Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1889 — Doing the Drummers. [ARTICLE]

Doing the Drummers.

There were five or six of us drummers out of Chicago who used to bring up in Cairo in a bunch on Sunday, and one of the gang was a billiard expert. I don’t mean that he could have held liis own with the big guns, but he was way above the common, and runs of irom thirty to fifty were every-day things with him. He used to dress up as a farmer, steamboat man, or cattlebuyer, enter a billiard parlor, and after fooling' around for a while he would catch a sucker and stick him for the drinks all around. Nearly all the boys in Cairo had got on to his game, when one night we dropped into O’Neil’s as a sort of cleaning up. Our man was disguised as a machinist, having greasy clothes and grease on his hands, and when a proper opening occurred he put himself forw r ard. No •one seemed to suspect him, and he certainly handled his cue like a greenhorn. When he announced his desire to try a game, a man who looked like a river pilot was put forward. He clawed off for a while, and finally said he never played except for money. Our Jim didn’t dare give himself away, “but four or five of us offered to bank on him to the extent of a hundred dollars. It was more of a bluff on our part, •we found takers right off, and had to put up the long green. It wa3 to be the best two out of three, and of •course Jim played off on the first. Five was the highest run he made, while the pilot seemed to be doing his best and made one of thirteen. Jim was thirty-five when the stranger went •out, and, believing we had sized up our victim, we put up another hundred. Jim got the first shot on the new game, and, as our money was up, he played for all that was in him. His first run was thirty-seven, and we were tickled all over. Then the stranger took hold and ran forty-two, but Jim ran the ;game out on his next shot. This made a game apiece, and the pilot won the “bank.” He started off very easy, kept the balls well together, and, after he had counted up to eightysevqn, he halted and asked Jim if he wanted any more. Jim didn’t. Neither did the rest of us. We tried to get out gracefully, but the whole crowd gave us the laugh and the information that the pilot was the expert of Chicago, brought down there on purpose to take us down a peg and keep us hard up financially for the next ten years.— New York Sun.