Thoroughbreds Part 2

"Sure thing!" whispered Lewis to himself. Then aloud he repeated the question, touching the bookmaker on the elbow.

The Cherub smiled blandly. "Not takin' any," he answered, nodding his head in the pleasant manner of a man who knows when he's got a good thing.

"What's Lucretia?" persisted Lewis.

"Oh! that's it, is it? I'll lay you two to one."

The questioner edged away, shaking his head solemnly.

"Here! five to two--how much--" but Lewis was gone.

He burrowed like a mole most industriously, regardless of people's toes, their ribs, their dark looks, and even angry expressions of strong disapproval, and when he gained the green sward of the lawn, hurried to his friend's box.

"Did you get it on?" queried the latter.

"No; I don't like the look of it. Faust is holding out Lauzanne, and stretched me half a point about the mare. He and Langdon are in the same boat."

"But that won't win the race," remonstrated Danby. "Lauzanne is a maiden, and Porter doesn't often make a mistake about any of his own stock."

"I thought I'd come back and tell you," said Bob Lewis, apologetically.

"And you did right; but if the mare wins, and I'm not on, after getting it straight from Porter, I'd want to go out and kick myself good and hard. But put it on straight and place; then if Lauzanne's the goods we'll save."

Lewis was gone about four minutes.

"You're on," he said, when he returned; "I've two hundred on the Chestnut for myself."

"Lauzanne?"

"It's booked that way; but I'm backin' the Trainer, Langdon. I went on my uppers two years ago backing horses; I'm following men now."

"Bad business," objected his stout friend; "it's bad business to back anything that talks."

When John Porter reached the saddling paddock, his brown mare, Lucretia, was being led around in a circle in the lower corner. As he walked down toward her his trainer, Andy Dixon, came forward a few paces to meet him.

"Are they hammerin' Crane's horse in the ring, sir?" he asked, smoothing down the gra.s.s with the toe of one foot, watching this physical process with extreme interest.

"Just what you'd notice," replied Porter. "Why?"

"Well, I don't like the look of it a little bit. Here's this Lauzanne runs like a dog the last time out--last by the length of a street--and now I've got it pretty straight they're out for the stuff."

"They'd a stable-boy up on him that time."

"That's just it," cried Dixon. "Grant comes to me that day--you know Grant, he works the commission for d.i.c.k Langdon--and tells me to leave the horse alone; and to-day he comes and--" he hesitated.

"And what?"

"Tells me to go light on our mare."

"Isn't Grant broke?" asked Porter, with seeming irrelevance.

"He's close next it," answered the Trainer.

"Aren't his friends that follow him all broke?"

"A good many of them have their address in Queer Street."

"Look here, Andy," said the owner, "there isn't a man with a horse in this stake that doesn't think he's going to win; and when it's all over we'll see Lucretia's number go up. Grant's a fool," he added, viciously.

"Didn't he break Fisher-didn't he break every other man that ever stuck to him?"

"It's not Grant at all," replied Dixon, rubbing the palms of his hands together thoughtfully--a way he had when he wished to concentrate in concrete form the result of some deep cogitation--"it's Langdon, an'

he's several blocks away from an asylum."

"Langdon makes mistakes too."

"He cashes in often when he's credited with a mistake," retorted the other.

"Well, I've played the little mare," a.s.serted Porter.

"Much, sir?" asked Dixon, solicitously.

"All I can stand--and a little more," he added, falteringly; "I needed a win, a good win," he offered, in an explanatory voice. "I want to clear Ringwood--but never mind about that, Andy. The mare's well--ain't she?

There can't be anything doing with McKay--we've only put him up a few times, but he seems all right."

"I think we'll win," answered the Trainer; "I didn't get anythin'

straight--just that there seemed a deuced strong tip on Lauzanne, considerin' that he'd never showed any form to warrant it. Yonder he is, sir, in number five--go and have a look at him."

As John Porter walked across the paddock a horseman touched the fingers of his right hand to his cap. There was a half-concealed look of interest in the man's eye that Porter knew from experience meant something.

"What do you know, Mike?" he asked, carelessly, only half halting in his stride.

"Nottin' sir; but dere's somebody in de know dis trip. Yer mare's a good little filly, w'en she's right, but ye'r up against it."

Porter stopped and looked at the horseman. He was Mike Gaynor, a trainer, and more than once Porter had stood his friend. Mike always had on hand three or four horses of inconceivable slowness, and uncertainty of wind and limb; consequently there was an ever-recurring inability to pay feed bills, so he had every chance to know just who was his friend and who was not, for he tried them most sorely.

Porter knew all this quite well; also that in spite of Mike's chronic impecuniosity he was honest, and true as steel to a benefactor. He waited, feeling sure that Gaynor had something to tell.

"There's a strong play on Lauzanne, ain't there, sir?"

Porter nodded.

"Sure t'ing! That Langdon's a crook. I knowed him when he was ridin' on freight cars; now he's a swell, though he's a long sprint from bein'

a gentleman. I got de tip dat dere was a killin' on, an' I axed d.i.c.k Langdon if dere was anyt'ing doin'; an' d.i.c.k says to me, says he, puttin' hot' t'umbs up"--and Mike held both hands out horizontally with the thumbs stiff and vertical to ill.u.s.trate this form of oath--"'there's nottin' doin', Mike,' says he. What d'ye t'ink of that, sir, an' me knowin' there was?" asked Mike, tragically.

"It's the biggest tip that always falls down, Gaynor; and they've got to be pretty swift to beat Lucretia."

"That filly's all right; she's worked out well enough to do up that field of stiffs. I ain't no rail bird, but I've hed me eye on her. But I ain't doin' no stunt about horses, Mister Porter; I'm talkin' about men.

Th' filly's honest, and ye'r honest sir, but ye don't roide th' mare yerself, do ye?"