[Pg 159]
“Bologna!” exclaimed Wallingford, noting where the fateful pin-hole had appeared. “It’s a nice comic-supplement name; but I’ll go down to the ring and burn another hundred or so on him.”
The band broke into a lively air, and the newest sensation of Broadway, all in exquisite3 violet from nodding plume4 to silken hose, looked out over the sunlit course in calm rumination5. Her companion, older but not too old, less handsome but not too ill-favored, less richly dressed but not too plainly, nudged her.
“There goes your Money and Moonshine song again, dearie,” she observed.
Still calmly, as calmly as a digestive cow in pleasant shade, the star of The Pink Canary replied:
“Don’t you see I’m trying not to hear it, mother?”
The eyes of “Mrs. Phillips” narrowed a trifle, and sundry6 tiny but sharp lines, revealing much but concealing7 more, flashed upon her brow and were gone. J. Rufus glanced in perplexity at her as he had done a score of times, wondering at her self-repression, at her unrevealed depths of wisdom, at her clever acting8 of a most difficult r?le; for Beauty Phillips, being a wise young lady and having no convenient mother of her own, had hired one, and [Pg 160]by this device was enabled to remain as placidly9 Platonic10 as a plate of ice-cream. Well, it was worth rich gifts merely to be seen in proprietorship11 of her at the supper places.
Wallingford rose without enthusiasm.
“Bologna won’t win!” he announced with resigned conviction.
“Sure not!” agreed Beauty Phillips. “Bologna will stop to think at the Barrier, and finish in the road of the next race.”
“Bologna has to win,” Wallingford rejoined, disputing both her and himself. “There’s only a little over a thousand left in your Uncle Jimmy’s bank-roll.”
“And you had over forty thousand when Sammy Harrison introduced us,” said the Beauty with a sigh. “Honest, Pinky, somebody has sure put a poison curse on you. You’re a grand little sport, but on the level, I’m afraid to trail around with you much longer. I’m afraid I’ll lose my voice or break a leg.”
“Old pal,” agreed J. Rufus, “the hex is sure on me, and if I don’t walk around my chair real quick, the only way I’ll get to see you will be to buy a gallery seat.”
[Pg 161]
“I was just going to talk with you about that, Jimmy,” stated the Beauty seriously. “You’ve been a perfect gentleman in every respect, and I will say I never met a party that was freer with his coin; but I’ve got to look out for my future. I won’t always be a hit, and I’ve got to pick out a good marrying proposition while the big bouquets12 grow with my name already on ’em. Of course, you know, I couldn’t marry you, because nothing less than a million goes. If you only had the money now—”
She looked up at him with a certain lazy admiration13. He was tremendously big; and rather good-looking, too, she gaged, although the blue eyes that were set in his jovial14 big countenance15 were entirely16 too small.
In reply to her unfinished sentence J. Rufus chuckled17.
“Don’t you worry about that, little one,” said he. “I only wear you on my arm for the same reason that I wear this Tungsten-light boulder18 in my necktie: just to show ’em I’m the little boy that can grab off the best there is in the market. Of course it’d be fine and dandy to win you for keeps, but I know where you bought your ticket for, long ago. You’ll end by getting your millionaire. In six months he’ll [Pg 162]go dippy over some other woman, and then you’ll get your alimony, which is not only a handy thing to have around the house, but proves that you’re perfectly19 respectable.”
“You’ve got some good ideas, anyhow,” she complimented him, and then she sighed. “The only trouble is, every time one lines up that I think’ll do, I find he’s got a wife hid away some place.”
“And it isn’t set down in her lines to fix up alimony for some other woman,” commented the pseudo Mrs. Phillips.
A couple of men, one nattily20 dressed and with curly hair, and the other short and fat and wearing a flaming waistcoat, passed on their way down to the betting-shed and carelessly tipped their hats.
“Do you know those two cheaps?” she inquired, eying their retreating backs with disfavor.
Again Wallingford chuckled.
“Know them!” he replied. “I should say I do! Green-Goods Harry21 Phelps and Badger22 Billy Banting? Why, they and their friends, Short-Card Larry Teller23 and Yap Pickins, framed up a stud poker24 game on me the first week I hit town, with the lovely idea of working a phoney pinch on me; but I got a real cop to hand them the triple cross, and [Pg 163]took five thousand away from them so easy it was like taking four-o’clock milk from a doorstep.”
“I’m glad of it,” she said, with as much trace of vindictiveness25 as her beauty specialist would have permitted. “They’re an awful low-class crowd. They came over to my table one night in Shirley’s, after I’d met them only once, and butted26 in on a rich gentleman friend of mine from Washington. They run up an awful bill on him and never offered even to buy cigars, and then when he was gone for a minute to pick out our wagon27, they tried to get fresh with me right in front of mother. I’m glad somebody stung ’em.”
