"Come here," he said in a low quick voice; and he beckoned me into a quiet corner. "I 've been looking for you everywhere. Now listen a minute and do n't ask questions; Domino's got a 'dickey' leg, and he won't be a thing but last. Garrison tells me that Senator Grady is going to win in a common canter. Richard Croker 's in the ring, and the 'bookies' are swipin' it off the boards. Hurry and get in with your money while there 's a chance to get the odds;" and he started into the betting ring as though fully expecting I would follow. His manner was intensely earnest, and his hurried words and furtive looks were at once impressive and convincing. I felt my latent sporting spirit rising strong again, and I began the simple process of arguing myself out of my former position. Some Frenchman, I think, has somewhere said, "A man is his own worst sharper." However that is, in an argument with one's self the other side is usually silenced. And so it chanced that, a few minutes later, I again held a penciled ticket, which this time called for $60 to be paid in the event of certain contingencies, and for which I had given $20 of my former winnings. I had also given my Mentor an extra five to bet for the boy from whom he had received such timely and valuable information. Such reckless plunging I can only excuse upon the grounds of having been forced into it; for not the least of this versatile youth's many and varied gifts was the power, not uncommon amongst waiters and shop-keepers, of shaming his whilom client out of anything approaching pettiness, by the assumption of that air of blended superiority and indifference we have all felt the force of at times. I had drawn forth my roll with the laudable intention of chancing a two or perhaps a five, when I was met with the startling proposition that I "bet fifty each way, to win and for place," and this was followed by so convincing an array of figures, weights, times and distances, that a compromise of $20 to win, and a five-dollar bet for the boy, "who could n't leave the paddocks, but had been promised that the right thing would be done by him," seemed the least I could do, consistent with my dignity and self-respect. And now to hurry back to Murray. We found him standing watch in hand, and he began to smile when he saw my companion. "Well! well!" he exclaimed in a bantering tone; "so you 've fallen a prey to Checkers, have you? What loser has he touted you onto, that's 'going to win in a walk, hands down'?" "Now, there's a guy that makes me sick," interrupted Checkers, ignoring the question. "Because he dropped a couple of 'bones' not long ago at the Harlem track, he made a roar that's echoing still between this and the Rocky Mountains. The next time I saw him I gave him a 'good thing' he could have win out on, but he would n't touch it. He don't know the right way around the track. The book-makers call him 'Ready-Money'--he 's so easy."