I began to be interested. "I should like to know it," I replied, "and I will wait for you after the Derby. I may not bet on it myself, but I have a friend who doubtless will, if you will give him the information." "I 'll give it to him if he 'll go down the line, but it's going to win a city block, and we ought to make a killin' on it. I went broke myself, on Senator Irby, or I 'd have gone home to-night with a bankroll." "Well," I replied, "we 'll see when the time comes. Now, what do you fancy to win the Derby?" He lighted a cigarette and puffed it a moment in silence. "It's a dead-tough race," he at last remarked, "and I would n't play it with counterfeit money. There 's no use in playing any race unless you 've got some information. These geezers that play every race go broke. But it's an easy game to beat if you just stay off till you 're next to something good, and then plug it hard. Why, if I could shake the faro-bank and crap-game, I 'd have money to burn ice with. "Y' see, take a big stake-race like this, where every horse is a 'cracker-jack,' they 're all of 'em good, and they 've all got a chance, and you just take my advice and stay off. We 'll have something good in the fourth that we know, and we just won't do a thing to it. Well, I must hurry down to the paddocks to see a stable boy I know; if I hear anything I 'll come back and tell you. But be sure and be here for the next with your friend, 'cause it's all over now, but cashing the ticket--so long;" and he dodged away through the crowd. Oddly enough, it did not at the moment strike me as in the least peculiar that I should have been conversing on a basis of perfect equality with a companion of stable boys and a frequenter of gambling hells. Nothing further. The spirit of easy, good-natured camaraderie was in the very air; and in the singleness of purpose which animated all--the picking of the winner--all ranks seemed leveled, all social barriers cast aside. Again, he had proved in our few minutes' talk a new, and to me an interesting, type; and I resolved to keep the appointment, if for nothing more than to study him further. He was a young man, certainly not over twenty-three, short, slight, and becomingly dressed. His face was thin, smooth-shaven and red, but somehow peculiarly prepossessing. His deep blue eyes and long black lashes might have atoned for much less attractive features; and the lines which ran from his well-shaped nose to the corners of his clear cut lips suggested a hard lived life which I afterwards learned did not belie them. A glance at my watch discovered the fact that it lacked but a few minutes of my appointment with Murray, and I began to slowly edge my way to the point of our rendezvous. I reached it promptly on the minute and stood awaiting his tardy coming, when suddenly my arm was grasped and I turned to find my new acquaintance. He was all excitement and breathing hard, as though in the greatest possible hurry.