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.