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That night Old Man Curry had a visitor who entered his tackle-room, hat in hand and bowing low. "Set down, Gabe," said the old horseman. "How's Pitkin by this time?" "He got a headache," answered Gabe soberly. "Humph!" snorted Curry. "Should think he would have. That boy fetched him a pretty solid lick. Glad he didn't hurt him any worse for the boy's sake, I mean." "Yes, suh," said Gabe.
The following evening the Bald-faced Kid called upon his aged friend and interrupted a heart-to-heart session in Old Man Curry's tackle-room. "Hello, old-timer! Hello, Jimmy! Am I butting in here?" Jimmy Miles, a thin, sandy-haired man with pale-blue eyes and a retreating chin, answered for both. "No, nothing private.
The speaker was Smiley Johnson, who was addressing a small but extremely select gathering of turf highwaymen who had met in his tackle-room to discuss matters of importance. They were all men who would willingly accept two tens for a five or betray a friend for gain: Smiley Johnson, Billy Porter, Curly McManus, and Slats Wilson.
"Find Engle and tell him I want to see him!" "Well, old-timer, here we are again with our hat in our hand!" It was the Bald-faced Kid, at the door of Old Man Curry's tackle-room. "This time you've put one over for fair! Major Pettigrew has just passed out his decision to the newspaper boys." "His decision, eh? Was he kind of severelike?" "Oh, no o! Not what you'd call severe.
"Solomon was framin' up a system for hossmen, I reckon. 'A time to get and a time to lose. Only thing is, Solomon himself couldn't figure which was which with some of these rascals! Oh, Mose!" "Yessuh, boss! Comin'!" Jockey Moseby Jones emerged from the tackle-room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and tugging at his sweater with the other.
If he could have heard a conversation then going on in Old Man Curry's tackle-room, the figuring would have been easier. "Frank," said the old man, "I had my eye on you to-day. You ain't got designs on that fool's bank roll, have you?" The Bald-faced Kid blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air and watched it float to the rafters before he answered question with question.
Gabe swallowed the abuse with a patient smile, but the two roustabouts muttered to themselves and eyed their employer with malevolence. They had also been missing pay days. One evening Pitkin stuck his head out of the door of the tackle-room and called for his trainer. "Gabe! Oh, Gabe! Now where is that good-for-nothing old nigger?"
"Boy, you done brought me the wrong colt," said he. "This ain't Gen'al Duval." "I got him outen yo' stall," said the stable hand. "Don't care where yo' got him," persisted Gabe. "This ain't the colt I picked out. He ain't wide enough between the eyes." "What's the argument about?" asked Pitkin, coming from the tackle-room. "Gabe say thisyer ain't his colt," answered the stable hand.
Old Man Curry fell to combing his beard, and Shanghai retreated to the tackle-room where he found Little Mose. "The boss, he pullin' his whiskehs an' cookin' up a job on somebody," remarked the hostler. "Huh!" grunted Mose. "It's time he 'uz doin' somethin'! Betteh not leave it all to Sol'mun!"
"You an' that otheh colt could tell me somethin' if yo' could talk," he frequently remarked. After his conversation with Old Man Curry, Pitkin returned to his tackle-room in a savage state of mind, and, needing a target for his abuse, selected Mulligan, the Irish jockey.
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