Young Wallingford

“Broke,” replied Wallingford briefly. “They cleaned me. Got any money?”

Mr. Daw opened the top drawer of his desk, and it proved to be nearly full of bills, thrown loosely in, with no attempt at order or sorting. “Money’s the cheapest thing in Boston,” he announced, waving his hand carelessly over the contents of the drawer. “Help yourself, old man. The New York mail will bring in plenty more. They’ve had two winners there this week, and when it does fall for anything, N’Yawk’s the biggest yap town on earth.”

Wallingford, having drawn up a chair with alacrity, was already sorting bills, smoothing them out and counting them off in hundreds.

“And all on pure charity – picking out winning horses for your customers!” laughed Wallingford. “This is a real gold mine you’ve hit at last.”

“Pretty good,” agreed Blackie. “I’d have enough to start a mint of my own if I didn’t lose so much playing the races.”

“You don’t play your own tips, I hope,” expostulated Wallingford, pausing to inspect a tattered bill.

“I should say not,” returned Daw with emphasis. “If I did that I’d have to play every horse in every race. You see, every day I wire the name of one horse to all my subscribers in Philadelphia, another to Baltimore, another to Washington, and so on down the list. One of those horses has to win. Suppose I pick out the horse Roller Skate for Philadelphia. Well, if Roller skates home that day I advertise in the Philadelphia papers the next morning, and, besides that, every fall-easy that got the tip advertises me to some of his friends, and they all spike themselves to send in money for the dope. Oh, it’s a great game, all right.”

“It’s got yegging frazzled to a pulp,” agreed Wallingford. “But I oughtn’t to yell police. I got the lucky word my first time out. I played Razzoo and cleaned up six thousand dollars on the strength of your wire.”

“Go on!” returned Blackie delightedly. “You don’t mean to say you’re sorting some of your own money there?”

“I sure am,” laughed Wallingford, picking up a five-dollar bill. “I think this must be it. What’s the New York horse to-day?”

Blackie consulted a list that lay on his desk.

“Whipsaw,” he said.

“Whipsaw! By George, Blackie, if there’s any one thing I’d like to do, it’d be to whipsaw some friends of yours on Broadway.” Whereupon he told Blackie, with much picturesque embellishment, just how Messrs. Phelps, Teller, Banting and Pickins had managed to annex the Razzoo money.

Blackie enjoyed that recital very much.

“The Broadway Syndicate is still on the job,” he commented. “Well, J. Rufus, let this teach you how to take a joke next time.”

“I’m not saying a word,” replied Wallingford. “Any time I let a kindergarten crowd like that work a trick on me that was invented right after Noah discovered spoiled grape juice, I owe myself a month in jail. But watch me. I’ll make moccasins out of their hides, all right.”

“Go right ahead, old man, and see if I care,” consented Blackie. “Slam the harpoon into them and twist it.”

“I will,” asserted Wallingford confidently. “I don’t like them because they’re grouches; I don’t like them because they’re cheap; I don’t like their names, nor their faces, nor the town they live in. Making money in New York’s too much like sixteen hungry bulldogs to one bone. The best dog gets it, but he finishes too weak for an appetite. What kind of a horse is this Whipsaw you’re sending out to-day?”

“I don’t know. Where’s the dope on Whipsaw, Tillie?”

A girl with a freckled face and a keen eye and a saucy air went over to the filing-case and searched out a piece of cardboard a foot square. Blackie glanced over it with an experienced eye.

“Maiden,” said he; “been in four races, and the best he ever did was fourth in a bunch of goats that only ambled all the way around the track because that was the only way they could get back to the stable.”

The mail carrier just then came in with a huge bundle of letters.

“New York mail,” observed Blackie. “After that Razzoo thing it ought to be rich pickings.”

“Pickings!” exclaimed J. Rufus, struck by a sudden idea. “See if Pickins or Teller or any of that crowd have contributed. Pickins said they were going to try it out, just to see if lightning could really strike twice in the same place.”

Blackie wrote a number of names on a slip of paper and handed it to Tillie.

“Look for these names in the mail,” he directed, “and if a subscription comes in from any one of them let me know it.”

Wallingford had idly picked up the card containing Whipsaw’s record.

It was a most accurate typewritten sheet, giving age, pedigree, description and detailed action in every race; but the point that caught Wallingford’s eye was the name of the owner.

