treaking out of the shoot, he was half a dozen lengths behind. It was a
mile and an eighth race. They went down the back stretch, eight horses
all bunched together, and the green jacket drifting that half dozen
lengths to the rear. The wise guys turned and grinned at me; then they
forgot all about me and began to yell for King Charles and Miss Lazy.

"The bunch were going around the turn and the two favorites were
fighting it out together. But I had an eye for the green jacket, and
halfway around the turn I saw him move up."

The girl sighed.

"No," Connor continues, "he hadn't won the race yet. And he never should
have won it at all, but King Charles was carrying a hundred and
thirty-eight pounds, and Miss Lazy a hundred and thirty-three, while
Tip-Top Second came in as a fly-weight eighty-seven pounds! No horse in
the world could give that much to him when he was right, but who guessed
that then?

"They swung around the turn and hit the stretch. Tip-Top took the curve
like a cart horse. Then the bunch straightened out, with King Charles
and Miss Lazy fighting each other in front and the rest streaking out
behind like the tail of a flag. They did that first mile in 1.38, but
they broke their hearts doing it, with that weight up.

"They had an eighth to go--one little measly furlong, with Tip-Top in
the ruck, and the crowd screaming for King Charles and Miss Lazy; but
just exactly at the mile post the leaders flattened. I didn't know it,
but the man in front of me dropped his glasses and his head. 'Blown!' he
said, and that was all. It seemed to me that the two in front were
running as strongly as ever, but Tip-Top was running better. He came
streaking, with the boy flattening out along his neck and the whip going
up and down. But I didn't stir. I couldn't; my blood was turned to ice
water.

"Tip-Top walked by the ruck and got his nose on the hip of King Charles.
Somebody was yelling behind me in a squeaky voice: 'There is something
wrong! There's something wrong!' There was, too, and it was the
eighty-seven pounds that a fool handicapper had put on Tip-Top. At the
sixteenth Miss Lazy threw up her head like a swimmer going down and
dropped back, and Tip-Top was on the King's shoulder. Fifty yards to the
finish; twenty-five--then the King staggered as if he'd been hit between
the ears, and Tip-Top jumped out to win by a neck.

"There was one big breath of silence in the grand stand--then a groan. I
turned my head