“When you pick up that cue this table drips at every pore.”

The morning dictations became a secondary interest.  Like a boy, he was looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it seemed never to come quickly enough to suit him.  I remained regularly for luncheon, and he was inclined to cut the courses short that we might the sooner get up-stairs for billiards.  He did not eat the midday meal himself, but he would come down and walk about the dining-room, talking steadily that marvelous, marvelous talk which little by little I trained myself to remember, though never with complete success.  He was only killing time, and I remember once, when he had been earnestly discussing some deep question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was ending.

“Now,” he said, “we will proceed to more serious matters—­it’s your —­shot.”

My game improved with practice, and he reduced my odds.  He was willing to be beaten, but not too often.  We kept a record of the games, and he went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed a balance in his favor.

He was not an even-tempered player.  When the game went steadily against him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks.  Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying to render this service.  I wished he would not do it.  It distressed me that he should humble himself.  I was willing that he should lose his temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined—­his age, his position, his genius gave him special privileges.  Yet I am glad, as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes the sum of his humanity.  Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor.  I gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has passed by.  Presently he said: 

   “This is a most amusing game.  When you play badly it amuses me, and
   when I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you.”

It was but natural that friendship should grow under such conditions.  The disparity of our ages and gifts no longer mattered.  The pleasant land of play is a democracy where such things do not count.

We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day.  He invented a new game for the occasion, and added a new rule for it with almost every shot.  It happened that no other member of the family was at home—­ill-health had banished every one, even the secretary.  Flowers, telegrams, and congratulations came, and a string of callers.  He saw no one but a few intimate friends.

We were entirely alone for dinner, and I felt the great honor of being his only guest on such an occasion.  On that night, a year before, the flower of his profession had assembled to do him honor.  Once between the courses, when he rose, as was his habit, to walk about, he wandered into the drawing-room, and, seating himself at the orchestrelle, began to play the beautiful “Flower Song” from Faust.  It was a thing I had not seen him do before, and I never saw him do it again.