After some talk back and forth this match was finally made, and March 25th, 1885, we came together in Central Music Hall, Chicago, before a fair-sized crowd, and I won by a score of 500 to 366, averaging in the neighborhood of five, and astonishing both Parker and his friends.
Slosson's billiard room on Monroe street, Chicago, was at that time and for several years afterwards the scene of more billiard matches than any similar resort in the United States, it being the headquarters of the bookmaking fraternity as well as the billiardists from all sections of the country, and it is more than probable that larger sums of money changed hands over the result of the games that were played there during the winter of 1885 and 1886 than changed hands in any other hall in the country, the leading billiard rooms of Gotham not excepted.

Among the billiardists who were making Chicago their headquarters that winter were Jacob Schaefer, George F.Slosson, Eugene Carter, Thomas F.Gallagher, and William H.Catton, while among the bookmakers that made Slosson's room their lounging place were such well-known knights of the chalk and rubber as Dave Pulsifer, who afterwards owned the famous race horse, Tenny; James H.Murphy, whose pacer, "Star Pointer," was in after years the first horse in harness to beat the two-minute mark; William Riley, who, under the sobriquet of "Silver Bill," is known from one end of the country to the other; Charlie Stiles, for years the trusted lieutenant of Bride and Armstrong, the Grand-Circuit pool sellers; George 'Wheelock, then hailing from St.Louis, but now known as one of the nerviest of New York's betting brigade; Joe Ullman, who then as now was a plunger; Johnny O'Neil, Frank Eckert, and many others, the place also being a favorite resort for the horsemen.
Thomas J.Gallagher was that fall in good form and there were several members of the book-making fraternity who stood ready to back him whenever he said the word.

I had taken a notion into my head that I could beat him, nor was I alone in the opinion, for my friend, "Bart" White, thought the same way.

The result was that I agreed to play him a match 300 points up at the fourteen-inch balk-line game for stakes of $100 a side.

We came together on the afternoon of November 23d at Slosson's room, and Gallagher won by seventeen points, after a close and exciting contest, the game standing at 300 to 283 in his favor.
Neither my friends nor myself were satisfied with the result of this game, during the progress of which I had met with some hard luck, and which I was certain that I might have played better, and as a result we at once made another match at the same game to be played that night, the stakes this time being increased to $150 a side.