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Billiards   Listen
noun
Billiards  n.  A game played with ivory balls o a cloth-covered, rectangular table, bounded by elastic cushions. The player seeks to impel his ball with his cue so that it shall either strike (carom upon) two other balls, or drive another ball into one of the pockets with which the table sometimes is furnished.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Billiards" Quotes from Famous Books



... as the children and their ayahs play about the lawn, while their parents enjoy their tea at the little tables scattered about it, before the falling dew drives the little ones homewards, and their elders to the club-house for a game of billiards or a chat. ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... country round Bon Repos to his heart's content. Another source of pleasure and healthful exercise he found in long solitary pulls up and down the lake in a tiny skiff which had been set apart for his service. In the evening came dinner and conversation with his host, with perhaps a game or two of billiards to finish ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... cannot be seen. I have personally tried more than a hundred times, monsieur. I have posted myself near the Elysee; he did not come out. A passer-by informed me that he was playing billiards in the cafe opposite; I went to the cafe opposite; he was not there. I had been promised that he would go to Melun for the convention; I went to Melun, I did not see him. At last I became weary. I did not even see Monsieur Gambetta, and I do ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... singing, "Fill, fill the sparkling brimmer." They were, as Ann informed me, college friends of Des, who had arrived for a few days' visit, she supposed; disagreeable persons, of course. They were often in Belem to ride, fish, or play billiards. "Pa hates them," she said in conclusion. Mr. Somers entering at this moment, in his diplomatique style, his gouty white hands shaded with wristbands, and his throat tied with a white cravat, appeared to ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... billiards, and insisted that I should learn the game, which I was foolish enough to do. In less than one week I was dreaming every night of ivory balls of all sizes and colors, of billiard cues of all weights and shapes, and tables of ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... waiting were at liberty to join the queen's circle in the drawing-rooms, or to group themselves together as inclination prompted. Some talked over the events of the day, some discussed the new books which lay in heaps upon a table in one of the saloons; others, again, played billiards with the king. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the sun and drinking deep draughts of old ocean's ozone, as he paced the decks till Pancha came. And one day followed another, and Turnbull read and yawned and dozed and tried to talk to the charming senoritas, but couldn't muster enough Castilian, and Traynor chalked the decks for "horse billiards" and shuffleboard, and everybody took a hand at times, and one evening, despite the havoc moist salt air plays with catgut, Pancha's guitar and that of the purser were brought into requisition, and Pancha was made to sing, a thing she didn't ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... attempt upon Felix in private. His heart was greatly set upon Marshlands, and he argued that there was no evil at all in what they had been doing, and entreated Felix to be content with the promise both were willing to make, to take no share in anything doubtful—not even to play at billiards, or cards—if that would satisfy him, said Lance, 'but we will promise anything you please against playing, or ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... persuade him to smoke, or to buy new clothes before the old ones grew too shabby for so nice a man as a bookkeeper is apt to be. He did not drink or play cards or billiards; he did not belong to any lodge ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... skilful pilots. A novice might hastily conclude that it was a simple matter to steer a boat from one side of the river to another. But let him try, and see where he will bring up. The process is as nice a one and as scientific as a game of billiards. The exact stage of the tide and volume of the current, the velocity and direction of the wind, the ice on the river, the approaching or anchored vessels, and all of them in their mutual relations, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... various styles of type of different sizes; and there works are produced as accurate, well engraved, and neat as in Espana—and sometimes with errors that are less stupid and more endurable. The gallery (in which there is a truck [trucos, a game resembling billiards] table for the holidays) is a beautiful apartment, long, wide, and spacious; and so elevated that it overlooks on one side the city, and on the other the great bay of Manila. From it may be seen all the galleons, pataches, galliots, champans, and every ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... his stable every morning, until he became feeble, and he paid especial attention to the manner in which his horses were shod. He never, after he became President, played cards or billiards, nor did he read anything except the Daily Globe and his private correspondence. When he received a letter that he desired one of his Cabinet to read, he would indorse on the back "Sec. of ——, A. J." He used to smoke a great ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... from committing violence on the inhabitants, when a shot was fired from a window, and one of his men