The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-05-02
THE cHAMPEEN SET BACK.
Col. Roche Tired by His Efforts With
HiIlbillies Goes Down in Defeat
Before a Shoe Drummer and
Cotton Spinner-Too Near
Lent.
(By J. C. Hemphill.)

There are times in the affairs OF
men when speculation is vain and
everything appears to have gone
wrong in the world. At any rate,
the Hon. Pat Roche was impressed
with this view of the instability OF
things mundane last Saturday night
at the meeting of the College of Set
Back when all of his highly priced
honors as the acknowledged Cham
peen of the noble science of which
Antony and Cleopatra were the lead
ing exponents in ancient times,
slipped from his shoulders even as
the royal bath robe of the $4,000
beauty of her day fell from her mas
saged form when she went swimming
among the astonished crocodiles of
the River Nile. The Champeen found
himself also among the crocodiles-
the same being Foster Barnwell of
cotton manufacturing distinction,
and the other one Martin Coleman,
the road agent of a somewhat noted
shoe house-but true to the best ira
ditions of the charming County of
Cork he bore himself with proud dis
dain of the adventurous amateurs
who dared contest with him the hon
ors of the game. It was quite OBJ
vious to the innocent bystander that
Pat had little to expect in the way
of clean sport, for whenever the enc
my "dolt" the cards it invariably
turned out that they held all the
trump cards as, for example, when
the cotton mill expert he'd the ace,
king, queen, jack, ten spot and eight
spot of hearts and even at that SO
clever was the Champeen's mllipu-
Iation Of the pasteboards that he
came within an ace of taking all the
tricks; yet the enemy claimed and
will continue to claim against all
the evidence that they won the
game by straight scientific playing.
Repeatedly, throughout the contest,
Pat extricated himself by bold ma
nouevres from the strategic COM
binations of his antagonists, so that
when the game was called he was
only one lap behind the Huns and
going strong with the certainty that
but for the hour of twelve he would
have beaten them to a frazzle.
It was naturally something of. a
disappointment to the Champeen and
various explanations have been sug-
gested as to the true cause of his
temporary set back-he was tired to
begin with as he had been beating
the hillIbillies at the Court House all
day, that is to say after business
hours; it was too near the close of
the Lenten season for the player to
have fully recovered his usual form
there was an entire absence of any
thing like artificial aids to truly ar
tistic effort; but no other explana-
tion is needed than the efficiency
with which the cards were "dolt"
when they passed into the hands Of
the enemy. The wonder is not the
Champeen was beaten but that he
would consent to stay in the game
when all the chances were against
him. In the COCA old days when such
affairs were not as "dry" as they are
in these spacious times the game
would have properly resulted in a
knock-down and drag-out affair
greatly to the interest of the occa-
sion.
Another explanation of the rather
1ogy movements of the Champeen in
this case the position he has as