Part 2 (1/2)
”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.