy it must be a very old ball, our red.
It seems to me to be always tired.
"The billiard-room," I said to Dick, "I see my way to easily enough.

Adding another ten feet to what is now the dairy will give us twenty-
eight by twenty. I am hopeful that will be sufficient even for your
friend Malooney. The drawing-room is too small to be of any use. I
may decide--as Robina has suggested--to 'throw it into the hall.' But the
stairs will remain. For dancing, private theatricals--things to keep you
children out of mischief--I have an idea I will explain to you later on.
The kitchen--"
"Can I have a room to myself?" asked Veronica.
Veronica was sitting on the floor, staring into the fire, her chin
supported by her hand. Veronica, in those rare moments when she is
resting from her troubles, wears a holy, far-away expression apt to
mislead the stranger. Governesses, new to her, have their doubts
whether on these occasions they are justified in dragging her back to
discuss mere dates and tables. Poets who are friends of mine, coming
unexpectedly upon Veronica standing by the window, gazing upward at
the evening star, have thought it was a vision, until they got closer and
found that she was sucking peppermints.
"I should so like to have a room all to myself," added Veronica.
"It would be a room!" commented Robin.
"It wouldn't have your hairpins sticking up all over the bed, anyhow,"
murmured Veronica dreamily.
"I like that!" said Robin; "why--"
"You're harder than I am," said Veronica.
"I should wish you to have a room, Veronica," I said. "My fear is that
in place of one untidy bedroom in the