After a silence, the Kid asked another question: "Well, at that, the race-track game is no game for a married man, is it?" "M-m-well," answered the patriarch thoughtfully, "that's as how a man's wife looks at it. Some of 'em think it ain't no harm to gamble s'long's you can win, but the average woman, Frank, she don't want the hosses runnin' for her bread and butter. You can't blame her for that, because a woman is dependent by nature. If the Lord had figured her to git out an' hustle with the men, He'd have built her different, but He made her to be p'tected and shelteredlike. A single man can hustle and bat round an' go hungry if he wants to, but he ain't got no right to ask a woman to gamble her vittles on any proposition whatever." "Ain't it the truth!" ejaculated the Bald-faced Kid, with a depth of feeling quite foreign to his nature. "You surely spoke a mouthful then!" Old Man Curry raised one eyebrow slightly and continued his discourse. "For a man even to figger on gettin' married, he ought to have something comin' in steady--something that bad hosses an' worse men can't take away from him. He oughtn't to bet at all, but if he does it ought to be on a mortal cinch. There ain't many real cinches on a race track, Frank; not the kind that a married man'd be justified in bettin' the rent money on. Yes, sir, a man thinkin' 'bout gettin' married ought to have a job--and stick to it!" "And that job oughtn't to be on a race track either," supplemented the Kid, his eyes fixed on the cigarette which he was rolling. "But that ain't all I wanted to ask you about, old-timer. Suppose, now, a fellow had a girl that was too good for him--a girl that wouldn't wipe her feet on a gambler if she knew it, and was brought up to think that betting was wrong. And suppose now that this fellow wasn't even a gambler. Suppose he was a hustler--a tout--but he'd asked the girl to marry him without telling her what he was, and she'd said she would. What ought that fellow to do?" Old Man Curry took his time about answering; took also a large portion of fine cut and stowed it away in his cheek. "Well, son," said he gently, "it would depend a lot on which the fellow cared the most for--the race track or the girl." The Kid flung the cigarette from him and looked up, meeting the old man's eyes for the first time. "I beat you to it, old-timer! Win or lose, I'm through at the end of this meeting. There's a fellow over in Butte just about my age. He was a hustler too, and a pal of mine, but two years ago he quit, and now he's got a little gents' furnishing-goods place--nothing swell, of course, but the business is growing all the time. He's been after me to come in with him on a percentage of the profits, and last night I wrote him to look for me when they get done running here. That part of it is settled. No more race track in mine. But that ain't what I was getting at. Have I got to tell the girl what I've been doing the last five years?"