Taking Chances Part 15

"'I got a chance,' was the reply.

"The man got out his other horse on the following day. He got 50 to 1 on him for the six-furlong race, and his plug, another rank and no-account looker, finished last. This was the horse that could work six furlongs in 1:21. The seedy man's confidence in his pair of skates seemed rather pathetic to me.

"After each of his horses had been in about half a dozen races each, always finis.h.i.+ng last, the both of them, and the seedy man putting twos and fives down on them right along until the bookies felt like not taking his money, I thought he'd take a tumble and quit the game. But on the eleventh day of the meeting his 'mile racer,' the six-year-old gelding, was entered again. He went to the post with a field composed of the cracks among the outlaws. I happened to be close to the seedy man when he went around according to his custom, putting down small bets on his horse. He seemed to be rather better fixed than usual that day, for he had quite a bundle of fives with him.

"'What do I get on my horse?' he asked the first bookie he struck.

"The layer grinned, for he knew there were eight or ten good ones in the race, three or four of them quoted around even money.

"'I've got 75 to 1 hung up about him, and all you want of it,' said the bookie. 'You can write your own ticket, in fact.'

"'Hundred to 1?' asked the seedy man.

"'Why, sure,' replied the bookmaker. And he took $5 of the 'owner's'

money at 100 to 1. Just out of curiosity I followed the seedy man in his tour of the books and I saw him put down $70 in $5 bets on his horse to win at 100 to 1. It struck me then that there was to be something done on the seedy man's horse. But I wasn't capping the bookies' game, and I've got a fad for minding my own business, anyhow, and so I kept off the race and went into the stand to watch it. I had a hunch to play the seedy man's horse for a good wad, but I reflected that if I got on and the good thing went through the bookies 'ud be suspicious about such a well-known player as I was being in on it, and in the investigation the seedy man might be cut out, and I didn't want to knock him. But I surely was a whole lot interested in the way that race was to come out.

"I took a good look at the seedy man's horse as they filed past the stand to the post. He looked much better and pretty nippy at that for such a rancid outsider. The same boy that had ridden the horse in his first race at Alexander Island and landed him nowhere was up. It was a mile race.

"The favorite, a horse called Walcott-4 to 5 on in the betting-got off on the right foot with a jump and started to tiptoe the field. At the quarter he led by three lengths, with the second choice, a good outlaw named Halcyon, beginning to set sail for him. The rest of the field of thirteen were all strung out, the seedy man's horse 'way in the ruck.

But I kept my gla.s.ses on that horse all the way, and I could see that at the half he was under the devil's own pull. The boy had half a dozen wraps on him and I felt then, even if the favorite was still a good four lengths in the lead, and going easily, that there was but one horse in the race, and that horse the seedy man's. It was a watermelon just opening, but I suppose I was the only man at the track that happened to have got next to the game. The judges didn't observe, of course, that the seedy owner's horse was under twenty wraps, for they looked upon him as a dead one and paid no attention to his running.

"At the far turn Walcott, the favorite, was still three or four lengths in front, Halcyon, the No. 2 choice, having fallen back, beaten out.

They were all in a bunch behind the leader, and all going mighty well at the head of the stretch. All the time I had my gla.s.s focused on the horse belonging to the shabby man. Walcott seemed to be just galloping, as I say, at the head of the stretch, when I saw the jockey suddenly sit down on the shabby man's horse and start to ride a-horseback. It was pretty, I tell you, to see that old six-year-old hop out after the galloping favorite and chase him down the stretch. The old horse, without a bit of whipping or spurring-the boy had simply given him his head-pumped up like an express engine, and the favorite was taken out of his gallop and extended, under whip and spur, before they were half way down the stretch. Pa.s.sing the stand, Walcott and the seedy man's horse were nose and nose, the latter gaining at every jump. Walcott was beaten a head on the wire by the rank outsider in a pretty finish.

"The stewards had the seedy man in the stand immediately and then called the boy up. It was an astonis.h.i.+ng reversal of form, and action seemed to be called for. The seedy man's story was straight, however. He had given his horse a half pint of whisky before the race and he supposed that was responsible for the win. Doping horses was all right at Alexander, and so the stewards couldn't kick about that. The stewards touched upon the ringer question, but the seedy man was such a simple kind of duck, and his story was so connected about past owners of his two horses and their life-long careers on the outlaw tracks, that the stewards finally declared the race all hunk and the bets stood.

"I saw the shabby man cash his $70 worth of 100 to 1 tickets. He didn't gloat any over the bookies who had grinned in his teeth before the race-just collected his money quietly, saying: 'Well, I had a chance, didn't I?' The bookies were confident that the seedy man had a mighty valuable pair of ringers on his staff, and that one of them had just won the mile race in the beautiful, finely-drawn nose finish, but they couldn't welch on their bets. With his $7000 the seedy man took his string of two away the next day.

"I ran across him last summer at the St. Louis Fair Grounds' racing. He was no longer a seedy man. He was covered with gig lamps, and he had it in every pocket. Said I to him:

"'D'ye remember that neat 100 to I thing you pulled off in Was.h.i.+ngton a few years ago? There was some quality in that old outlaw of yours that got the money.'

"He looked at me with a broad grin.

"'Outlaw be d.a.m.ned,' said he. 'That horse was one of the cracks out of the West, on licensed tracks. He was a bit of paint. He had done a mile in 1:39-1/2 twice-round miles-and he was as game as a wild turkey egg.

