Then Ned Rose went into a cataleptic state and handed me the winner--by a block. It couldn't go wrong unless its feet fell out. "Here you are, John Henry, the real Pietro!" said Ban Roberts; "play Pump Handle straight and place! It's the road to wealth--believe me! All the others are behind the hill!" Every Breezy Boy I met had a different hunch and they called me into the wharf and unloaded. I figured it out that if I had bet $5 on each good thing they gave me I would have lost $400,000. Then I ducked under, sopped up a stein of root beer and climbed up again to the hurricane deck. "Did you bet?" inquired Clara Jane. "Only $730," I said; "A mere bag o' shells." I leave a call for 7.30 every morning and I suppose that's the reason I was so swift with the figures. "My! what a lot of money!" said the Fair One; "do point out the horse you bet on! I shall be awfully interested in this race!" Carlo! you're a bad dog--lie down! I pointed out the favorite as the one I had my bundle on, and explained to Clara Jane that the only way it could lose was for some sore-head to get out and turn the track around. Sure enough the favorite galloped into port and dropped anchor six hours ahead of the other clams. I win over $2,200--conversation money--and Bonnie Brighteyes was in a frenzy of delight. She wanted to know if I wasn't going to be awfully careful with it and save it up for a rainy day. I told her yes, but I expected we'd have a storm that afternoon. I had a nervous chill for fear she'd declare herself in on the rake-off. But she didn't, so I excused myself and backed down the ladder to cash in. The boys were all out in the inquest room trying to find out what killed the dead ones. Then they stopped apologizing to themselves and began to pick things out of the next race and push them up their sleeves. I ran across Harry Maddy and he took me up to the roof with a line of talk about a horse called "Pretty Boy" in the last race. "He'll be over 80 to 1 and it's a killing," Harry insisted. "Get down to the bank when the doors open and grab all you can. Take a satchel and the ice-tongs and haul it away." I was beginning to be impressed. "Put a fiver on Pretty Boy," Harry continued, "and you'll find yourself dropping over in the Pierp Morgan class before sun down." "This may be a real Alexander," I said to myself. "Pretty Boy can stop in the stretch to do a song and dance and still win by a bunch of houses," Harry informed me. I began to think hard. "Don't miss it," said Harry. "It's a moral that if you play him you'll die rich and disgraced, like our friend Andy, the Hoot Mon!" When I got back to the stand I had a preoccupied air. The five-spot in my jeans was crawling around and begging for a change of scene. When Clara Jane asked me how much I had bet on the race just about to start I could only think of $900.