said Danby, in a tentative
tone.

"Langdon thinks it's all over bar the shouting; he says Lauzanne
outclasses his field," retorted Lewis.

"Langdon's a betting man; Porter's an owner, and a good judge," objected
Danby; "and he's got a good boy up, too, McKay," he added, slowly
focusing his field glasses on the jockey board opposite the Stand.

"Crooked as a dog's hind legs," snarled Lewis, biting viciously at his
cigar.

"Bob, it's damned hard to find a straight-legged dog," laughed Danby.
"And when John Porter starts a horse, there's never anything doing.
Here's six hundred; put' it on the mare--straight."

As Lewis pushed his way into the shoving, seething, elbowing crowd in
the betting ring, he was suddenly struck in the chest by something which
apparently had the momentum of an eight-inch shell; but it was only John
Porter, who, in breaking through the outer crust of the living mass, had
been ejected with more speed than was of his own volition.

Bob smothered the expletive that had risen to his lip when he saw who
the unwitting offender was, and asked, "What are they doin' to the mare
in the ring?"

"Not much," answered his assailant, catching his breath; "there's a
strong play on Langdon's horse, and if I didn't know my boy pretty well,
and Lucretia better, I'd have weakened a bit. But she can't lose, she
can't lose!" he repeated in the tone of a man who is reassuring himself.

Lewis battled his way along till he stood in front of a bookmaker with
a face cast very much on the lines of a Rubens' cherub; but the
cherub-type ended abruptly with the plump frontispiece of "Jakey" Faust,
the bookmaker. Lewis knew that. "If there's anythin' doin', I'm up
against it here," he muttered to himself. "What's Lauzanne's price?" he
asked, in an indifferent voice, for the bookmaker's assistant was busy
changing the figures on his list.

Faust pretended not to hear him.

"Sure thing!" whispered Lewis to himself. Then aloud he repeated the
question, touching the bookmaker on the elbow.

The Cherub smiled blandly. "Not takin' any," he answered, nodding his
head in the pleasant manner of a man who knows when he's got a good
thing.

"What's Lucretia?" persisted Lewis.

"Oh! that's it, is it? I'll lay you two to one."

The questioner edged away, shaking his head solemnly.

"Here! five to two--how much--" but Lewis was gone.

He burrowed like a mole most industriously, regardless of people's
toes, their ribs, thei