killed. They entered the house, went to the room from the window of which the shot had been fired, and found a number of men playing at billiards. They insisted on the culprit being given up, when a man was pointed out as the one who had fired the shot. They all agreed as to the culprit, and he was carried off. Sir Thomas considering that a severe example was necessary, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... down," he said at last. "But if your heart so wishes, then shall we become partners by the law. I have no work to do, yet are my expenses large. I drink and eat and smoke in plenty—it costs much, I know. I do not pay for the playing of billiards, for I play on your table; but still the money goes. Fishing on the reef is only a rich man's pleasure. It is shocking, the cost of hooks and cotton line. Yes, it is necessary that we be partners by the law. I need the money. I shall get it from the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... him; rescue from fever and death the poor cottager's family whom the doctor had given up; make 21 at the butts with the rifle, when the poor captain only scored 18; give him twenty in fifty at billiards and beat him; and draw tears from the professional Italian people by her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello) in the evening;—I say, if a novelist would be popular with ladies—the great novel-readers of the world—this is the sort of heroine who would carry him through ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... will see how lovable she is. People used to talk about the soires of the Queen of Holland. I assure you the Empress is very charming for those whom the Emperor admits informally into the Tuileries. They go there of an evening to pay their court, they play with Their Majesties reversis or billiards; and the Empress is so charming, so fascinating, that it is easy to see from the Emperor's eyes that he is ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... amusements de la population et en se pliant, sans effort comme sans affectation, aux usages du pays.' During his whole period of exile he contrived to amuse himself. Affairs of gallantry, dancing, tennis, billiards, and other frivolous pursuits, occupied as much of his attention as the grave affairs of State over which Hyde and Ormonde spent so many anxious hours. When on a visit to Brussels in the spring of 1657, he employed, we are told, most of his time with Don John dancing, ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... where the mounted Night Patrol fire as they challenge, and the wheat rolls in great blue green waves under our cold northern moon, the officers were playing billiards in the mud-walled club-house, when orders came to them that they were to go on parade at once for a night-drill. They grumbled, and went to turn out their men—a hundred English troops, let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... Guide, and of which it was then held a favour to get a copy. He had so much of advanced life about him, that the masters always looked upon him as a man; and this serious manner followed him through his pastimes. He was fond of billiards; but he was so long in making his stroke, that no boy could bear to play with him: when the game, therefore, went against him, like Fabius-Cunctando restituit rem; and they gave it up rather ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and the illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part." They must be greatly scandalized if billiards and cards do not enter as largely into the recreations they supply, as eating and drinking. There must be some potent attractions which can draw a set of gentlemen away from all other scenes and engagements, domestic and social, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... he never told her when he was going up to Garthdale toward nightfall. He was sometimes driven to lie. It was up Rathdale he was going, or to Greffington, or to smoke a pipe with Ned Alderson, or to turn in for a game of billiards at the village club. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... wanted to learn the game of billiards, and this seemed a good opportunity. Perhaps this consideration as much as any determined him to close with his friend's proposal. When, therefore, they had reached the Brooklyn side, instead of taking the horse-cars to Dr. Graham's house, Sam followed his companion to a ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger

... leaving the table, the Count, who had a passion for billiards, offered to play a game with Bertin, and the two ladies accompanied them to the billiard-room, where the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... mother may I; French and English, tug of war; blindman's bluff, hunt the slopper[obs3], hide and seek, kiss in the ring; snapdragon; cross questions and crooked answers.; crisscross, hopscotch; jacks, jackstones[obs3], marbles; mumblety-peg, mumble-the-peg, pushball, shinney, shinny, tag &c. billiards, pool, pingpong, pyramids, bagatelle; bowls, skittles, ninepins, kain[obs3], American bowls[obs3]; tenpins [U.S.], tivoli. cards, card games; whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique[obs3], euchre, drole[obs3], ecarte[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... listening to the loud and rhythmical breathings that fanned the tranquil air, certainly went out to tea-parties afterwards and played bridge till dinner-time; or if no such entertainment was proffered them, occupied arm-chairs at the county club, or laboriously amassed a hundred at billiards. Though tea-parties were profuse, dining out was very rare at Tilling; Patience or a jig-saw puzzle occupied the hour or two that intervened between domestic supper and bed-time; but again and again, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... we had out-of-door games, such as "Bowls," "Aunt Sally," and the like, Dickens leading off with great spirit and fun. Billiards came after dinner, and during the evening we had charades and dancing. There was no end to the new divertisements our kind host was in the habit of proposing, so that constant cheerfulness reigned at Gad's Hill. He went into his work-room, as he called it, soon after breakfast, and wrote till ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... a twinkle, "when I last came, you talked to me for about two minutes and then left me to play billiards with your brother. He was polite, but in Canada we play pool and my game's not very good. I ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... GAMES.