“One of Jake Block’s horses, by George!” he said, and fell into silent musing from which he was interrupted by the girl, who was laughing.

“Here’s your party,” she said to Blackie, handing him an envelope. “This twenty’s in it, and I think it’s bad money.”

Blackie passed the bill to Wallingford, who slipped it through experienced fingers.

“You couldn’t pass this one on an organ-grinder’s monkey,” he said, chuckling. “But that’s all right; just put ’em on the wiring-list, anyhow. Make ’em lose their money. It’s the only way you can get even.”

The girl looked to Blackie for instructions, and he nodded his head.

“Who sent it?” asked Wallingford idly.

“Peters is the name signed here,” replied Blackie. “That means Harry Phelps. I gave Tillie all the aliases this bunch of crimples carry around with them, knowing they’d probably send it in that way.”

Wallingford nodded comprehendingly.

“They’d rather do even the square thing crooked. Well, you know what to do.”

“I’ll send them special picks,” declared Blackie with a grin. “Nothing but a list of crabs that would come in third in a two-horse race. But come on outside; we’re too far from cracked ice,” and grabbing an uncounted handful of bills from the drawer of his desk, Blackie stuffed them in his pocket and led the way out.

It was at luncheon that Blackie made his first protest.

“What’s the matter with you, J. Rufus?” he demanded. “I never saw you insult food and drink before.”

“I’m thinking,” returned Wallingford solemnly. “I hate to do it, for it interferes with my appetite; but here’s a case where I must. I have got to put one over on that Broadway bunch or lose my self-respect.”

That evening, on the way down to the boat, their feet cocked comfortably on the opposite seat of a cab, Wallingford formulated a more or less vague plan.

“Tell you what you do, Blackie,” he directed; “you send to Phelps and to me, until I give you the word, a daily tip on sure losers. In the meantime, bank all your money, and don’t make a bet on any race.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Blackie curiously.

“Land a sure winner for us and a loser for the Broadway Syndicate. Hold yourself ready when I wire you to take a quick train for my hotel, loaded down with all the money you can grab together.”

“Fine!” returned Blackie. “You wire me that it’s all fixed, and when I start for New York there’ll be a financial stringency in Boston.”

Returning to New York, Wallingford caught Beauty Phillips at breakfast about noon, and in a most charming morning gown, for the Beauty was consistent enough to be neat even when there was none but “mother” to see.

“Hello, Mr. Mark, from Easyville,” she hailed him. “I heard all about you.”

“You did!” he demanded, surprised. “Who told you?”

“Phelps and Banting,” she said. “They had the nerve to come up in the grand-stand yesterday and tell Mr. Block and me all about it; told me how much you won and how they got it away from you at poker.”

“Did they tell you they put knock-out drops in my wine?” demanded Wallingford.

“They didn’t do that!” she protested.

“Exactly what they did. Whether we played poker afterward, I don’t know. I’d just as soon as not believe they went through my pockets.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them a bit,” she agreed, and then her indignation began to grow. “Say, ain’t it a shame! Now, if I hadn’t gone out to dinner with Mr. Block, you’d have been with me. I’d have had that lovely diamond brooch you promised me out of your first winnings, and we’d have had all the rest of it to bet with for a few days. Honest, Pinky, I feel as if it were my fault!”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Wallingford cordially reassured her. “It was my own fault; but I wasn’t looking for anything worse than a knife in my back or a piece of lead pipe behind the ear. There’s no use in crying over spilled milk. The thing to do now is to get even, and I want you to help me.”

“Don’t you mix in, Beauty,” admonished the hired mother, but the Beauty was thoughtful for a while. “Mother” was there to give good advice, but the Beauty only took it if she liked it.

“I really can’t afford it,” she said, by and by; “but I’ve got some principles about me, and I don’t like to see a good sport like you take a rough dose from a lot of cheaps like them; so you show me how and I’ll mix in just this once.”

Wallingford hesitated in turn.

“How do you like Block?” he inquired.

Beauty Phillips sniffed her dainty nose in disdain.

“He won’t do,” she announced with decision. “I’ve found out all about him. He’s got enough money to star me in a show of my own for the next ten years, but he’s not furnished with the brand of manners I like. I’ll never marry a man I can’t stand. I’ve got a few principles about me! Why, yesterday he tried to treat me real lovely, but do you know, he wouldn’t give me the name of a horse, even when he put a hundred down for me in the third race? There I sat, with a string of ’em just prancing around the track, and not one to pull for. Then after the race is over he comes and tosses me five hundred dollars. ‘I got you four to one on the winner,’ says he. Why, it was just like giving me money! Jimmy, I’m going out to dinner with him to-night, then I’m going to turn him back into the paddock, and you can pal around with me again until I find a man with plenty of money that I could really love.”

