that ginger beer of Anson's," was the reply.

Then there was another explosion, this time one of laughter.

"Anson's ginger-beer" was getting a reputation, but it was not exactly
the sort of a reputation that I wanted it to have. I was willing to
close out the business even at a sacrifice, and this I did.

I saved more in proportion of my money than my customers did of the
ginger beer I had sold them. This was one consolation.

CHAPTER XXXVI. WITH THE KNIGHTS OF THE CUE.

There is no more fascinating game in existence at the present day than
billiards, and no game that is more popular with gentlemen, and for the
reason that it can be played indoors and in all kinds of weather and
that it does not require the frame of an athlete nor the training of one
1111 to play it successfully, though it may be set down as a fact that
the experts at billiards are few and far between, for the reason that it
takes not only natural ability and constant practice to be even a
moderately successful billiardist, the real geniuses at the game being
born and not made. Since the days of my early boyhood billiards has
divided my attentions with base-ball, and what little skill I have
attained at the game is due as much to good habits and constant practice
as is the success that I achieved on the ball field.

The game itself has undergone many and frequent changes since I first
began to play in the old hotel at Marshalltown, and with tools of such a
primitive character that they would be laughed at in a modern billiard
resort. The four-ball game and the old-fashioned six-pocket table have
both been relegated into the shadows of obscurity, and the new standard
5x10 table, without pockets, that is a model of the builder's art, has
taken the place of the one and three-ball games of various styles, from
straight rail to three-cushion caroms of the other. Each and every game
that has been played has been an improvement on the style of game that
preceded it and each and every style of game has had its own special
votaries, some players excelling at one style of billiards and some at
another, the players who excelled at all being few and far between.

It has been my good fortune to enjoy the acquaintance and friendship of
nearly all of the billiard players who have become famous in the annals
of the game since I first began ball playing for a livelihood in
Rockford, among them being Frank C. Ives, the "Young Napoleon of
Billiards," who, like