Taking Chances Part 9

_And the Evaporation of His Resolution to Have Nothing to Do With Them._

"Touts," said Busyday, oracularly, to his companion on a train bound for the Bay on Suburban day, "are the derned nuisances of the racing game.

You want to watch out for them. If by chance you should get separated from me in the crowd, don't you let any of the sharp-eyed, soft-voiced ducks talk you into playing this or that one. Just you stick to those selections I wrote out for you on that piece of paper. They're the logical winners. A friend of mine, whose brother is a bookmaker, handicapped 'em for me, and I'm going to play every one of 'em myself.

That's the only way to win; stick to your selections, and don't let yourself be touted. The man who listens to touts smokes a pipe.

Understand?"

"Uh, huh," replied Busyday's friend, who was from Busyday's native town out West. He had never seen a horse race in his life, whereas Busyday was an old-timer and learned at the game, having seen three Handicaps and two Suburbans ran.

"They make kind of a lukewarm effort to keep the touts off the tracks,"

went on Busyday, disparagingly; "but the touts are too smooth for 'em, and they're always around, looking for good things like you, old man.

All you've got to do is just to flout 'em from the jump, as soon as they edge up to you, and they'll shoo-fly instantly, rather than take chances on being spotted by the Pinkerton people. Tell 'em to go to the devil, that's all."

"Uh, huh," answered Busyday's friend and guest, once more.

It came to pa.s.s that Busyday and his visiting townsman were separated before they had got off the train. The car was jammed, and in the confusion of getting off they made their exits by different doors.

Busyday frantically yelled out his friend's name as soon as he found himself alone on the platform, but, of course, he got no reply. His friend was engulfed in the crowd.

"I s'pose I ought to have held hold of his hand, like a fellow does when he takes his sister's kids out for a walk," he reflected. "This is blasted mean luck from the go-off. The touts'll get hold of him now, sure as shootin', and they'll strip him. Good thing he's got his ticket back to the little old slab of a town where we used to play shinny together."

Busyday roamed around the grand-stand and the betting ring for ten minutes before the slates went up for the first race, trying to catch sight of his friend, but it was no use. His townsman wasn't visible anywhere. Then a sudden swirling and eddying in the betting ring told him that the prices were up for the first race.

"I'll have to pa.s.s the old boy up until I get this bet down," said Busyday to himself, pulling out of his pocket the slip of paper that the handicapper had given him the evening before. "Let's see, what one of 'em have I got to win this? Oh, yes; Peaceful-good name, but it doesn't sound as if a horse with a name like that could run much. I'd rather have a horse called Lightning Express, or Cyclone, or Helen Blazes, or something like that, run for my money. S'pose, though, this handicapping chap knows what he is doing, and so I'll just put my first ten on Peaceful to win. Hey? How's that?"

There was a soft, persuasive buzz right in Busyday's ear.

"D'ye notice all the suckers breakin' their necks t' land on that Peaceful dead one?" were the words that formed the buzz.

Busyday jerked his head around suddenly, and he found within four inches of his ear the countenance of a young-old man with red hair, a freckled skin, and a pale-blue, shifty eye.

"Dead one?" echoed Busyday, the red-haired, young-old man smiling amiably in his face.

"Libster," said he of the pale-blue, shifty eye, looking entirely disinterested. "Out-and-out libster. Crab. Run about a dozen sprints, and still a merry maiden. And look at the chancts th' mutt's had to win!

Leads th' percession into th' stretch every whirl, and then chucks it. A proper dog, Cap. That's on the dead. Worst quitter on th' grounds."

"Um," said Busyday, stroking his chin and wondering why his handicapper had picked Peaceful.

"I got th' baby," buzzed the freckle-faced, young-old man, after a silence.

"Hey?" asked Busyday.

"For a pipe," said the shifty-eyed one. "Say, I don't git out o' me Waldorf bunk at 3 o'clock every mornin' for me health."

