or two of practice we were able to get the chief pin with an
output of four balls, but it cost us a great many deliveries to get the
other two; but by and by we succeeded in perfecting our art--at least we
perfected it to our limit. We reached a scientific excellence where we
could get the three pins down with twelve deliveries of the three small
balls, making thirty-six shots to conquer the cocked hat.

Having reached our limit for daylight work, we set up a couple of
candles and played at night. As the alley was fifty or sixty feet long,
we couldn't see the pins, but the candles indicated their locality. We
continued this game until we were able to knock down the invisible pins
with thirty-six shots. Having now reached the limit of the candle game,
we changed and played it left-handed. We continued the left-handed game
until we conquered its limit, which was fifty-four shots. Sometimes we
sent down a succession of fifteen balls without getting anything at all.
We easily got out of that old alley five times the fun that anybody
could have gotten out of the best alley in New York.

One blazing hot day, a modest and courteous officer of the regular army
appeared in our den and introduced himself. He was about thirty-five
years old, well built and militarily erect and straight, and he was
hermetically sealed up in the uniform of that ignorant old day--a
uniform made of heavy material, and much properer for January than July.
When he saw the venerable alley, and glanced from that to the long
procession of shining balls in the trough, his eye lit with desire, and
we judged that he was our meat. We politely invited him to take a hand,
and he could not conceal his gratitude; though his breeding, and the
etiquette of his profession, made him try. We explained the game to him,
and said that there were forty-one balls, and that the player was
privileged to extend his inning and keep on playing until he had used
them all up--repeatedly--and that for every ten-strike he got a prize.
We didn't name the prize--it wasn't necessary, as no prize would ever be
needed or called for. He started a sarcastic smile, but quenched it,
according to the etiquette of his profession. He merely remarked that he
would like to select a couple of medium balls and one small one, adding
that he didn't think he would need the rest.

Then he began, and he was an astonished man. He couldn't get a ball to
stay on the alley. When he had fired about fifteen