—A complete and useful little book, containing the rules and regulations of billiards, bagatelle, ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous

... chance produce something useful to society. But there are some which produce nothing, and endanger the well-being of the individuals engaged in them, or of others depending on them. Such are games with cards, dice, billiards, &c. And although the pursuit of them is a matter of natural right, yet society, perceiving the irresistible bent of some of its members to pursue them, and the ruin produced by them to the families depending on these ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... whole of 1856, doing duty at the Murree Convalescent Depot, and rejoined in March of the following year. Nothing occurred for the next two months to break the monotony of life in an Indian cantonment. Parade in the early morning, rackets and billiards during the day, a drive or ride along the Mall in the cool of the evening, and the usual mess dinner—these constituted the routine of our ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... spent with the boats, and had lunch in the bungalow. In the afternoon he loafed, taking a siesta in the big living-room, reading some, and talking for half an hour with Mrs. Hall. After dinner, he played billiards with her husband. It chanced that Grief had never before encountered Swithin Hall, yet the latter's fame as an expert at billiards was the talk of the beaches from Levuka to Honolulu. But the man Grief played with this night proved most indifferent ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... you loiter about ale-houses and taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, never minding me nor my numerous family. Don't you hear how lord Strutt [the king of Spain] has bespoke his liveries at Lewis Baboon's shop [France]?... Fie upon it! Up, man!... I'll sell my shift before ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... to draw the line At going to tango teas, For, after all, I am fifty-nine And a trifle stiff in the knees; But I've had to give up billiards for "slosh," And pay ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... time, sir, he may be hurried before the Judge,—or rather his estate may be,—before the Judge of the probate court. It is a solemn thought, sir. And yet when I come here I see about me men laughing, talking, and playing billiards, as if there would never be a day when their estate would pass into the hands of their administrators and an account must ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... that period, when the laws gave him full command over his fortune and his actions. Mr. Vincent had been at Harrowgate for some time before Mr. Percival came into the country; but as soon as he heard of Mr. Percival's arrival, he left half finished a game of billiards, of which, by-the-bye, he was extremely fond, to pay his respects at Oakly-park. At the first sight of Belinda, he did not seem much struck with her appearance; perhaps, from his thinking that there was too little ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... take it. It'll be hard work getting fifty pounds out of you, then! In the meantime, come and play a game of billiards ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... devisings—that is to say, to Dora's devisings and Bertie's accommodating acquiescence. Dora helped in the Christmas decorations of the parish church, and Bertie helped her to help. Together they fed the swans, till the birds went on a dyspepsia-strike, together they played billiards, together they photographed the village almshouses, and, at a respectful distance, the tame elk that browsed in solitary aloofness in the park. It was "tame" in the sense that it had long ago discarded the least vestige of fear of the human race; nothing in its record encouraged its human ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... his father had surprised two young men drinking and playing billiards before noon in the Conservative Club, he would have been grimly pleased. He would have taken it for a further proof of the hollowness of the opposition to the great Home Rule Bill; but the spectacle of a couple of wastrels in the Liberal Club annoyed and shamed him. His vague notion ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... Another was Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. called by Voltaire the most universal genius of his age. He was born at Rouen in 1657, looking so delicate that he was baptized in a hurry, and at 16 was unequal to the exertion of a game at billiards, being caused by any unusual exercise to spit blood, though he lived to the age of a hundred, less one month and two days. He was taught by the Jesuits, went to the bar to please his father, pleaded a cause, lost it, and gave up the profession ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... on the Sundays to Cliff House or Saucilito; the