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Updated: June 7, 2025
People were arriving from the Derby, and the talk was of the day's racing. Some of the new arrivals saluted Drake, and many of them looked at Glory. "A rippin' good race, old chappie. Didn't suit my book exactly, but the bookies will have smiling faces at Tattersall's on Monday." A man with a big beard at the next table pulled down his white waistcoat, lifted his glass, and said, "To Gloria!"
True, the gray Moonlighter in the cerise and white was in the lead and going like a snowstorm; but not a man among the tens of thousands on the course who did not know that four miles and a half was a mile too much for the Irishman. "What price the favourite?" roared the Boys. "Threes," said the bookies, and gave them grudgingly. "They're settlin' down to it now," muttered Old Mat.
'Stay away from it. I'll tell you when I gets ready to level. You can't bet them bookies nothin' they're wise to him. "'Look-a-here, Bud! says Joe. 'That bird'll cake-walk among them crabs. No jock can make him lose, 'n' not get ruled off. "'Leave that to me, I says. "Just as I figgers my hoss opens up eight-to-five in the books.
"Why, under the new law," responded Billington "the law of which, I may say, you are the creator we shall only have to induce some innocent countryman to believe that he has heard the result of a horse-race being sent over the wire in advance of the pool rooms, and persuade him to turn over his roll for the purpose of betting it on a horse that is presumably already cooling off in the paddock and we can keep his money, for he has parted with it for an illegal or an inimical purpose to wit, cheating the bookies."
He called most of 'em by their first names and went sasshayin' around, weltin' 'em on the back and tellin' 'em how he'd 'put crimps in the bookies rolls t'other day, and a lot more stuff that they seemed to understand, but was hog Greek to me and Jonadab.
The yells of the bookies were indistinguishable. Men saw things through a mist, and more than one woman fainted. Then through the terrific boom came the discordant blare of a megaphone, faint at first but swiftly overbearing the noise of the tempest. "Watch it, ye !" it screamed. "He's catchin' ye!" It was the voice of Jaggers. The thousands heard and hushed.
The crowd saw it; the Boys, gnawing their thumbs, saw it; the bookies, red-faced from screaming, saw it, too. The crowd bellowed their comments. "She's held!" "The mare's beat!" "Brown's only cantering!" "She's all out!" In all that riot of voices, and storm of tossing figures, two men kept calm. Old Mat was genial; Silver still, his chest heaving beneath his folded arms.
In it, above the crowd, appeared the jockey with the green jacket, his cap well over his eyes. There was an instant hush. Then English and Americans, bookies and backers, began to bawl against each other. "Are you a gal?" screamed some one in the crowd. "No, I ain't," came the shrill, defiant answer. The voice did not satisfy the crowd. "Take off your cap, Miss!" yelled another.
We can win a purse each week fur travelin' expenses, 'n' what we cops on the side is velvet. "'What do you want me fur? I says. "'Why, says Butsy, 'at these county fairs there ain't no bookies. They just bets from hand to hand. While me 'n' Peewee rides, you sashay out among the rubes 'n' get the coin down on whichever hoss we frames to win.
"One paper hints that the stable was in on it; wanted to hit the bookies hard," put in his companion diffidently. "No," argued the wise one, some alcohol and venom in his syllables, "Waterbury's all right. He's a square sport. I know. I ought to know, for I've got inside information. A friend of mine has a cousin who's married to the brother of a friend of Waterbury's aunt's half-sister.
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