“Don’t spill the beans,” advised Wallingford hastily. “Block thinks you’re about the maple custard, don’t he?”

“He’s crazy about me,” confessed the Beauty complacently.

“Fine work. Well, just you string him along till he gives you the name of a sure winner in advance; jolly it out of him.”

“Not on your three-sheet litho!” negatived the Beauty. “I never yet worked one mash against another. I guess you’d expect to play even on that tip, eh?”

“Sure, we’ll play it,” admitted Wallingford; “but better than that, I’ll shred this Harry Phelps crowd so clean they’ll have to borrow car fare.”

She thought on this possibility with sparkling eyes. She was against the “Phelps crowd” on principle. Also – well, Wallingford had always been a perfect gentleman.

“Are you sure you can do it?” she wanted to know.

“It’s all framed up,” he asserted confidently; “all I want is the name of that winner.”

The Beauty considered the matter seriously, and in the end silently shook hands with him. The pro tem. Mrs. Phillips sniffed.

This was on a Saturday, a matinée day, and Wallingford went out to the track alone, contenting himself with extremely small bets, merely to keep his interest alive. The day’s racing was half over before he ran across the Broadway Syndicate. They were heartily glad to see him. They greeted him with even effervescent joy.

“Where have you been, J. Rufus?” asked Phelps. “We were looking for you all over yesterday. We thought sure you’d be out at the track playing that Boston Gouge Company’s tips.”

“Your dear chum was in the country, resting up,” replied Wallingford, with matter-of-fact cheerfulness. “By George, I never had wine put me down and out so in my life” – whereat the cadaverous Short-Card Larry could not repress a wink for the benefit of Yap Pickins. “What was the good-thing they wired yesterday?”

“Whipsaw!” scorned Phelps. “Say, do you see that horse out there?” – and he pointed to a selling-plater, up at the head of the stretch, which was being warmed up by a stable-boy. “Well, that’s Whipsaw, just coming in from yesterday’s last race.”

Wallingford chuckled.

“They’re bound, you know, to land on a dead one once in a while,” he grunted; “but I’m strong for their game, just the same. You remember what that Razzoo thing that they tipped off did for me the other day.”

“Yes?” admitted Phelps with a rising inflection and a meaning grin. “Nice money you won on him. It spends well.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” invited Wallingford cordially. “I’ve no kick coming. I’m through with stud poker till they quit playing it with a hole-card.”

“I don’t blame you,” agreed Short-Card Larry solemnly. “Anybody that would bet a four-flush against two aces in sight, the way you did when Billy won that three-thousand-dollar pot from you, ought never to play anything stronger than ping-pong for the cigarettes.”

Wallingford nodded, with the best brand of suavity he could muster under the irritating circumstances.

“I suppose I did play like a man expecting his wife to telephone,” he admitted. “Excuse me a minute; I want to get a bet down on this race.”

“Whom do you like?” asked Pickins.

“Rosey S.”

The four began to laugh.

“That’s the hot Boston tip,” gasped Phelps. “Say, Wallingford, don’t give your money to the Mets. Let us make a book for you on that skate.”

“You’re on,” agreed J. Rufus, delighted that the proposition should come from them, for he had been edging in that direction himself. “I’ll squander a hundred on the goat at the first odds we see.”

They went into the betting-shed. Rosey S. was quoted at six to one. Even as they looked the price was rubbed, and ten to one was chalked in its place. The laughter of the quartet was long and loud as they pulled money from their pockets.

“The first odds goes, Big Pink,” Banting reminded him.

Wallingford produced his hundred dollars, and quietly noted that the eyes of the quartet glistened as they saw the size of the roll from which he extracted it. They had not been prepared to find that he still had plenty of money. Jake Block passed near them, and Wallingford hailed him.

“Hold stakes for us, Jake, on a little private bet?” he asked.

“Sure thing,” acquiesced Jake. “What is it?”

“These fellows are trying to win out dinner-money on me. They’re giving me six hundred to one against Rosey S.”

Block glanced up at the board and noted the increased odds, but it was no part of his policy to interfere in anything.

