Checkers: A Hard-luck Story. Henry Blossom
n't speak, but clasping the tighter my precious ticket, I swallowed heroically at the lump in my throat, while Murray, unmindful of my silence, continued.
"You see, Jack, after I left you, I got it straight from a friend of mine that Maid Marian was out of condition, which left the race, it seemed to me, a walk-over for Senator Irby. Well, it looked like a good chance to make a 'killin',' and I put twenty on him at two and a half to one. Of course I could n't figure on getting nosed out by a hundred to one shot, but that's the luck I always play in. Well, I 'll get it back on the third race; I've got a 'cinch' in that. You understand though, Jack," he added, stopping suddenly, "you have only a dollar's interest in the losing – I had no right to bet but $2, as was originally agreed."
Just here I foresaw a peculiar complication, and I was glad that, in my desire to appear properly nonchalant, I had not as yet announced my good fortune.
"Why, Murray," I exclaimed, slipping my ticket into my pocket, "you are absolutely absurd. We agreed to share and share alike in the day's transactions, and I shall insist upon it. Suppose Senator Irby had won instead of losing, would you have offered me but a dollar's interest in the winning, simply because I did n't know you were going to bet so much?"
"Of course not, you should have had your half; but that is a very different thing."
"Different in result perhaps, but not in principle; besides, come to think of it, I made a little bet myself."
"You did – how much?"
"Oh, only $2."
"Two dollars, eh? Well! That makes us twenty-two out altogether. Eleven apiece, if you insist upon it, although – "
"I do insist upon it; so that's settled, and now – "
"By the way, Jack, what did you bet on?"
This was the moment of my triumph Handing him the ticket with an air of assumed carelessness, I covertly watched with keenest relish his changes of expression, as he ran the gamut of varied emotion from idle indifference to supreme excitement.
"Jack!" he exclaimed at last, grabbing my arm. "Jack, my boy! Did you know – " Just here I laughed and gave the thing away, and then we both laughed, while Murray improvised superlative similes anent my luck, and upbraided me for my duplicity.
"Ahem! two dollars – twenty-two out – eleven apiece, eh, Murray?" I chuckled mockingly. "Come on now, old man, and show me how to cash this ticket;" and we made our way toward the betting ring.
We experienced no delay in getting the money, as not one in a thousand had won on the race, and the cashiers at the back of the stands had little or nothing to do.
I found great difficulty, however, in making Murray accept his rightful half of the spoils; but out of his own mouth I judged him, and in the end prevailed.
The next race, the second, we decided not to bet upon, as the horses were, according to Murray, only a lot of "selling-platers," and we needed a little respite from the crowd.
So we sought our box, and in highest spirits sat watching the masses surge to and fro, while the freshening breeze blew strong and cool, and brought up dark clouds which looked like rain.
"The race after this is the Derby, you know," said Murray, glancing at his programme. "Now I do n't want to influence you, old man, but I really believe that Domino will win. He's the best horse in the race, and with Taral to ride him he ought to be first under the wire. This time, though, you shall bet for yourself, as you have the proverbial beginner's luck. Ah, they're off! By Jove! that's a beautiful start."
"Selling-platers" or not, the second race was a pretty one and I enjoyed it thoroughly, from start to finish.
Is there any more pleasurable or intensely interesting sight than that of a well-appointed race between a number of sleek-limbed thoroughbreds? The multi-colored satins of the plucky little jockeys, the whitened fences and the trim greensward lend a picturesqueness; the buzz and hum of the restless, pushing, ill-assorted crowd adds an excitement to an ensemble, in my opinion, altogether fascinating.
II
And now for the Derby – the great stake race worth so many thousands of dollars to the winner; the much-talked-of race, in which the most noted horses in the country, East and West, were to compete for supremacy in fleetness and endurance, and the most celebrated jockeys to vie with each other in their peculiar generalship.
Leaving our box, we joined in the crush and forced our way into the betting-ring. The crowd was enormous, the interest intense. One had but to listen for a moment to hear every horse in the race enthusiastically spoken of as "sure to win."
As it was simply useless in that crush to try to keep together, Murray and I decided to go our several ways, and meet in good time at a place agreed upon.
Now, although I had said nothing about it, I had quite decided not to bet upon this event. I had found the second race upon which I had no bet infinitely more enjoyable than the first, despite the good fortune chance had thrust upon me; and reasonably so, I think, for with any kind of a wager up one's interest naturally centers in the performance of one horse, and the beauty of the race, as a race, is to a great extent lost sight of.
With something of this idea in mind, I stood watching the frantic efforts of the crowd to reach the betting stands, wondering idly the while where all the money so recklessly offered came from in these days of universal hard times, when I was suddenly accosted by an unknown youth who asked to see my programme for a minute, explaining at the same time that "some guy had pinched his, coming through the crowd."
I silently complied.
He studied the programme briefly, smiled a satisfied smile, and returned it.
"There 's a good thing coming off in the fourth," he remarked in a confidential manner. "If I can see you somewhere just before the race I 'll put you on. It 'll be a 'hot one.'"
I thanked him.
"The owner himself is going to 'put me next,'" he continued; "it 'll be a 'lead-pipe.'"
I began to be interested. "I should like to know it," I replied, "and I will wait for you after the Derby. I may not bet on it myself, but I have a friend who doubtless will, if you will give him the information."
"I 'll give it to him if he 'll go down the line, but it's going to win a city block, and we ought to make a killin' on it. I went broke myself, on Senator Irby, or I 'd have gone home to-night with a bankroll."
"Well," I replied, "we 'll see when the time comes. Now, what do you fancy to win the Derby?"
He lighted a cigarette and puffed it a moment in silence.
"It's a dead-tough race," he at last remarked, "and I would n't play it with counterfeit money. There 's no use in playing any race unless you 've got some information. These geezers that play every race go broke. But it's an easy game to beat if you just stay off till you 're next to something good, and then plug it hard. Why, if I could shake the faro-bank and crap-game, I 'd have money to burn ice with.
"Y' see, take a big stake-race like this, where every horse is a 'cracker-jack,' they 're all of 'em good, and they 've all got a chance, and you just take my advice and stay off. We 'll have something good in the fourth that we know, and we just won't do a thing to it. Well, I must hurry down to the paddocks to see a stable boy I know; if I hear anything I 'll come back and tell you. But be sure and be here for the next with your friend, 'cause it's all over now, but cashing the ticket – so long;" and he dodged away through the crowd.
Oddly enough, it did not at the moment strike me as in the least peculiar that I should have been conversing on a basis of perfect equality with a companion of stable boys and a frequenter of gambling hells. Nothing further.
The spirit of easy, good-natured camaraderie was in the very air; and in the singleness of purpose which animated all – the picking of the winner – all ranks seemed leveled, all social barriers cast aside.
Again, he had proved in our few minutes' talk a new, and to me an interesting, type; and I resolved to keep the appointment, if for nothing more than to study him further.
He was a young man, certainly not over