--what he called "figger."
He wrote with a pointed stick and presently broke into a loud laugh.

"A low down trick," he muttered, "to play upon a white man, but Mr.
Bobo ain't a white man, an' mustn't be treated as sech."

He erased his hieroglyphics, and proceeded leisurely to prepare his
simple supper. He ate his bacon and beans with even more than usual
relish, laughing softly to himself repeatedly, and when he had
finished and the dishes were washed and put away, he selected, still
laughing, a spade and crowbar from a heap of tools in the corner of
his shanty. These he shouldered and then strode out into the night.

* * * * *

The crowd at the race track upon the opening afternoon of the fair was
beginning to assume colossal proportions--colossal, that is to say,
for San Lorenzo. Beneath the grand stand, where the pools are always
sold, the motley throng surged thickest. Jew and gentile, greaser and
dude, tin-horn gamblers and tenderfeet, hayseeds and merchants,
jostled each other good humouredly. In the pool box were two men. One
--the auctioneer--a perfect specimen of the "sport"; a ponderous
individual, brazen of face and voice, who presented to the crowd an
amazing front of mottled face, diamond stud, bulging shirt sleeves,
and a bull-neck encircled by a soiled eighteen-and-a-half inch paper
collar. The other gentleman, who handled the tickets, was unclean,
unshorn, and cadaverous-looking, with a black cigar, unlighted, stuck
aggressively into the corner of his mouth.

"Once more," yelled the pool-selling person, in raucous tones. "Once
more, boys! I'm sellin' once more the half-mile dash! I've one hundred
dollars for Comet; how much fer second choice? Be lively there. Sixty
dollars!!! Go the five, five, five! Thank ye, sir, you're a dead game
sport. Bijou fer sixty-five dollars. How much am I bid fer the field?"

The field sold for fifty, and the auctioneer glanced at Mr. Bobo, who
shook his head and shuffled away. Ten consecutive times he had bought
pools. Ten consecutive times Mr. Rinaldo Roberts had paid, by proxy,
sixty-five dollars for the privilege of naming By-Jo as second choice
to the son of Meteor.

"Fifteen hunderd," mumbled the old man to himself. "Five las' night
an' ten to-day. It's a sure shot, that's what it is, a sure shot. I
worked him out in fifty-one seconds. Oh, Lord, what a clip! in fifty-
one," he repeated with his abominable chuckle, "an' Nal's filly has
n