second voyagers played team billiards together at the Institute, and proposed one another to sing at the impromptu concerts; while the young ones—those who had only been a dog-watch at sea—made themselves sick smoking black tobacco and talking 'ship-talk' ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... up and now let alone, and the abbe soon writes: "I do not speak about our races because we race no more, nor of our readings because we do not read, nor of our promenades because we do not go out. What, then, do we do? Some play billiards, others dominoes, and others backgammon. We weave, we ravel and we unravel. Time pushes us on and we pay ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Francisco yesterday in store-clothes, and his wife and four children went off in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet's why them ten workmen of his, ez hadn't a cent to bless themselves with, was playin' billiards last night, and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that money kum frum,—one hundred dollars to pay for the long advertisement of the new issue of ditch stock in the 'Times' yesterday. Thet's why them six strangers were booked at the Magnolia hotel ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... said Linda, "that I have spoiled it for you for billiards. I have also spoiled the outside appearance of the house ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... power."[6] Even a mere shadow may become a fetich. Goron tells of a merchant in Paris—a man with a reputation for ability, happily married and the father of a family, altogether irreproachable in his private life—who was returning home one evening after a game of billiards with a friend, when, on chancing to raise his eyes, he saw against a lighted window the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months to gaze at the window. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... repulsive case of perfidiousness was that of General Luis Felipe Vidal, a prominent politician, who participated in the murder of President Caceres, though he had only a few hours before visited the President, played billiards with him ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... after you myself," she insisted. "Mr. Orden is wanted to play billiards. Lord Shervinton is anxious for ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... better than she should be," said the Marquis. Then Mrs. Houghton found herself able to insinuate that perhaps, after all, Mary was not a good creature, even in her own way. But the Marquis's chief friend was Jack De Baron. He talked to Jack about races and billiards, and women; but though he did not refrain from abusing the Dean, he said no word to Jack against Mary. If it might be that the Dean should receive his punishment in that direction he would do nothing to prevent it. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... life been?" she went on, speaking rapidly. "A mixture of gamecocks and ponies and race horses and billiards, and idleness at the Virginia Springs, and fighting with other boys. What do you know? You wouldn't go to college. You wouldn't study law. You can't write a decent letter. You don't know anything about the history of your country. What ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and form: analects, annals,[144] archives, ashes, assets, billiards, bowels, breeches, calends, cates, chops, clothes, compasses, crants, eaves, embers, estovers, forceps, giblets, goggles, greaves, hards or hurds, hemorrhoids, ides, matins, nippers, nones, obsequies, orgies,[145] piles, pincers or pinchers, pliers, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... one o'clock. Guessed he'd shoot a little pool. He dropped into Moriarty's cigar store. It was called a cigar store because it dealt in magazines, newspapers, soft drinks, golf balls, cigarettes, pool, billiards, chocolates, chewing gum, and cigars. In the rear of the store were four green-topped tables, three for pool and one for billiards. He hung about aimlessly, watching the game at the one occupied table. The players were slim young men like himself, their clothes replicas ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... was no word from her. He was a man not easily wrought up, but to-night he felt depressed, and so went gloomily up to his room and changed his linen. After supper he proceeded to drown his dissatisfaction in a game of billiards with some friends, from whom he did not part until he had taken very much more than his usual amount of alcoholic stimulant. The next morning he arose with a vague idea of abandoning the whole affair, but as the hours elapsed and the time of his appointment drew near he decided that ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... answered, "Baal! me only been laugh alonga inside." He thought I might have beaten him if I had detected a smile on his face. While I was camped just outside Dalrymple, I one day told the boy if anyone wanted me, to say I was in the township. I had just finished a game of billiards at the hotel, when a man entered laughing. He called me on one side, and said he had asked my boy where I was. He said "That fella along public house playing—he got 'em spear in his hand, and knock about things all a same like it duck egg." He added ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield

... unfashionable clothes, and people made fun of my very narrow trousers and large, clumsy boots, and called them macaroni-on-steamboats. And I had a bad reputation in the town because I had no position and went to play billiards in low cafes, and had once been taken up, for no particular offence, by the ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... really meant what he said he ought to have gone back to his hotel, played billiards for an hour, and sought his bedroom with an easy conscience. He was debating the point when the conceit intruded itself that Cynthia's pretty head was at that moment bent over a writing-table in a certain well-lighted corner apartment of the second floor, so he compromised ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... deep is immediately required, by the rules of ship's etiquette, to buy another from the sailors who make them, so an unaccustomed batsman may be landed in much expense. Everybody found it great fun, however, and when they had lost the day's supply of balls, would take to ring quoits and deck billiards instead. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... the morning he hardly let him out of his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched his cue into the rack at once, and came to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... across the still air about a game of billiards to be played in the Adelphi hotel. Stephen walked on alone and out into the quiet of Kildare Street opposite Maple's hotel he stood to wait, patient again. The name of the hotel, a colourless polished wood, ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... o'clock. The French chef served a delicious repast; everything was faultless even to the minutest details; the servants were powdered, plushed, and shod to perfection. Then we went to the drawing-room, where cards, smoking, billiards, and flirtation went on simultaneously until the small hour of one, when we retired ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... assure her that Boulogne itself would be a heaven to him if she were with him,—and he thought that she would believe him. When he reached the house he was asked into a room in which a lot of people were playing billiards or crowded round a billiard-table. The Chilterns were gone, and he was at first ill at ease, finding no friend. Madame Goesler, who had met him at Harrington, came up to him, and told him that the Duchess would be there directly, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... a change for her. And at night I'll take her to see me play billiards. [With a change of tone] ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... with the usual billiards, and bedtime arrived without any disclosure on my part of the mysterious incident. I did not fear further revelations, for my bedroom was nowhere near the scene of the apparition. I must confess to a momentary creepy sensation as I passed, ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... happy evening, playing billiards with another drummer who was a very good cue, and went hopefully to bed. He awoke hopefully, and through his bedroom window saw that the snow was still falling and that it was deep. Very deep! At the breakfast table the headlines of the morning paper announced that traffic was disorganized ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... evening about town—having some regard always to the purpose of my visit. I dined at my club, went on to the Empire with a couple of friends, supped at the Savoy, and, after a brief return visit to the club, a single game of billiards and a final whisky and soda, returned to my hotel contented and sleepy, and quite prepared to tumble into bed. By some chance—the history of nations, as my own did, will sometimes turn upon such slight events—I left my door ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... joining the estates, and it was agreeable to see that your very good folk could wink at things like other people in such a case. Then, when Ellen fairly drove her inquiries home, in her absolute trust of confuting all slanders, she was told that Griffith did, what she called 'all sorts of things—billiards and all that.' And even that he was always running after a horrid Lady ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... orators, I will mention also that he has taken excellent care of his bodily powers. As a young man he was a noted cricketer and an enthusiastic angler. At all periods of his life he has played a capital game at billiards. Angling, however, has been his favorite recreation, and he has fished in almost all the good streams of the northern ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... asked him if he preferred a deep or a shallow grave; but Mr. Lamb said it made very little difference—when the spirit was gone, the mere earthly clay was of little account. He owed seventy cents for billiards down at the saloon, and Potts was to pay that out of the money in his hands, and to request the clergyman not to preach a sermon at the cemetery. Then he shook hands with Potts and went away ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... elms; there were bosky shades at several points, and not far from the house there was a little rill spanned by a rustic bridge with the bark on; there were fruits and flowers, pleasant people, chess, billiards, rides, walks, and fishing. These were great attractions; but none of them, nor all of them together, would have been sufficient to hold me to the place very long. I had been invited for the trout season, but should, probably, have ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... friends' excuses for their non-appearance. One declined because he had an important engagement that he could not possibly put off on any account. Late on the evening of the dinner I heard this same gentleman grumbling because no one had turned up at his club to play a game of billiards with him! Another had fallen asleep and did not wake in time, and a third had been unlucky with his speculations of late, which he attributed to having seen the new moon through glass, and