“All right,” he said, taking the seven hundred dollars and stuffing the money in his pocket. “You don’t want to lay a little more, do you, at that odds?”

“No,” declined Wallingford. “I’m unlucky when I press a bet.”

Rosey S. put up a very good race for place, but dropped back in the finish to a chorus of comforting observations from the quartet, who, to make matters more aggravating, had played the winner for place at a good price.

Jake Block came to them right after the race and handed over the money. He was evidently in a great hurry. Wallingford started to talk to him, but Block moved off rapidly, and it dawned upon J. Rufus that the horseman wanted to “shake” him so as not to have to invite him to dinner with himself and Beauty Phillips.

Sunday morning he went around to that discreet young lady’s flat for breakfast, by appointment. “Mrs. Phillips” met him with unusual warmth.

“I’ve been missing you,” she stated with belated remembrance of certain generous gifts. “Say,” she added with sudden indignation, “you may have my share of Block for two peanuts. What do you suppose he did? Offered me five dollars to boost him with Beauty. Five dollars!”

“The cheap skate!” exclaimed Wallingford sympathetically.

The Beauty came in and greeted him with a flush of pleasure.

“Well,” she said, “I got it, all right. The horse runs in the fourth race Friday, and its name is Whipsaw.”

“Whipsaw!” exclaimed Wallingford. “He’s stringing you.”

“No, he isn’t,” she declared positively. “It was one o’clock last night before I got him thawed out enough to give up, and I had to let him hold my hand, at that,” and she rubbed that hand vigorously as if it still had some stain upon it. “He told me all about the horse. He says it’s the one good thing he’s going to uncover for this meeting. He tried Whipsaw out on his own breeding-farm down in Kentucky, clocking him twice a week, and he says the nag can beat anything on this track. Block’s been breaking him to run real races, entering against a lot of selling-platers, with instructions to an iron-armed jockey to hold in so as to get a long price. Friday he intends to send the horse in to win and expects to get big odds. I’m glad it’s over with. We promised to go out to Claremont this afternoon with Block, but that settles him. To-morrow I’m going out with you.”

J. Rufus shook his head.

“No, you mustn’t,” he insisted. “You must string this boy along till after the race Friday. He might change his mind or scratch the horse or something, but if he knows you have a heavy bet down, and he’s still with you, he’ll go through with the program.”

“I can’t do it,” she protested.

He turned to her slowly, took both her hands, and gazed into her eyes.

“Yes, you can, Beauty,” he said. “We’ve been good pals up to now, and this is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.”

She looked at him a moment with heightening color, then she dropped her eyes.

“Honest, Pinky,” she confessed, “sometimes I do wish you had a lot of money.”

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH WALLINGFORD AND BLACKIE DAW ENJOY THEMSELVES

On Monday, nearing noon, Wallingford dropped into a flashy café just off Broadway, where he knew he would be bound to find some one of his quartet. He found Short-Card Larry there alone, his long, thin fingers clasped around a glass of buttermilk.

“Hello, Wallingford,” he said, grinning. “Going out to the track to-day?”

“I’m not going to miss a race till the meeting closes,” asserted Wallingford. “I’ve a good one to-day that I’m going to send in a couple of hundred on.”

“What is it?” asked Larry.

“Governor.”

“Governor!” snorted Larry. “Who’s in the race with him?” He drew a paper to him and turned to the entries. “Why,” he protested, “there isn’t a plug in that race that can’t come back to hunt him.”

“That’s all right,” said Wallingford. “I’m for the National Clockers’ Association, and I’m going to play their picks straight through.”

“Here’s a match,” offered Larry scornfully. “Set fire to your money and save yourself the trouble of the trip.”

“Maybe you’d like to save it from the flames. What odds will you give me?”

This being an entirely different proposition, Larry began to think much better of the horse.

“Five to one,” he finally decided, after studying over the entries again. “Don’t know whether that’s the track odds or not. But you can take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” agreed Wallingford, and tossed his money on the bar.

Mr. Teller drew a check-book from his pocket, and Wallingford, glancing at the top of the stub as Larry filled out the blank for a thousand, noted with satisfaction the splendid balance that was there. Evidently the gang was well in funds. They had, no doubt, been quite busy of late.

“Of course you’ll cash that,” requested Wallingford, not so much on account of this particular bet as to establish a precedent.