A very thick-set man, with an inordinately28 broad jaw29 and an indefinable air of blunt aggressiveness, came past them and nodded to J. Rufus with a grudging30 motion toward his shapeless slouch hat.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Jake Block,” he replied. “A big owner with so much money he could bed his horses in it, and an ingrowing grouch31 that has put a crimp in his information works. He’s never been known to give out a tip since he was able to lisp ‘mamma.’ He eats nothing but table d’h?te dinners so he won’t have to tell the waiters what he likes.”
[Pg 164]
Jake Block, on some brief errand to the press box, returned just as J. Rufus was starting down to the betting-shed, and he stopped a moment.
“How are you picking them to-day, Wallingford?” he asked perfunctorily, with his eye on Beauty Phillips.
“Same way,” confessed Wallingford. “I haven’t cashed a ticket in the meeting. I have the kind of luck that would scale John D. Rockefeller’s bank-roll down to the size of a dance-program lead pencil.”
“Well,” said Jake philosophically32, his eyes still on the Beauty, “sometimes they come bad for a long time, and then they come worse.”
At this bit of wisdom J. Rufus politely laughed, and the silvery voice of Beauty Phillips suddenly joined his own; whereupon J. Rufus, taking the hint, introduced Mr. Block to Miss Phillips and her mother. Mr. Block promptly33 sat down by them.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he began, “but I’ve not been around to see The Pink Canary yet. I don’t go to the theater much.”
“You must certainly see my second-act turn. I sure have got them going,” the Beauty asserted modestly. “What do you like in this race, Mr. Block?”
[Pg 165]
“I don’t like anything,” he replied almost gruffly. “I never bet outside of my own stable.”
“We’re taking a small slice of Bologna,” she informed him. “I suppose he’s about the—the wurst of the race. Guess that’s bad, eh? I made that one up all by myself, at that. I think I’ll write a musical comedy next. But how do you like Bologna?” she hastily added, her own laugh freezing as she saw her feeble little joke passed by in perplexity.
“You never can tell,” he replied evasively. “You see, Miss Phillips, I never give out a tip. If you bet on it and it don’t win you get sore against me. If I hand you a winner you’ll tell two or three people that are likely to beat me to it and break the price before I can get my own money down.”
Beauty Phillips’ wide eyes narrowed just a trifle.
“I guess it’s all the same,” remarked J. Rufus resignedly. “If you have a hoodoo over you you’ll lose anyhow. I’ve tried to pick ’em forty ways from the ace1. I’ve played with the dope and against it and lost both ways. I’ve played hunches34 and coppered hunches, and lost both ways. I’ve played hot information straight and reverse, and lost both ways. I’ve nosed into the paddock and made a lifetime hit with stable boys, jockeys, trainers, clockers and [Pg 166]even owners, but every time they handed me a sure one I got burned. Any horse I bet on turns into a crawfish.”
The saddling bell rang.
“You’d better hurry if you want to get a bet on Sausage,” admonished36 the beautiful one, and J. Rufus, excusing himself, made his way down to the betting-shed, where he was affectionately known as The Big Pink, not only on account of his complexion37 but on account of the huge carnation38 Beauty Phillips pinned on him each day.
At the first book he handed up three one-hundred-dollar bills.
“A century each way on Bologna,” he directed.
“Welcome to our city!” greeted the red-haired man on the stool, and then to the ticket writer: “Twelve hundred to a hundred, five hundred to a hundred, and two hundred to a hundred on Bologna for The Big Pink. Johnnie, you will now rub prices on Bologna and make him fifteen, eight and three; then run around and tell the other boys that The Big Pink’s on Bologna, and it’s a pipe for the books at any odds39.”
Wallingford chuckled good-naturedly. In other days he would have called that bit of pleasantry by [Pg 167]taking another hundred each way across, at the new odds, but now his funds were too low.
“Some of these days, Sunset,” he threatened the man on the stool, “I’ll win a bet on you and you’ll drop dead.”
“I’ll die rich if your wad only holds out till then,” returned Sunset, laughing.
With but very little hope J. Rufus returned to the grand-stand, where royalty40 sat like a warm and drowsy41 garment upon Beauty Phillips; for Beauty was on the stage a queen, and outside of working-hours a princess. Jake Block was still there, and making himself agreeable to a degree that surprised even himself, and he was there yet when Bologna, true to form, came home contentedly42 following the field. He joined them again at the close of the sixth race, when Carnation, a horse which the Beauty had picked because of his name, was just nosed out of the money, and he walked with them down to the carriage gate. As Block seemed reluctant to leave, he was invited to ride into the city in the automobile43 J. Rufus had hired by the month, and accepted that invitation with alacrity44. He also accepted their invitation to dinner, and during that meal he observed:
[Pg 168]
“I think, Miss Phillips, I’ll go around and see The Pink Canary to-night, and after the show I’d like to have you and your mother and Wallingford take supper with me, if you have no other engagement.”
“Sure,” said Beauty Phillips, too eagerly for Wallingford’s entire comfort; and so it was settled.
Wallingford, although he had seen the show until it made him deathly weary, went along and sat with Block in a stage box. During one of the dull spots the horseman turned to his companion very suddenly.