therefore he declined to tempt the fates further. Mr. George R. Sims, the well-known ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... to find the skies leaden and a light, drizzling rain falling that promised to continue all day. It was the sort of weather that ordinarily left him quite helpless, because, not caring for either bridge or billiards, nothing remained but to pace the hotel piazza—an amusement that under the most favorable conditions has its limitations. But to-day—even though the rain had further interfered with his arrangements by making it necessary to cancel the trip he had planned for Marjory and ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the finances in the reign of Louis XIV., had been a celebrated pleader. He once lost a cause in which he was concerned, through his excessive fondness for billiards. His client called on him the day after in extreme affliction, and told him that, if he had made use of a document which had been put into his hands, but which he had neglected to examine, a verdict must have been given in his favour. Chamillart read it, and found it of decisive ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... a large well-built inn, to be erected on the immediate shore of the lake, in an agreeable situation, at a distance from the town; there are very few places where such a one would answer better; there ought to be numerous and good apartments. A large rendezvous-room for billiards, cards, dancing, music, etc., to which the company might resort when they chose it; an ordinary for those that like dining in public; boats of all sorts, nets for fishing, and as great a variety of amusements as could be collected, ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... money down so proud, And "sets 'em up" for all the crowd; A dozen games of billiards, too, He gaily loses ere ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... deep in mud, but the moon was bright, the air fresh and stirred by the trade wind that always found its way to Nevis even in summer during one hour of the twenty-four. Warner played billiards with Mr. Ogilvy and Anne listened to the hopes and fears of her hostess respecting Lord Hunsdon, while Felicia, the second daughter, poured out her envy of Medora's good fortune in enjoying a London season, and its sequel of ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... de Tregars would remain on the lookout, Maxence was knocking on the table with his fist, to call the waiter, who was busy playing billiards with a customer. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... fawning harpies was a shameful and disgusting one. One example is sufficient to show how the thing was done. A concession for gambling was applied for. The man who interpreted knew a smattering of 'kitchen' Kaffir, and his rendering of the 'monopoly for billiards, card playing, lotteries, and games of chance' was that he alone should be allowed to 'tchia ma-ball (hit the balls), hlala ma-paper (play the papers), and tata zonki mali (and take all the money).' The poor drunken king nodded sleepily to the first two clauses, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... dollars a week over and above your board and spend it on drink, billiards and fast horses. You are fully able to pay for your clothes promptly and I advise ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger

... Billiards was a rival of cards, and a game of which he seems to have been fond. In his seventeenth year he won one shilling and threepence by the cue, and from that time won and lost more or less money in this way. Here, too, he seems to have been out of pocket, though not ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... constitution, a light heart, and a fair amount of cramming. At Camford he found himself in the midst of his old Eton chums, and plunged eagerly into all the animated life and excitement of the University. Boating, cricket, rackets, billiards, wine parties, betting—these formed the chief occupation of the two years which he had already passed at college. Reading, upon some days, formed an agreeable diversion from the monotony of the above-named ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... French officer, in a rage at billiards, jammed a billiard-ball in his mouth, where it stuck fast, arresting respiration, until it was, with difficulty, extracted by a surgeon. Dusaulx states that he was told the fact by a ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... play our very best game — Any other time. Golf or billiards, it's all the same — Any other time. Lose a match and you always say, 'Just my luck! I was 'off' to-day! I could have beaten him quite ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... recollections of the morning's work, and after luncheon there was walking in the park, rowing or sailing on the lake, riding or driving in the adjacent country, archery in a spacious field; and in bad weather billiards, reading in the library, music in the drawing-rooms, battledore and shuttlecock in the hall; in short, all the methods of passing time agreeably which are available to good company, when there are ample means and space for their exercise; to say ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... was not of a nature to persuade him to perpetual effort in any direction; and so, whilst Barndale worked, the other amateur relieved vacuity with billiards. It got into a settled habit with him at last to leave Barndale nightly at his comedy, and to return to the house-boat at an hour little short of midnight. He would find Barndale still at work writing by the light of a lamp grown dim with incrustations of self-immolated ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... herself a celebrated person. She was never tired of speaking and writing of her husband. It was she who told of his small, beautifully formed hands, and of his favourite amusements—playing at bowls and billiards. The latter sport, by the way, has been among the favoured amusements of many famous musicians; Paderewski is a great ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... little puzzled to know how he ought to treat Charlie. 