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"Will you lay the price, William twenty-five half-sovereigns to one?" "Yes, I'll lay it." Ginger took a half-sovereign from his pocket and handed it to the bookmaker. "I never take money over this bar. You're good for a thin 'un, sir," William said, with a smile, as he handed back the money. "But I don't know when I shall see you again," said Ginger. "It will be very inconvenient.
Exactly twenty-four hours later the Bald-faced Kid, peering across the track to the back stretch, saw Old Man Curry lead a black horse to the quarter pole, exchange a few words with Mose, adjust the bit, and stand aside. "What's that one, Kid?" The question was asked by Shine McManus, a professional clocker employed by a bookmaker to time the various workouts and make a report on them at noon.
After this pretty exchange of compliments, the governor smiled, and offered her his arm to the door, where our 'char a bans' awaited us. So impressed was the bookmaker with the hospitable reception the governor had given us, that he offered him his cigar-case with its contents, said he hoped they would meet again, and asked his excellency if he thought of coming to Australia.
The last time I called on him to conclude the transaction we were interrupted by a person, something like a cross between a bookmaker and a private secretary, who, entering through a door which was not the anteroom door, walked up and stooped to whisper into his ear. "Eh? What? Who, did you say?"
It had staggered him at first that Crane, for whose acumen he had a profound respect, should have intended such a hazardous gamble; now he saw light. "Then my book is full on the Porter mare?" he said, inquiringly. Crane nodded his head. "An' I lay against the Hanover colt?" Again Crane nodded. "It's not bookmaking," continued Faust. "I'm not a bookmaker," retorted Crane.
Nobody knows anything about his origin, but he began to make his living at an early age, and while still in the twenties he was doing well as a bookmaker. The Dumbarton connection made the new office a rendezvous for young bloods whose profession in life it is to induce their friends to cultivate a taste for speculative investment.
When my friend, the lieutenant, joined the regiment as a private he was smooth-shaven and his colonel asked him whether he was a priest or a bookmaker, or meant to be a soldier. Next morning he allowed nature to have her way on his upper lip, the colonel's hint being law in all things to those who served under him.
They pushed out into the sea again, and were buffeted of the human waves; from time to time Old Bill anchored for a few seconds in the tiny harbor which surrounded each bookmaker; but it was as though they were all in league the same odds on every list. "It's same as a 'sociation book," he grunted; "de cut holds in every blasted one of 'em. Here's Jakey Faust," he added, suddenly; "let's try him."
It was a miserable business, and it proved to be the last rift necessary to the utter breakup of his fortune. The bookmaker being thus warned that the favorite would not win, had realized some sixty thousand francs over the horse.
The Oracle is humble enough before the hanger-on of the turf. A bookmaker roars "10 to 1 Bendemeer;" he suddenly fishes out a sovereign of his own and he hasn't money to spare, for all his knowingness and puts it on Bendemeer. His friends' money he puts on the favourite and Royal Scot as arranged. Then they all go round to watch the race.
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