Me and my pardner pulled down $20,000 or so, running him as a ringer all over the country. I was going to open my six-furlonger in Was.h.i.+ngton that time, but $7000 was enough. My six-furlonger was a crack from Frisco. He was dyed, too. Six furlongs in 1:14 was a common canter for him. The Willie Wises back in the East are not so many at that, are they?'"

THIS TELEGRAM WAS SIGNED JUST "BUB."

_It Referred to Nothing Calculated to Disturb Domesticity, but It Came Near Wrecking a Happy Home._

When the senior partner of a young two-handed firm of patent attorneys reached the firm's office in West Broadway on Monday morning last his eye caught sight of a telegram addressed to his junior partner on the latter's desk. As the junior partner was in Was.h.i.+ngton and wasn't due back in New York until 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the senior partner opened the telegram. It was a night message from St. Louis, and it read as follows:

"Hammer Jim Conway. Punch him your limit. Don't let anything scare you out. He's easy. Bub."

The senior partner scratched his head over this.

"Conway-Jim Conway," he muttered to himself. "Now, who the d.i.c.kens can Jim Conway be, I'd like to know? We've got no client named Jim Conway, and we're not fighting any infringement case in which a Mr. Conway is the defendant. Darned funny telegram, this is."

The senior partner turned the message upside down and every which way, but the longer he looked at it from various points of view the more puzzled he became.

"Mighty belligerent sort of an affair, too," he mused. "Now, what has this Jim Conway done to my partner that he needs to be punched for it?

And who's this Bub? Bub! That's a deuce of an undignified name for a man to put on paper. Great Scott! I wonder if my junior partner has gone in for prize fighting at that Jersey athletic club he belongs to? Perhaps he's been matched to box some fellow member named Jim Conway, and this Bub chap down at St. Louis is wiring him encouragement. Nope, that can't be right, either. My junior partner has been taking on fat at an alarming rate lately, so that he can't be training for a boxing contest."

He took a few turns up and down the office, holding the telegram out at arm's length.

"I hope the boy don't get into a serious mix-up with this Jim Conway fellow, whoever he is," he muttered nervously. "I don't believe the lad has done anything that he'd be ashamed to have me know about, and yet it's blamed queer that he should be getting telegraphic despatches from people by the name of Bub, urging him to employ physical force for the subjugation of a chap with such a Boweryesque sort of name as Jim Conway. The question is, what's the boy done to Conway, or Conway to him, that it should be necessary for one or both of them to resort to fisticuffs? Now, if the boy were to get mixed up in a brawl with this Conway there'd be the deuce to pay. It 'ud get into the papers, and it might have a serious effect upon our tidy and growing practice. I wish that junior partner of mine were a bit more level-headed. He's too clever and industrious and promising to have anything whatsoever to do with folks who travel under such names as Conway and Bub, and I'm going to give him a mild little personally conducted talking to when he gets back from Was.h.i.+ngton this afternoon. Why, I wouldn't have him get into a street fight, or a fight anywhere else for that matter, for big money-not only for the sake of the firm, but for his own sake. He's pretty handy with his maulies, and all that, but this fighting business is not the thing for gentlemen, not by a long shot. I just wish I could find out who this Conway duffer is, anyhow."

The young woman who manipulates the typewriter for the firm came in just then.

"By the way, Miss Bringlunch," the senior partner said to her, "have we any person of the name of Jim Conway on our list of correspondents?"

"No, sir," she promptly replied. "We've got a Conners, Coleman, Coulter, Conneff, Curran-lots and lots of C's-but no Conway."

"So I thought," said the senior partner. "Er-by the way, did you ever happen to hear Mr. Barlock refer to a person by the name of-er-Bub?"

The young woman smiled as she tied her black sateen ap.r.o.n in the back.

"I've heard him call the newsboys who come into the office with papers Bub," she replied.

"Er-yes, yes," murmured the senior partner, "so have I. But this is a St. Louis Bub. Well, no matter."

The senior partner dived into the ma.s.s of papers on his desk, but he couldn't get the bloodthirsty telegram to his junior partner out of his mind. He was puzzling over it still radiant when his junior partner's young wife came along toward 11 o'clock in the morning. She wanted to find out the exact hour her husband was due back from Was.h.i.+ngton.

"He'll be here a little after 4, I guess," said the senior partner.

"Er-by the way, Mrs. Barlock, does Jack number among his friends or acquaintances anybody by the name of Jim Conway?"

"Jim Conway?" repeated the junior partner's wife, with a finger at her lip. "Why, no, not that I know of. I never heard him say anything about a Mr. Conway. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," said the senior partner, in a constrained sort of tone, putting away the message from St. Louis for the fiftieth time.

The wife of the junior partner suddenly looked alarmed.

"That telegram!" she gasped, noticing the senior partner's furtive manner of slipping the despatch into his pocket-"is anything wrong with Jack? Has the train been wrecked? Has the"--

And she started to her feet in great agitation.

"Calm yourself, calm yourself," said the senior partner, also rising and smiling rea.s.suringly. "There's nothing the matter. Train wrecked? Why, the idea! How did you ever get such a notion"--

"But that telegram that you handle so mysteriously," said the junior partner's wife, not yet over her alarm.

"What telegram-this?" said the senior partner, taking the night message from St. Louis from his pocket. "Why, this is an ordinary-er-business telegram addressed to Jack from St. Louis, and it's"--

"Let me see it, please, if it's for Jack," said the junior partner's wife, holding out her neatly gloved hand, and the senior partner could do nothing else but pa.s.s it over.