our few minutes' talk a new, and to me an
interesting, type; and I resolved to keep the appointment, if for
nothing more than to study him further.

He was a young man, certainly not over twenty-three, short, slight, and
becomingly dressed. His face was thin, smooth-shaven and red, but
somehow peculiarly prepossessing. His deep blue eyes and long black
lashes might have atoned for much less attractive features; and the
lines which ran from his well-shaped nose to the corners of his clear
cut lips suggested a hard lived life which I afterwards learned did not
belie them.

A glance at my watch discovered the fact that it lacked but a few
minutes of my appointment with Murray, and I began to slowly edge my
way to the point of our rendezvous.

I reached it promptly on the minute and stood awaiting his tardy
coming, when suddenly my arm was grasped and I turned to find my new
acquaintance.

He was all excitement and breathing hard, as though in the greatest
possible hurry.

"Come here," he said in a low quick voice; and he beckoned me into a
quiet corner. "I 've been looking for you everywhere. Now listen a
minute and do n't ask questions; Domino's got a 'dickey' leg, and he
won't be a thing but last. Garrison tells me that Senator Grady is
going to win in a common canter. Richard Croker 's in the ring, and
the 'bookies' are swipin' it off the boards. Hurry and get in with
your money while there 's a chance to get the odds;" and he started
into the betting ring as though fully expecting I would follow.

His manner was intensely earnest, and his hurried words and furtive
looks were at once impressive and convincing. I felt my latent
sporting spirit rising strong again, and I began the simple process of
arguing myself out of my former position.

Some Frenchman, I think, has somewhere said, "A man is his own worst
sharper." However that is, in an argument with one's self the other
side is usually silenced. And so it chanced that, a few minutes later,
I again held a penciled ticket, which this time called for $60 to be
paid in the event of certain contingencies, and for which I had given
$20 of my former winnings. I had also given my Mentor an extra five to
bet for the boy from whom he had received such timely and valuable
information.

Such reckless plunging I can only excuse upon the grounds of having
been forced into it; for not the least of this versatile youth's many
and varied gifts was the power, not