'Charlie' he had been in very old days—then Master Charlie (that was Willie's mother's doing)—then Mr. Charles. But now Willie had set up for himself. He had played billiards with a lord, and football against the Sybarites, and, incidentally, hobnobbed with quite great people. It is not very easy to assert a social position when one has nothing on, and only one's head out of water, but ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... One of them has a room next to mine at the hotel, and I played billiards with him ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... the other hand, if you don't agree, I will go across the river, beyond your jurisdiction, and build a village for myself and my sailors, whom I shall send in the whale-boat to Guvutu for provisions. And now I want you to teach me billiards." ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... standing, then assembled at Harleigh Hall, who looked up to him as something between a hero and an oracle; and in the encouraging familiarity and approval of one or two gentlemen of maturer age, who swore he was a fine fellow, and proved they thought so by winning bets of him at billiards, and by selling him horses that would have fetched "twice the money at Tattersall's," with other bargains of an equally advantageous description. Although we were four days in the same house, meeting each evening at dinner, and occasionally riding and walking in the same group, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... opened mine, Larry,—very wide open. There isn't a sentimental chord in my being that you can twang any longer.... But we can be good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,—only let me finish what you are pleased to call my ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... eleven o'clock before his Majesty and the gentlemen returned from their billiards and cigars. The Queen got up, bade us good night, and left the room with ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... chase and the English racing fad, for gambling, billiards, and her petits soupers after the riding and racing, gave ample opportunity to the gossipmongers and enemies. In spite of the vigorous remonstrances of her mother, the empress, she persisted in her wild career of dissipation and extravagance, and drew upon herself ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... flower-gardens even, and walks of yellow sand,—the whole Hill of Radewitz made into a flower-garden in that way. Nay, in the Army LAGER too, many of the Captains have made little improvised flower-gardens in that Camp of theirs, up and down. For other Captains not of a poetical turn, there are billiards, coffee-houses, and plenty of excellent beer and other liquor. But the mountains of cavalry hay, that stand guarded by patrols in the rearward places, and the granaries of cavalry oats, are not to be told. Eastward, from their open porticos and ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... tribe of Levi, he was anything but ecclesiastical in appearance, rather a representative of muscular Judaism. He had a pink and white complexion, and a tawny moustache, and bubbled over with energy and animal spirits. He could give most men thirty in a hundred in billiards, and fifty in anecdote. He was an advanced Radical in politics, and had a high opinion of the intelligence of his party. He paid Leah lip-fealty ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... heart-breaking and all the rest of it; but that's only her fun, don't you know? She's precious glad to get out of it, that's my belief; and nobody knew better than herself he wouldn't do at all. Finished? Come and have a game of billiards then.' ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... angry geese, hissing like the many-headed Hydra that watched over the golden apples of the Hesperides. At eight we breakfast, and by nine the sun is already powerful enough to prevent us from leaving the house. We therefore sit down to read or write, and do occasionally take a game at billiards. C—-n generally rides to Mexico, but if not, goes up to the azotea with a book, or writes in his study until four o'clock, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... been extremely wet since I last wrote. On Saturday we could do nothing except laze indoors and play billiards and Friday was the same, with a dull dinner-party at the end of it. It was very nice and cool though, and I enjoyed those two ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... questioned, whether, so hampered, Vitruvius could have done it better; for the ground floor was to be cut up into corridors and bathing cells; while the ladies requested a ball and anteroom; and the gentlemen two "billiards" and a reading-room, with detached snuggeries for ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... of the house was a stripling of about my own age, whose accomplishments were limited to selling spavined and broken-winded horses to the infantry officers, playing a safe game at billiards, and acting as jackal-general to his sisters at balls, providing them with a sufficiency of partners, and making a strong fight for a place at the supper-table for his mother. These fraternal and filial traits, more honored at home than abroad, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... necks, and