“This Beauty Phillips could carry an awful handicap and still take the Derby purse,” he announced. “She beats any filly of her hands and age I ever saw on a card.”
“She certainly does,” assented45 J. Rufus, suave46 without, but irritated within.
“I see you training around with her all through the meet. Steady company, I guess.”
“Oh, we’re very good friends; that’s all,” replied Wallingford with such nonchalance47 as he could muster48.
“Nothing in earnest, then?”
“Not a thing.”
[Pg 169]
“Then I believe I will enter the handicap myself, that is if you don’t think you can haul down the purse.”
“Go in and win,” laughed J. Rufus, concealing his trace of self-humiliation. He had no especial interest in Beauty Phillips, but he did not exactly like to have her taken away from him. It was too much in evidence that he was a loser. However, he was distinctly “down and out” just now, for Beauty Phillips quite palpably exerted her fascinations49 in the direction of that box, and Jake Block was most obviously “hooked;” so much so that at supper he revealed his interest most unmistakably, and parted from them reluctantly at the curb50, feeling silly but quite determined51.
Wallingford made no allusion52 to Miss Phillips’ capture of the horseman, even after they had reached the flat, where he had gained the rare privilege of calling, and where the Beauty’s “mother” always remained in the parlor53 with them, awake or asleep.
Rather sheepishly, J. Rufus produced from his pocket a newspaper clipping of the following seductive advertisement, which he passed over to the Beauty:
[Pg 170]
Yesterday we slipped across, for the benefit of our happy New York and Brooklyn subscribers, that juicy watermelon, Breezy, a ten to one shot and the play on this section of hot dog was so strong it put a crimp in the bookies as deep as the water jump. To-morrow we have another lallapalooza at long odds that will waft54 under the wire and have the blanket on about the time the field is kicking dust at the barrier. This peacherino has been under cover throughout the meeting, but to-morrow it will be ripe and you want to get in on the killing55.
Will wire you the name of this pippin for five dollars; full service twenty dollars a week.
National Clockers’ Association.
“I fell for this,” he explained, after she had read it with a sarcastic56 smile; “poked a fI’muth in a letter cold, and let ’em have it.”
The Beautiful One regarded him with pity.
“Honest, Pinky,” she commented, “your soft spot’s growing. If you don’t watch out the specialists’ll get you. Do you suppose that if these cheap touts57 had such hot info. as that, they’d peddle58 it out, in place of going down to the track and coming back with all the money in the world in their jeans?”
“Sure not,” said he patiently. “They don’t know any more about it than the men who write the form sheets; but we’ve tried everything from stable-dope [Pg 171]to dreaming numbers and can’t get one of them to run for us. So I’m taking a chance that the National Strong Arm Association might shut their eyes in the dark and happen to pass me the right name without meaning it.”
“There’s some sense to that,” admitted the Beauty reflectively. “You’ll get the first wire to-morrow morning, won’t you? Just my luck. It’s matinée day and I’d like to see you try it.”
“That’s all right,” said J. Rufus. “I’ll have the money to show you as a surprise at dinner.”
The Beauty hesitated.
“I—I’m engaged for dinner to-morrow,” she stated, half reluctantly.
He was silent a moment.
“Block? That means supper, too.”
“Yes. You see, Jimmy, I’ve just got to give ’em all a try-out.”
“Of course,” he admitted. “But he won’t do. I’ll bet you a box of gloves against a box of cigars.”
“I won’t bet you,” she replied, laughing. “I’ve got a hunch35 that I’d lose.”
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1
ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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2
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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3
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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4
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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5
rumination
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| n.反刍，沉思 | |
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6
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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7
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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8
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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9
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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10
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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11
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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12
bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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13
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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14
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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15
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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16
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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17
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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19
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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20
nattily
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| adv.整洁地，帅地 | |
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21
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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22
badger
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| v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠 | |
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23
teller
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| n.银行出纳员；(选举)计票员 | |
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24
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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25
vindictiveness
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| 恶毒；怀恨在心 | |
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26
butted
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| 对接的 | |
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27
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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28
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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29
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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30
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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31
grouch
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| n.牢骚，不满；v.抱怨 | |
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32
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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33
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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34
hunches
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| 预感，直觉( hunch的名词复数 ) | |
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35
hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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36
admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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37
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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38
carnation
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| n.康乃馨（一种花） | |
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39
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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40
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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41
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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42
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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43
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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44
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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45
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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47
nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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48
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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49
fascinations
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| n.魅力( fascination的名词复数 )；有魅力的东西；迷恋；陶醉 | |
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50
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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51
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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52
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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53
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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54
waft
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| v.飘浮，飘荡；n.一股；一阵微风；飘荡 | |
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55
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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56
sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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57
touts
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| n.招徕( tout的名词复数 )；（音乐会、体育比赛等的）卖高价票的人；侦查者；探听赛马的情报v.兜售( tout的第三人称单数 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
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58
peddle
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| vt.(沿街)叫卖，兜售；宣传，散播 | |
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