The hundred and one minor accidents which occur in the average globe-trotter's journeyings were, in my case, added to and enlarged by the fact that to a certain extent my tour depended upon the amount of patronage I received. To travel round the world with a billiard cue and case as one's only visible means of support is an undertaking which requires a considerable amount of doing. That I succeeded so well I put down to the fact that the Britisher abroad is a sportsman of the best sort, and will do anything and pay anything to see one of the Mother Country's champions playing his game, no matter what that game may be. During my journey I went completely round the world, visiting Ceylon twice, Australia three times, New Zealand twice, Tasmania, China, the Straits Settlements, India, and Burma, the total distance covered being close on a hundred thousand miles, and the time occupied by the tour over eighteen months. [Illustration: MR. MELBOURNE INMAN, BRITISH BILLIARD ASSOCIATION CHAMPION. _From a Photograph._ ] My chief difficulties were the tables which were provided. I did not expect to meet with absolutely correct ones, but sometimes I would be led into a room and introduced to some bedraggled wreck on four or five legs and blandly informed that _that_ was the thing upon which I had to show my powers as a billiard-player! The only thing which saved me from a sudden and total loss of reputation was the fact that my opponent usually did a great deal worse than _I_, and my efforts to avoid the unorthodox pitfalls, such as open gaps in the cloth, grooves at the pockets, and so forth, were seen and appreciated by the habitués of the place who used the table themselves, and were only too familiar with its peculiarities. My first really amusing adventure occurred at Colombo, Ceylon. I was booked to play a Mr. G----, who was a well-known personage, being sub-editor of the local paper, and had to give him eight hundred start in a game of twelve hundred up. The match took place at the Globe Hotel, and when I entered the room I saw that a good crowd of natives had gathered to watch the game. They were evidently very anxious to see their champion win, and chattered away volubly while the game was in progress. Now silence is indispensable if good billiards is to be played, but I stuck to my work until suddenly dull thuds began to sound on the ceiling above. The lights over the table quivered and danced with the reverberations, and presently, in despair, I called the proprietor to one side and asked him what on earth was happening up there. "Oh, that's all right," he said, cheerily. "There's a troupe of dancing girls come here to practise every evening, and they are doing it now!"