"I’m goin’ t’ take a nap after I have a smoke," replied Red Beak Jim, filling his pipe.
The four walked away with an air of disgust, while Red Beak Jim grinned after them.
Each of the four had a one-hundred-dollar note wherewith to back Kinley Mack off the boards. The temptations of the first three races, however, collared them, and when the slate went up for the Suburban they each had a fifty-dollar note wherewith to play Kinley Mack, the good thing. When the horses were at the post for the third race, the main guy, who happened to be standing close to the fence that separates the grand-stand crowd from the people in the cheap field, saw Red Beak Jim, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, leaning against the rail. He called the hackman, and Red Beak Jim approached the fence with a grin.
"Thought you’d get on, anyhow, hey?" said the main guy.
"Naw, I jes’ crep in t’ see ’em run an’ hear th’ hard losers tell how it was they lost," said Red Beak Jim. "Nothin’ doin’ wit’ me."
"Ain’t going to put those forty on Kinley Mack, hey?" asked the main guy.
"Not if I’m awake," said Red Beak Jim, and the main guy walked away from the fence with an expression of commiseration on his face.
The horses were still at the post for the third race when the main guy was approached by a horseman he knew. The horseman was chewing a straw. He looked very wise.
"Cashed yet on Imp?" the horseman asked the main guy.
"Hey?" asked the latter, bending his ear.
"Only a canter for that one," said the horseman, in a low tone, temporarily removing the straw from his face. "Just a little exercise gallop for the black filly."
"Say, is that right?" inquired the main guy. "Is she so good as all that to-day?"
"Surest thing you know," said the horseman. "She’ll give ’em all a fifty-pound beating or I don’t know a hoof from a currycomb. I’m only spinning this along to the people I’ve got some use for. That’s the reason I dip it up for you."
"But say," whispered the main guy of the four, "I got it straight as a ramrod on Kinley Mack."
"On this track?" said he. "That one wouldn’t beat a fat man on this track. He wants slop and slush. I’m only telling you, that’s all. You splurge on Imp, and it’ll be all yours."