Old Man Curry Part 28

"_Thank_ you, suh!" chuckled Shanghai, trying hard to appear surprised. "Thank you! This sutny goin' _com_bine business with pleasuah!"

"Get away with you!" scolded Old Man Curry.

Now, nearly every one knows that the simon-pure feed-box information, the low-down and the dead-level tip, may be picked up behind any barn where hostlers, exercise boys, and apprentice jockeys congregate.

Tongues are loosened at such a gathering, and the carefully guarded secrets of trainers and owners are in danger, for the one absorbing topic of conversation is horse, and then more horse.

Shanghai knew exactly where to go, and departed on his mission whistling jubilantly and c.h.i.n.king two silver dollars in his pocket.

At the end of three hours he returned, his hamlike hands thrust deep into empty pockets, and the look in his eye of one who has watched rosy dreams vanish.

"Where you been all this time?" snapped his employer wrathfully. "'As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is a sluggard to them that send him.' I declare, Solomon must have had some black stable boys! What you been at, you triflin' hound?"

Shanghai smiled a sorrowful smile and shook his head.

"Well, you see, kunnel"--Shanghai always gave his employer a high military rank when in fear of rebuke--"you see, kunnel, it took 'em longer'n usual to break me this mawnin'. I start' off right good, but I sutny bowed a tendon an' pulled up lame. Once I toss six pa.s.ses at them gamblehs----"

"Never mind that! What did you find out about Zanzibar?"

"Oh, him!" Shanghai blinked rapidly as if dispelling a vision.

"Zanzibar? Why, kunnel, they aimin' to slip him oveh Satu'day."

"Ah, hah!" Old Man Curry tugged at his white beard. "Ah, hah. I thought so. Had him under cover, eh? Where have they been workin'

him?"

"Out on the county road 'bout two miles f'um yere. You know that nice stretch with all them trees? Every mawnin', early, they takes him out----"

"_Who_ takes him out?"

"Li'l white boy they calls Dutchy."

"n.o.body else goes with him?"

Shanghai shook his head.

"How old is this boy?" asked the canny horseman.

"How ole? Why, kunnel, I reckon he's risin' fifteen, mebbe."

"Smart boy?"

Shanghai cackled derisively.

"I loaned him a two-bit piece, kunnel, an' he tol' me all he knowed!"

Old Man Curry fell to combing his beard, and Shanghai retreated to the tackle-room where he found Little Mose.

"The boss, he pullin' his whiskehs an' cookin' up a job on somebody,"

remarked the hostler.

"Huh!" grunted Mose. "It's time he 'uz doin' somethin'! Betteh not leave it _all_ to Sol'mun!"

The cooking process lasted until evening, by which time Old Man Curry had ceased to comb his beard and was rolling a straw reflectively from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"You, Shanghai!"

"Yes, suh! Comin' up!"

"Find that little rascal Mose and tell him I want to see him."

"Yes, suh."

"And, Shanghai?"

"Yes, suh."

"I believe I've found the way to rise up!"

"Good news!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the startled negro, backing away. But to himself the hostler said: "_Rise up?_ Sweet lan' o' libuhty! I wondeh whut bitin' the ole man now?"

It was a small and very sleepy exercise boy whom Smiley Johnson tossed into the saddle at four o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning: a boy whose teeth were chattering, for he was cold.

"Canter him the usual distance, Dutchy," said the owner. "Then set him down, but not for more than half a mile. Understand?"

"Y-yes, sir," stammered the boy, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand.

"Don't let him get hot, now!"

"No, sir; I won't."

"All right. Take him away!"

Johnson slapped Zanzibar on the shoulder, and the colt moved off in the gloom. His rider, whose other name was Herman Getz, huddled himself in the saddle and reflected on several things, including the hard life of an exercise boy, the perils of the dark, and the hot cup of coffee which he would get on his return.

Wrapped in these meditations, he had travelled some distance before he became aware of a dark shape in the road ahead. Coming closer, Herman saw that it was a horse and rider, evidently waiting for him.

"Howdy, Jockey Walsh!" called a voice.

The shortest cut to an exercise boy's heart is to address him as Jockey. Herman's heart warmed toward this stranger, and he drew alongside, trying to make out his features in the darkness.

"'Taint Walsh," said Herman, not without regret. "It's Getz."

"Jockey Getz? I don' seem to place you, jock. Where you been ridin'?

East?"

"I ain't a jock. I'm only gallopin' 'em. Who are you?"

"Jockey Jones, whut rides faw Misteh Curry. If you ain't a jock, you sutny ought to be. You don't set a hawss like no exercise boy. Tha.s.s why I mistook you faw Walsh."