dear. I landed this buzz wagon out
of a ten dollar pike bet. Can you surpass it? Talk about playing in
luck. Wait until I touch wood. Wilbur says betting on the races beats
trifling with the affections of an expense account all to pieces.

"You know that, though I lead a simple and uneventful existence, the
inheritance that was left me was pretty near all in, and it was either
up to me to get married, get a job on one of the roofs or catch a live
one, and I thought the best of all the evils was to catch the
aforementioned live one. I am not one of these Janes that goes dotty
over the pit-i-pats, and though I always sit up until The Morning
Telegraph comes out on the street, the racing news is not the first
thing I turn to.

"Wilbur's show closes in a couple of weeks and he is going to the island
for the summer. Can that old stuff. I mean Coney, not Blackwell's. I
been piking around for a hunch for some time, and just the other evening
I was out with a party who is interested in the bet placing business at
all of the big tracks, and he said he was hep to a few killings, and any
time I would come out he would give them to me and I could play the
other books.

"Knowing that he had influence, I naturally took an interest in him,
but, say, this is a long, sad story and--. Ah, certainly! I knew you
could not suppress your Southern hospitality much longer--that is, I
hoped you couldn't. Yes, waiter; bring me a long one.

"Well, I took a peep at my check-book about a week ago and decided that
it was me for the track. I meets this wop and he certainly lands me in
right. He gives me a twenty case note and the card. I got the twenty
changed and plants ten of it in the Lisle Thread Bank, making up my mind
that no matter what happened the day would not be ill-spent.

"I plays his tip at 8 to 1 on the first race and ketches. Out of that
ninety I plant forty. Still following the kind gentleman's advice I
pikes the fifty on a dog in the second race and he never does come in.

"Can you beat that? This betting person picks the whole card but this
one race. I lose my fifty and was thinking seriously of going home when
I got a yen to try it again, so I dug up a twenty out of the hose.
Honest, it nearly broke my heart to separate myself from that roll, but
I just had to do it. I get twenty to one, go into hysterics at the
quarter, faint at the half, but come to in time to see my money coming
in so far ahead it looked as if he was out