The four gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room. Here Mr. Mainwaring and Crick set about a game of billiards--fifty up--at which the latter, with a loftiness of spirit which his subsequent performance entirely failed to justify, insisted upon conceding his elderly opponent twenty-five points. Aided by this generous subsidy and by the fact that the scratch player, in bringing off some delicate long shots into the top pocket, more than once omitted the formality of glancing off one of the other balls on the way, our host made quite surprising progress. His own contributions to the score were mainly derived from a monotonous but profitable system of potting the white and leaving his opponent a double balk. Indeed, the old gentleman reached his points before Mr. Crick had accomplished a feat vaguely described by himself as "getting the strength of the table." Mr. Mainwaring then trotted happily upstairs to bed, followed very shortly afterwards by his highly incensed play-fellow. As the door closed, Dicky put down his pipe and turned to me. "Bill, old man," he said, "I don’t often face facts; but this time I admit that I have fairly torn the end off things." "You are in disgrace, my boy," I agreed. "What are you going to do about it?" Dicky pondered, and finally summed up. "The fact is," he said, "I am not up to Hilda’s standard, and never shall be." I rose, and took my stand upon that tribunal beloved of the Briton--the hearthrug--and looked down upon my friend’s troubled countenance. "Dicky," I began, having blown my nose nervously, "you and I don’t usually go deeply into these matters together; but--do you love that girl?" We two regarded one another deliberately for a minute, and then Dicky shook his head.