"Is that so?" inquired Busyday, just for the sake of saying something.

"Not on yer dinner pail," said the aged youth with the shifty eye. "I light out fer th' tracks t' watch 'em at their early mornin' works. I'm a railbird, all right, but I know where th' dough is. I seen this baby that I'm tellin' you about do the five-eighths in a minute flat th'

other mornin', an' if he ain't a moral fer this, here's my lid an' you can eat it," whereupon the shifty-eyed one removed his 50-cent straw hat and offered it to Busyday.

"What's the name of this wonder?" inquired Busyday, trying to work up a superior smile.

The aged youth bent over, placed his mouth within a quarter of an inch of Busyday's ear, and whispered:

"Stuart. He'll walk."

"Oh, well, then, I'll waste a ten-spot on Stuart," said Busyday, trying to say it languidly, as if he didn't take much stock in himself or anybody else. Then he plunged into the vortex around one of the bookmakers' elevated chairs, got his feet trod upon, his hat jammed down over his eyes, and his ribs treated to an all-hands elbow ma.s.sage, and finally succeeded in pa.s.sing up his ten-dollar bill on Stuart to win.

"Stuart, thirty-five to ten," droned the bookmaker to the sheet-writer, and then Busyday found himself beaten to the outskirts of the crowd.

"You on?" he heard in his ear, and, turning, he saw the freckle-faced one smiling up at him.

"Yep-dropped ten on it," replied Busyday. "Kind o' liked Stuart myself when I saw him entered."

Then Busyday steered for the lawn to see the finish of the race. He was trying to get some sense out of the list of owners' colors on his program, so as to be able to distinguish his horse as they raced under the wire, when a calm man next to him, with a pair of field-gla.s.ses to his eyes, mumbled:

"They're off!"

There was a big shout all around.

"Lady Uncas out in front," said the calm man coolly. "She'll curl up.

She seems to be staying, though, at that. Nope, she's collared. Stuart's nailed her. He walks," and the calm man put down his gla.s.ses as the horses galloped past the sixteenth pole.

Stuart came in all alone, and Peaceful was back in the ruck.

"I had my suspicions about that Stuart horse right along," said Busyday to himself. He had never seen the horse's name until the evening before.

"Don't know why, but I kind o' liked him. Probably because the Stuart were a pretty swift bunch," and he chuckled to himself over his humor as he made his way to the bookmaker's line to cash.

"Somethin' easy-like findin' it, hey?" he heard buzzed into his ear as soon as he put his foot into the betting ring, and there was the old-faced young man, grinning complaisantly up at him.

Busyday handed to the shifty-eyed one, who stuck to him right up to the paying-off line, buzzing learnedly all the time about the race just ran, a $10 bill out of his $35 winning.

"Th' next," said the red-haired wiseacre of the rail when Busyday had fought himself away from the cashing crowd, "is what you might call a one-hoss race. A one-hoss race, right."

"Lambent, of course?" said Busyday, looking at his piece of paper with the selections on it. Lambent was his handicapper's selection.

The freckle-faced screwed the whole left side of his face up into one prodigious wink.

"Not this cage," said he. "Try the next. Lambent?" and he put one large, white, freckled hand over his face, as if to hide his confusion, and grinned through his fingers.

"Well, Lambent figures to win, doesn't she?" asked Busyday weakly.

"Who, Lambent?" and the shifty-eyed smiled some more. "I'm goin' t'

match her in a sweepstakes against me old aunt, and back me aunt off th'

boards fer a hog-killin'. There's on'y one in this. Skinch. You can tap on it."

"Which one?" asked Busyday in a wabbly tone.

Again the aged youth bent over until his mouth was within a quarter of an inch of Busyday's ear.

"Swiftmas," he replied. "Been saved up for a good thing, right. If he don't buck-jump in, here's me lid," and once more he extended his half-dollar straw hat for Busyday's mastication.