he loves to do that better than he loves his money. But that is not the only reason. They hope he will leave them those houses when he dies. They certainly deserve that he should. For years, before they owned carriages, they would tramp through wind and rain every Sunday in winter to play billiards with him, to say nothing of the hot days of summer. They have eaten this mid-day dinner that they hate time out of mind. They have listened to his interminable yarns, oft repeated, about early California. In all these years they ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... boy, let's have a game of billiards," said Fred, after a few puffs. "I'll give you twenty points and beat you out of your boots." Now I was very fond of billiards, and usually didn't care who knew it, but Mrs. Pinkerton did not approve of the ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... altogether short of foxes, and some one who understands the matter must take that point up before they can do any good. And after that he had had rather a dull dinner with the duke. Sowerby had been there, and in the evening he and Sowerby had played billiards. Sowerby had won a pound or two, and that had been the extent of the damage done. But those saunterings over to the parsonage might be more dangerous. Not that it ever occurred to Lady Lufton as possible ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... the rules of the society with Madame de la Baudraye; he proposed to figure as one of the founders, and to let the house for fifteen years to the literary club. By the time it had existed a year the members were playing dominoes, billiards, and bouillotte, and drinking mulled wine, punch, and liqueurs. A few elegant little suppers were then given, and some masked balls during the Carnival. As to literature—there were the newspapers. Politics ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... common games practised in this country, are cards, dice, billiards, shooting matches, and last, though not least, lotteries. Horse-racing and cockfighting are still in use in some parts of the United States, though less so than formerly. In addition to the general remarks already made, I now proceed to notice ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... assets antipodes scissors thanks spectacles vespers victuals matins nuptials oats obsequies premises bellows billiards dregs gallows tongs ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... was taken at table, Charles X. and his guests traversed the Gallery of Mirrors, leading to the salon between two lines of spectators eager to see the royal family. The King next played billiards while a game of ecarte was started. The agents for the preservation of the forests and the pages of the hunt remained by the door, inside, without being permitted to advance into the salon, which was occupied only by persons who ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... which please the softer sex, Legard was a good whist player, superb at billiards, famous as a shot, unrivalled as a horseman,—in fact, an accomplished man, "who did everything so devilish well!" These accomplishments did not stand him in much stead in Italy; and, though with reluctance and remorse, he took ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... she wanted from this great desert of a town! She hurried along, to get in and hide her longing. But at the corner of St. James's Street, she stopped. That was his club, nearly opposite. Perhaps he was there, playing cards or billiards, a few yards away, and yet as in another world. Presently he would come out, go to some music-hall, or stroll home thinking of her—perhaps not even thinking of her! Another woman passed, giving her a furtive ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... habits are peculiar; he cannot do without gambling, and he contrives to indulge himself all the year round in some way or other. When the Newmarket Houghton meeting is over, Mr. Bookmaker bethinks him of billiards, and he goes daily and nightly among interesting gatherings of his brotherhood. Handicaps are arranged day by day and week by week, and the luxurious, loud, vulgar crew contrive to pass away the time ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... constant in spite of his inclination to be fickle. Late in the day he petulantly threw aside the books, curtly informed his astonished uncle that he was not feeling well, and left the office. Until dinner time he played billiards atrociously at his club; at dinner his mother sharply reproved him for flagrant inattentions; after dinner he smoked and wondered despondently. To-morrow she was to sail! If he could but see ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... the intercession of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow reconciliation was effected; and the prince was permitted, at last, to retire to one of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with books, billiards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... the collars of their coats; and the remainder turn into the first house of public entertainment they arrive at on emerging from the smoke of London to the rural districts, and remain all day absorbed in the mysteries of ground billiards and knock-'em-downs, their principal vegetable studies being confined to lettuces, spring onions, and water-cresses. But all this is very proper—we mean the botanical part of the story—for the knowledge of the natural class and order of a buttercup must be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various



Words linked to "Billiards" :   carom, bar billiards, miscue, table game, break, cannon, masse



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