Part 21 (1/2)

”Broke,” replied Wallingford briefly. ”They cleaned me. Got any money?”

Mr. Daw opened the top drawer of his desk, and it proved to be nearly full of bills, thrown loosely in, with no attempt at order or sorting.

”Money's the cheapest thing in Boston,” he announced, waving his hand carelessly over the contents of the drawer. ”Help yourself, old man.

The New York mail will bring in plenty more. They've had two winners there this week, and when it does fall for anything, N'Yawk's the biggest yap town on earth.”

Wallingford, having drawn up a chair with alacrity, was already sorting bills, smoothing them out and counting them off in hundreds.

”And all on pure charity--picking out winning horses for your customers!” laughed Wallingford. ”This is a real gold mine you've hit at last.”

”Pretty good,” agreed Blackie. ”I'd have enough to start a mint of my own if I didn't lose so much playing the races.”

”You don't play your own tips, I hope,” expostulated Wallingford, pausing to inspect a tattered bill.

”I should say not,” returned Daw with emphasis. ”If I did that I'd have to play every horse in every race. You see, every day I wire the name of one horse to all my subscribers in Philadelphia, another to Baltimore, another to Was.h.i.+ngton, and so on down the list. One of those horses has to win. Suppose I pick out the horse Roller Skate for Philadelphia. Well, if Roller skates home that day I advertise in the Philadelphia papers the next morning, and, besides that, every fall-easy that got the tip advertises me to some of his friends, and they all spike themselves to send in money for the dope. Oh, it's a great game, all right.”

”It's got yegging frazzled to a pulp,” agreed Wallingford. ”But I oughtn't to yell police. I got the lucky word my first time out. I played Razzoo and cleaned up six thousand dollars on the strength of your wire.”

”Go on!” returned Blackie delightedly. ”You don't mean to say you're sorting some of your own money there?”

”I sure am,” laughed Wallingford, picking up a five-dollar bill. ”I think this must be it. What's the New York horse to-day?”

Blackie consulted a list that lay on his desk.

”Whipsaw,” he said.

”Whipsaw! By George, Blackie, if there's any one thing I'd like to do, it'd be to whipsaw some friends of yours on Broadway.” Whereupon he told Blackie, with much picturesque embellishment, just how Messrs.

Phelps, Teller, Banting and Pickins had managed to annex the Razzoo money.

Blackie enjoyed that recital very much.

”The Broadway Syndicate is still on the job,” he commented. ”Well, J.

Rufus, let this teach you how to take a joke next time.”

”I'm not saying a word,” replied Wallingford. ”Any time I let a kindergarten crowd like that work a trick on me that was invented right after Noah discovered spoiled grape juice, I owe myself a month in jail. But watch me. I'll make moccasins out of their hides, all right.”

”Go right ahead, old man, and see if I care,” consented Blackie.

”Slam the harpoon into them and twist it.”

”I will,” a.s.serted Wallingford confidently. ”I don't like them because they're grouches; I don't like them because they're cheap; I don't like their names, nor their faces, nor the town they live in. Making money in New York's too much like sixteen hungry bulldogs to one bone.

The best dog gets it, but he finishes too weak for an appet.i.te. What kind of a horse is this Whipsaw you're sending out to-day?”

”I don't know. Where's the dope on Whipsaw, Tillie?”

A girl with a freckled face and a keen eye and a saucy air went over to the filing-case and searched out a piece of cardboard a foot square. Blackie glanced over it with an experienced eye.

”Maiden,” said he; ”been in four races, and the best he ever did was fourth in a bunch of goats that only ambled all the way around the track because that was the only way they could get back to the stable.”

The mail carrier just then came in with a huge bundle of letters.