r to myself. I beats it out to the hospital
when I gets back, to tell Micky. They're goin' to let him out in a day
or so 'n' Micky's settin' up in a chair with wheels to it.

"'Give a guess what Hamilton brings in the Big Eastern,' I says to him.

"'I dunno,' says he. 'How much?'

"'Sixteen thousand bucks!' I says. 'How does that lay on your
stummick?'

"'Hell!' says Micky. 'That ain't nothin'--look-a-here!'

"He shoves a paper at me he's been holdin' in his mitt. It's a ridin'
contract fur two years with the Ogden stable at ten thousand a year.

"So you see, just like I tells you," Blister wound up, "they lay down
real money fur _class_."

"The man who bought the horse," I said, "certainly got what he paid
for--everybody knows _now_ that Hamilton has class. But how about the
boy?"

"Did you ever see Vincent ride?" Blister looked at me inquiringly.

"I saw him ride once in the English Derby," I replied. "Why?"

"Well," said Blister, "his mother lives in New York in a brownstone
house he bought her, with two Swede girls to do as much work as she'll
let 'em. When he comes home, she calls him 'Micky.' Is there class to
him?"

"Yes," I said, "there's class to him."

EXIT BUTSY

"What's all them rubes got ribbons on 'em fur?" asked Blister.

I followed his gaze to a group of variously garbed men and women who
had just rounded the paddock, and who slowly bore down upon us as they
drifted from stall to stall in a haphazard inspection of the great
racing plant at Latonia. Prominent upon the person of each member of
this party was a bountiful strip of yellow ribbon. The effect was
decidedly gay.

I had encountered similar ribbons in every nook and cranny of the Queen
City during the last few days, and I knew that each bore in thirty-six
point Gothic condensed, the words, "Ohio State Grange."

"Those are Ohio farmers and their wives who are attending a convention
in Cincinnati," I explained. "The ribbons are convention badges."

Blister allowed the saddle girth he was mending to lie unnoticed across
his knees as the delegates by twos and threes straggled past.

Each female member of the party carried a round paper fan with a cane
handle, and talked unceasingly. These streams of conversation were
entirely regardless of one another. It was as though many brooks
babbled onward side by side, but never joined. One fragment that
reached us, I preserved.

"An' I sez to the doctor when he com