Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/64

Rh owner of the ball. The marker is the polite medium of the money.

"Well, their game was just getting to be expensive enough to be sociable when I dropped in and looked on longingly.

"As usual when an American enters the room, the British drew defensively together and waited patiently for me to shock or offend them. But as I did neither at once, they decided they had made a mistake, and that I must be a Canadian, or an Australian, or a South African, or somehow belong to the Empire, for before long one of them asked me to join the game.

"I discovered then that though it is highly commendable to take money from a stranger, it is not good etiquette for the true Briton to keep it. So, to solve the difficulty presented by the desire to win my shillings without obliging any one to receive money from me, they decided to play for charity; and with that worthy object to play for half a crown a point instead of a shilling.

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