ave children about
him. Simply because everybody advised him to send this one to the county
house, where it might be cared for by the proper authorities, he declared
he would do nothing of the kind; but would adopt the little waif and bring
him up as his own son.

As the boy grew, and developed many undesirable traits of character, Major
Appleby was too kind-hearted to see them, and too obstinate to be warned
against them.

"Don't tell me," he would say, "I know more about the boy than anybody
else, and am fully capable of forming my opinion concerning him."

Thus Snyder Appleby, as he was called, because the name "Snyder" was
found marked on the basket in which he had been left at the Major's door,
grew up with the fixed idea that if he only pleased his adopted father
he might act about as he chose with everybody else. Now he was nearly
eighteen years of age, big and strong, with a face that, but for its
coarseness, would have been called handsome. He was fond of display, did
everything for effect, was intolerably lazy, had no idea of the word
punctuality, and never kept an engagement unless he felt inclined to do
so. He always had plenty of pocket money which he spent lavishly, and was
not without a certain degree of popularity among the other boys of Euston.
He had subscribed more largely than anybody else to the Steel Wheel Club
upon its formation, and had thus succeeded in having himself elected its
captain.

As he was older and stronger than any of the other members who took up
racing, and as he always rode the lightest and best wheel that money could
procure, he had, without much hard work, easily maintained a lead in the
racing field, and had come to consider himself as invincible. He regarded
himself as such a sure winner of this last race for the Railroad Cup,
that he had not taken the trouble to go into training for it. He would not
even give up his cigarette smoking, a habit that he had acquired because
he considered it fashionable and manly. Now he was beaten, disgracefully,
and that by a boy nearly two years younger than himself. It was too much,
and he determined to find some excuse for his defeat, that should at the
same time remove the disgrace from him, and place it upon other shoulders.

Rodman Ray Blake, or R. R. Blake as he signed his name, and "Railroad
Blake" as the boys often called him, was Major Appleby's nephew, and the
son of his only sister. She had married an impecunious young artist
a