t "some guy had pinched his, coming through the crowd."

I silently complied.

He studied the programme briefly, smiled a satisfied smile, and
returned it.

"There 's a good thing coming off in the fourth," he remarked in a
confidential manner. "If I can see you somewhere just before the race
I 'll put you on. It 'll be a 'hot one.'"

I thanked him.

"The owner himself is going to 'put me next,'" he continued; "it 'll be
a 'lead-pipe.'"

I began to be interested. "I should like to know it," I replied, "and
I will wait for you after the Derby. I may not bet on it myself, but I
have a friend who doubtless will, if you will give him the information."

"I 'll give it to him if he 'll go down the line, but it's going to win
a city block, and we ought to make a killin' on it. I went broke
myself, on Senator Irby, or I 'd have gone home to-night with a
bankroll."

"Well," I replied, "we 'll see when the time comes. Now, what do you
fancy to win the Derby?"

He lighted a cigarette and puffed it a moment in silence.

"It's a dead-tough race," he at last remarked, "and I would n't play it
with counterfeit money. There 's no use in playing any race unless you
've got some information. These geezers that play every race go broke.
But it's an easy game to beat if you just stay off till you 're next to
something good, and then plug it hard. Why, if I could shake the
faro-bank and crap-game, I 'd have money to burn ice with.

"Y' see, take a big stake-race like this, where every horse is a
'cracker-jack,' they 're all of 'em good, and they 've all got a
chance, and you just take my advice and stay off. We 'll have
something good in the fourth that we know, and we just won't do a thing
to it. Well, I must hurry down to the paddocks to see a stable boy I
know; if I hear anything I 'll come back and tell you. But be sure and
be here for the next with your friend, 'cause it's all over now, but
cashing the ticket--so long;" and he dodged away through the crowd.

Oddly enough, it did not at the moment strike me as in the least
peculiar that I should have been conversing on a basis of perfect
equality with a companion of stable boys and a frequenter of gambling
hells. Nothing further.

The spirit of easy, good-natured camaraderie was in the very air; and
in the singleness of purpose which animated all--the picking of the
winner--all ranks seemed leveled, all social barriers cast aside.

Again, he had proved in