Taking Chances Part 12

He chopped off the question, however, for the tout made two bounds for the money-taker's window.

"Three on Rolling Boer, T. L. M.!" he shouted, giving the initials of the little man with the straw-colored mustache. "Th' other two on th'

same, just plain R-e-d, Red, and both bets straight."

The man behind the desk grinned.

"High-ball mazuma for the house, Red," he said, twisting his mustache.

"That one ain't got a look-in."

The tout was back at the side of the little man with the straw-colored mustache who believed in him just as the operator sung out: "Off at Gravesend!"

"Thay, Red," said the tout's little man, "which one of 'em did you put thothe five"--

"Rolling Boer at the quarter by a head!" sang out the operator.

"On that one!" said the red-haired tout, giving his thigh a whack with his bundle of "dope" books. "It's a pleasant outing for that one!

He'll"--

"Rolling Boer in the stretch by a nose!" called out the operator.

"Thay, he'll curl up, won't he, Red?" said the little man at the tout's side, nervously. "Did you play him straight or one, two, three"--

"Rolling Boer wins by a nose!" shouted the operator.

It was a bit too much for the red-haired tout. He didn't have any words handy. So he slammed his "dope" books down on a chair, pitched forward, turned a cart wheel, and then walked around the room on his hands with his coat hanging over his head, and a grin of indescribable happiness all over his freckled features. The little man with the straw-colored mustache who had believed in Red followed the tout about the room.

"Thay, what do we win, Red?" he asked. "What prithe wath that horth?"

"You yank out $240, an' mine's $160," said the red-haired tout, getting on his feet again.

"Thay, Red, you're all right," said the red-haired tout's benefactor, pumping him by both hands.

The two flashy-looking chaps who had first been tackled by the tout on the Rolling Boer proposition now walked up behind him with long faces.

"Say, Red, why didn't you pitch that at us a little stronger, hey?"

"Get t'ell away from me, you pikers!" was the red-haired tout's reply.

HE "COPPERED" HIS WIFE'S "HUNCHES."

_Wherein It Is Shown That the Feminine Intuition Is Liable to Occasionally Slip a Cog._

"Yes, siree," said the man with the ravelled cigar and the granulated eyelids who swung precariously from a strap in a car of a returning Sheepshead Bay train the other evening, "it certainly is funny about these here hunches that women have, ain't it?"

"No," said the two seated men he was addressing.

"Certainly is queer what freaky ideas they get into their heads," went on the man with the ravelled cigar, ignoring the lack of encouragement extended to him. "And when it comes to picking out good things on a race-track, picking 'em out just on hunch, ain't they wonders, hey?"

"Nope," said the two men at whom he was directing his conversation.

"It sure beats the Painted Post Silver Cornet Band how they can stick a pin in a program with their eyes shut and light on a 100 to 1 shot that wins a-blinking," continued the man with the granulated eyelids, tearing two or three superfluous wrappers off his ravelled cigar. "Their system beats the dope and the handicapping all to shucks, don't it?"

"Nix," replied the two men in the seat.

"Never had such chance to size up the feminine hunch as I did out at Morris Park 'bout six or seven years ago," went on the man with the eccentric cigar. "Told my wife one night during the fall meeting at the park that I was going to the races the next day, that a shoe clerk I knew had told me about a good thing that was going to happen-he'd got it from a trainer to whom he'd sold a pair of shoes-and I was going after some of it.

"'Theophilus Nextdoor,' says she to me, 'how dare you deliberately tell me that you are going to gamble your money away, when I haven't a rag to my back and the coal not yet put in!'

"'Can't help it, Clarissa,' says I, 'I've just naturally got to invest $50 on this good thing. I know it ain't right, but I've got to do it, anyhow.'

"Then she let out on me, and we both got mad. I tried to square it up with her the next morning, and at the breakfast table I read her the names of the horses that were going to run in the race in which I had the good thing the shoe clerk had given me. When I came to the name of a horse called Jodan, she dropped her coffee cup with a clatter and stared at me.

"'Jodan,' said she. Isn't that short for Joseph Daniel?'

"'Yes'm, I guess so,' I said, not knowing whether it was or not, but anxious to stroke her the right way.

"'Is that the horse you are going to invest your money on?' she asked me, breathlessly.

"'No, it's another one,' said I.

"'Well, you might just as well stay home, then,' said she, positively.

'You'll lose your money. Jodan will win. I dreamt all night last night of my Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy, who was lost at sea when I was a little bit of a thing, and if Jodan is short for Joseph Daniel, as it must be, then Jodan will win.'

"'But that's plain superst.i.tion, and races ain't won that way,' I said to her.

"'I don't care one bit, so I don't,' she said to me. 'You will simply be throwing your money away, and I need so many things, if you invest it on any other horse than Jodan.'

"I tried to argue with her, but it was no go. She told me that her lost Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy had once won a full-rigged s.h.i.+p race from Shanghai to Boston, and was a pretty speedy old cuss in more ways than one, and that any horse named after her Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy couldn't lose. I told her that, while I didn't know anything about this Jodan horse, I didn't think he could beat the good thing my shoe-clerk friend had given me, but she wouldn't listen to me. The last thing she said to me before I left the house was:

"'If you are determined to be a horrid, vulgar, disgraceful gambler, you play Jodan. You'll be sorry if you don't.'

"Stubborn, when they get an idea into their heads, women, ain't they?"

"No," said the two men in the seat near the strap-clutching man with the ravelled cigar.

"Well, by jing, I got to thinking about my wife's queer hunch on that Jodan horse on my way out to the track, and the more I thought about it the weaker I became on that good thing my shoe-clerk friend had given me.

"'Women have got something away ahead of sense or reason,' says I to myself on the train on the way out, 'and I sure would feel almighty cheap and no-account if my wife happened to be right about her Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy and this Jodan horse. I sure would. I've got a good mind to put a little money on that Jodan horse anyhow, derned if I haven't.'

"I was still undecided about it when I got out to the track. That's the edge the bookmakers have got, ain't it-the people that have real good things and then wabble when it comes to sticking to them?"

"Nope," said the two men in the seat.

"Well, sir, when the prices were marked up for that race in which I had the good thing, blamed if Jodan wasn't chalked up at 100 to 1. My good thing horse was the second choice at 5 to 1. I stood there looking at the prices, getting pulled around and b.u.t.ted into, and I had the dingedest time making up my mind what I was going to do that you ever heard of in your life.