“Neither, Doctor; they are both accomplishments beyond me; I have not patience for whist, and I can’t play billiards in the least. I have tried over and over again, but I am too nervous, I fancy; I break down over the easiest stroke--in fact, an easy stroke is harder for me than a difficult one. I know I ought to make it, and just for that reason, I suppose, I don’t.” “You don’t give one the idea of a nervous man, either, Bathurst.” “Well, I am, Doctor, constitutionally, indeed terribly so.” “Not in business matters, anyhow,” the Doctor said, with a smile. “You have the reputation of not minding in the slightest what responsibility you take upon yourself, and of carrying out what you undertake in the most resolute, I won’t say high handed, manner.” “No, it doesn’t come in there,” Bathurst laughed. “Morally I am not nervous so far as I know, physically I am. I would give a great deal if I could get over it, but, as I have said, it is constitutional.” “Not on your father’s side, Bathurst. I knew him well, and he was a very gallant officer.” “No, it was the other side,” Bathurst said; “I will tell you about it some day.” At this moment another friend of Bathurst’s came up and entered into conversation with him. “Well, I will go upstairs to the billiard room,” the Doctor said; “and you will find me there, Bathurst, whenever you feel disposed to go.” A pool had just finished when the Doctor entered the billiard room. “That is right, Doctor, you are just in time,” Prothero said, as he entered. “Sinclair has given up his cue; he is going to ride tomorrow, and is afraid of shaking his nerves; you must come and play for the honor of the corps. I am being ruined altogether, and Doolan has retired discomfited.” “I have not touched a cue since I went away,” the Doctor said, “but I don’t mind adding to the list of victims. Who are the winners?” “Messenger and Jarvis have been carrying all before them; there is a report they have just sent off two club waiters, with loads of rupees, to their quarters. Scarsdale has been pretty well holding his own, but the rest of us are nowhere.” A year’s want of practice, however, told, and the Doctor was added to the list of victims: he had no difficulty in getting someone else to take his cue after playing for half an hour. “It shows that practice is required for everything,” he said; “before I went away I could have given each of those men a life, now they could give me two; I must devote half an hour a day to it till I get it back again.” “And you shall give me a lesson, Doctor,” Captain Doolan, who had also retired, said.