LOCK, STOCK AND —."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 20, 24 January 1929, Page 9

LOCK, STOCK AND —."

BILLIARDS SALOON SHIFTED.

TABLETS Or SLATE.

A NEAT JOB OF WORK.

Two wise grey horses shook philosophic nosebags, and an old-time marker •tood sadly by as the gear and appurtenances necessary for the making of a good billiards saloon were moved to-day from the well-worn floorboards which they had graced so long in a busy city {thoroughfare to larger and newer premises further afield.

Many and many a hard game, sometimes for money, sometimes for "love," lad those tables seen. Their cushions bad sent back the well-placed shots of itxpert players, the moderately accurate placements of those in the intermediate class, and, only too often, the wholehearted bangs of those to whom a quiet game of billiards or snooker was but a eheery episode in a cheery evening. Slate tad timber, however, are but things inanimate. "If aught inanimate e'er grieves o'er the unreturning brave," aa Byron wrote, those tables, those cues, those well-used billiards balls, and those •coring-boarda whose history would be that of the sports-loving youth of Auckland for so many years, would agree. It was interesting to see a billiards table in its many parts. The massive •late bed is made in four sections, and each dovetails into its neighbour. The mahogany framework is made in sections too, and each part of the table, whether it be stone, wood, or indiarubber, such as are the cushions, is made to fit and to be detachable, removable, and easy of re-assembling in a new home, even though many years may elapse. The various parts were loaded on the horse-dray already mentioned, and the conglomeration went on its way. The co-ordination of mind and matter will be seen when those many parts —looking On the dray like the shattered remnants of a Mah Jong set—will be reassembled in a billiards saloon of which the older generation has no cognisance. Times change, but the old tables will do duty for many years to come.