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He decided that as he had won one hundred dollars on the first race he could afford to plunge on this one, so he counted out fifty more, and putting this with the original one hundred dollars, crowded into the betting-ring and said, "A hundred and fifty on Bugler straight." "Bugler's just been scratched," said the bookie, leaning over Van Bibber's shoulder for a greasy five-dollar bill.
It worries itself about the odds, discusses records, reads the nonsense published by the sporting papers. Were I to find myself on a racecourse in Novel-land I should not trouble about the unessential; I should go up to the bookie who looked as if he had the most money, and should say to him: "Don't shout so loud; you are making yourself hoarse. Just listen to me. Who's the hero of this novel?
Four hundred and forties I thought you was goin' to say. 'Ark to him!" He appealed to the delighted crowd. "Offers me forties against my pantomime colt, and ain't ashamed of himself. I'd ha' left him at home in the menadgeree along o' the two-'eaded calf and the boy with blue hair if I'd known." "He's a powerful great horse, Mr. Woodburn," smiled the bookie. "Hoss!" cried the outraged old man.
One morning there was to be a rabbit-killing expedition, and after a pretty good morning's walk, I had a rest, and then leisurely went along towards the trysting-place for lunch. It was a large oak tree, and as I came up there was Hodgman, the bookie, who did not see me, walking round the rabbits, which lay in rows, counting them, and muttering, "Two four twenty," and so on up to a hundred.
Consoling myself with the reflection that my loss served me right for having been fool enough to trust an outside "bookie," I turned on my heel and began to make my way back to my seat. Suddenly a voice hailed me: "Here you are, sir. It's Jack Burridge you want. Over here, sir." I looked round, and there was Jack Burridge at my elbow.
Something like that would be the verdict. Were they friends? Could they ever be friends? Nigel had met Mrs. Chepstow by chance in the vestibule of the Savoy. He had been with a racing man whom he scarcely knew, but who happened to know her well. This man had introduced them to each other carelessly, and hurried away to "square things up with his bookie."
The master's half daft with his troubles, for they've scattered and lost the bit bookie the work of years! "Though there's the braw American scholar, tho', to aid him now. He hates you, my poor bairn, for your poor dead mother's sake! It's afearfu' hard heart these Frasers carried. I know them of old!"
She was in the shape of a girl about the lad's own age and size, fair as was he and slight, a flapper with a short thick straw-coloured plait. She came round the tent swift and terrible as a rapier, her steel-gray eyes flashing and fierce. Such determination on so young a face the bookie thought he had never seen. For a moment he expected to see her strike her victim.
Acton walked round the corner, and Jack perambulated about, peering into the faces of the idlers to see if he could spot the well-known and much-detested face of Raffles. Five minutes afterwards Acton came back smiling. "Almost first fellow I ran against was Raffles, and I've given him his instructions. He'll hedge for me with the bookie within five minutes."
Then they set sail after the poor bookie, and caught him about seven or eight miles away. They found he had practically no money not nearly enough to divide up; so they took what he had and presented it to the Cunjee Hospital, and finished up the day happily by tarring and feathering the bookie, and riding him on a fence rail round Cunjee that night!" "What do your police do in a case like that?"
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