“Sure,” agreed Teller; “although I’ll only have to deposit it again.”

“I’m betting the two hundred you don’t, remember,” said Wallingford, and they signed a memorandum of the bet, which they deposited with the rock-jawed proprietor, after that never-smiling gentleman had nonchalantly opened his safe and cashed Larry’s check.

On Tuesday morning, Governor having lost and Short-Card Larry having imprudently exulted to his friends over the two-hundred-dollar winning, Mr. Teller came around to Wallingford’s hotel with his pocket full of money to find there Badger Billy and Mr. Phelps, both of whom had come on similar business.

“I suppose you got his coin on to-day’s sure thing,” observed Larry with a scowl, he being one to whom a bad temper came naturally.

“Three hundred of it,” said fat Badger Billy triumphantly. “To-day he has a piece of Brie fromage by the name of Handicass.”

“Which ought to be called Handcase,” supplemented Phelps, and the two threw back their heads and roared. “The cheese is expected to skipper home about the time the crowd realizes they’re off.” And they all enjoyed themselves in contemplation of what was going to happen to Handicass.

“Got any more?” demanded Larry.

“Not this morning,” returned Wallingford, accepting his rôle of derided “come-on” with smiling fortitude. “I want to save some for to-morrow’s bet.”

“You see,” explained Billy Banting, purring up his red cheeks with laughter, “Wallingford’s playing a system of progression. He hikes the bet every day, expecting to play even in the finish.”

“I see,” said Larry, grinning; “but don’t you fellows hook all this easy money. Count me in for a piece of to-morrow’s bet.”

He had a chance. Handicass ran to consistent form with all the other “picks” – except the one accident, Razzoo – of the National Clockers’ Association, and on Wednesday, Wallingford bet four hundred on the “information” which that concern wired to him and to Mr. Phelps. On that day, too, having received at breakfast-time a report from Beauty Phillips that the Whipsaw horse was still “meant,” he wrote careful instructions to Blackie Daw, then held his thumbs and crossed his fingers and touched wood and looked at the moon over the proper shoulder, and did various other things to keep Fate from sending home one of those tips as an accidental winner on either Wednesday or Thursday.

Nothing of that disastrous sort happened, however, and his pet enemies, the quartet, having won from J. Rufus on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, had by this time pooled their interests and constituted themselves Wallingford’s regular bookmaking syndicate. Their only fear on Friday morning, after Phelps had received his wire from Boston, was that Wallingford would not care to bet that day, since the horse which had been given out was that notorious tail-ender, Whipsaw! They invaded J. Rufus’ apartments as soon as they got the wire, and were relieved to find that Wallingford was still firm in his allegiance to the National Clockers’ Association.

They were a little surprised, however, to find Blackie Daw at breakfast with Wallingford, but they greeted that old comrade with great cordiality, coupled with an inward fear that he might interfere with their designs upon Wallingford.

“You haven’t been making a book against J. Rufus on the day’s races, have you?” inquired Phelps.

“Not yet,” said Blackie, laughing, “but I’m willing. What’s he on?”

“Whipsaw,” interposed Wallingford.

Blackie laughed softly.

“I don’t know the horse,” he said, “but I just seem to remember that he’s the joke of the track.”

“No,” explained Larry; “he’s too painful to be a joke.”

“What odds do you expect to get, Wallingford?” asked Blackie, reaching for his wallet.

“Hold on a minute,” said Phelps hastily. “You don’t want to butt in on this, Daw. We’ve been making book for J. Rufus all week, and it’s our money. You hold stakes.”

“Don’t you worry,” snapped Wallingford, suddenly displaying temper; “there will be enough to go around. I’ll cover every cent you four have or can get,” and he pushed his chair back from the table. “This is my last day in the racing game, and I’m going to plunge on Whipsaw. I’ve turned into cash every resource I had in the world. I’ve even soaked my diamonds and watch to get more. Now come on and cover my coin.” From his pocket he produced a thick bundle of bills of large denomination. “What odds do I get? The last time Whipsaw was in a race he opened at twelve to one and I ought to get fifteen at least to-day. Here’s a thousand at that odds.”

“Not on your life!” said Short-Card Larry. “I wouldn’t put up fifteen thousand to win one on any game.”

“What’ll you give me, then? Come on for this easy money. Give me ten?”

No, they would not give him ten.

“Give me eight?”

They hesitated. He immediately slid the money in his pocket.