for the mile and give way to Beldame. Proper takes
the place. First Mason will show. Beldame will win by a length."

Before she had ceased reading, a dozen men had struggled to their
feet and a hundred voice were roaring at her. "Read that again!" the
chorused. Once more Miss Winter read the message, but before she had
finished half of those in the front rows were scrambling from their
seats and racing up the aisles. Already the reporters were ahead of
them, and in the neighborhood not one telephone booth was empty. Within
five minutes, in those hotels along the White Way where sporting men
are wont to meet, betting commissioners and hand-book men were suddenly
assaulted by breathless gentlemen, some in evening dress, some without
collars, and some without hats, but all with money to bet against
the favorite. And, an hour later, men, bent under stacks of newspaper
"extras," were vomited from the subway stations into the heart of
Broadway, and in raucous tones were shrieking, "Winner of the Suburban,"
sixteen hours before that race was run. That night to every big
newspaper office from Maine to California, was flashed the news that
Plunger Carter, in a Broadway theatre, had announced that the favorite
for the Suburban would be beaten, and, in order, had named the three
horses that would first finish.

Up and down Broadway, from rathskellers to roof-gardens, in cafes
and lobster palaces, on the corners of the cross-roads, in clubs and
all-night restaurants, Carter's tip was as a red rag to a bull.

Was the boy drunk, they demanded, or had his miraculous luck turned his
head? Otherwise, why would he so publicly utter a prophecy that on the
morrow must certainly smother him with ridicule. The explanations
were varied. The men in the clubs held he was driven by a desire for
notoriety, the men in the street that he was more clever than they
guessed, and had made the move to suit his own book, to alter the odds
to his own advantage. Others frowned mysteriously. With superstitious
faith in his luck, they pointed to his record. "Has he ever lost a bet?
How do WE know what HE knows?" they demanded. "Perhaps it's fixed and he
knows it!"

The "wise" ones howled in derision. "A Suburban FIXED!" they retorted.
"You can fix ONE jockey, you can fix TWO; but you can't fix sixteen
jockeys! You can't fix Belmont, you can't fix Keene. There's nothing in
his picking Beldame, but only a crazy man would pick the horse for the
place and to