Looks like AZB has the answer as usual. From:
"Mark Twain played both carom and pocket billiards. His table, which is now in Hartford, Connecticut, was a gift from a friend in 1906 when he was living in New York. Twain was about to go on a long trip to Egypt when he heard about his friend's intentions. He cancelled the trip and helped the friend select a Brunswick-Balke-Collender table, which is described by Twain's biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine (and again by Willie Hoppe in Hoppe's autobiography) as a "combination table," which meant that it either had removable rails to convert from a carom table to a pocket table or had pocket inserts. Both were common at that time. Eventually the table was moved to Connecticut. There are photos of the table in New York with carom rails. Most of the photos from Connecticut show pockets.
Twain's main game was English billiards, which is a combination carom-pocket game played on a pocket billiard table. There are many ways to score points: pocketing object ball, pocketing cue ball, making caroms. Twain probably grew up playing American four ball, which was a carom-pocket game played on a pocket billiard table that was popular until the 1870s and was replaced by the three ball game. Willie Hoppe says that Twain was always inventing new games or new rules for old games."
Mark Twain--3-Cushion?
Here is a photo of Twain's ceiling in his third floor billiard room at his Hartford Ct. residence. If you look carefully you will notice there are 4 cues crossed and it looks like of the four two are carom cues judging by the tappered shafts. Also there are 3 balls depicted. In photos with twain...
forums.azbilliards.com
"Mark Twain played both carom and pocket billiards. His table, which is now in Hartford, Connecticut, was a gift from a friend in 1906 when he was living in New York. Twain was about to go on a long trip to Egypt when he heard about his friend's intentions. He cancelled the trip and helped the friend select a Brunswick-Balke-Collender table, which is described by Twain's biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine (and again by Willie Hoppe in Hoppe's autobiography) as a "combination table," which meant that it either had removable rails to convert from a carom table to a pocket table or had pocket inserts. Both were common at that time. Eventually the table was moved to Connecticut. There are photos of the table in New York with carom rails. Most of the photos from Connecticut show pockets.
Twain's main game was English billiards, which is a combination carom-pocket game played on a pocket billiard table. There are many ways to score points: pocketing object ball, pocketing cue ball, making caroms. Twain probably grew up playing American four ball, which was a carom-pocket game played on a pocket billiard table that was popular until the 1870s and was replaced by the three ball game. Willie Hoppe says that Twain was always inventing new games or new rules for old games."
