Thus, querulously, Jockey Moseby Jones, otherwise Little Mose, as he trudged dejectedly across the infield beside his employer, Old Man Curry, owner of Elisha, Elijah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other horses bearing the names of major and minor prophets. Mose was still in his silks--there were reasons, principally Irish, why the little negro found it more comfortable to dress in the Curry tack room--and the patriarch of the Jungle Circuit wore the inevitable rusty frock coat and battered slouch hat. Side by side they made a queer picture: the small, bullet-headed negro in gay stable colours, and the tall, bearded scarecrow, the frayed skirts of his coat flapping at his knees as he walked. Ahead of them was Shanghai, the hostler, leading a steaming thoroughbred which had managed to finish outside the money in a race that his owner had expected him to win: expected it to the extent of several hundred dollars. "Yes, suh, it gittin' to be a habit!" complained Little Mose. "Been so long since I rode into 'at ring I fo'get what it feels like to win a race!" "It's a habit we're goin' to break one of these days, Mose. What happened!" "Huh! Ast me whut didn't happen! Ol' 'Lijah, he got off good, an' first dash--_wham_! he gits bumped by 'at ches'nut hawss o' Dyer's. I taken him back some an' talk to him, an' jus' when I'm sendin' him again--_pow_! Jock Merritt busts ol' 'Lijah 'cross 'e nose 'ith his whip. In 'e stretch I tries to come th'oo on inside, an' two of 'em Irish jocks pulls oveh to 'e rail and puts us in a pocket. 'Niggeh,' they say to me, 'take 'at oat hound home 'e long way; you sutny neveh git him th'oo!' They was right, boss! 'Lijah, he come fourth, sewed up like a eagle in a cage!" "H'm-m. And the judges didn't pay any attention when you claimed a foul?" Little Mose gurgled wrathfully. "Huh! I done claim _three_ fouls! Judges, they say they didn't see no foul a-a-a-tall! Didn't see us git bumped; didn't see Jock Merritt hit 'Lijah; didn't see us pocketed. 'Course they didn't; they wasn't _lookin'_ faw no foul! On 'is track we not on'y got to beat hawsses; we got to beat jocks an' judges too. How we goin' lay up any bacon agin such odds as that?" "It can't last, Mose," was the calm reply. "'There shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.'" "It burnin' mighty bright jus' now, boss. Sol'mun, he say that?" Old Man Curry nodded, and Little Mose sniffed sceptically. "Uh huh. Sol'mun he neveh got jipped out of seven races in a row!" "Seven, eh!" The old man counted on his fingers. "Why, so it is, Mose! This is the seventh time they've licked us, for a fact!" Old Man Curry began to chuckle, and the jockey eyed him curiously. "You sutny enjoy it mo'n I do, boss," said he. "That's because you don't read Solomon," replied the owner. "Listen: 'A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again.' Mose, we're due to rise up and smite these Philistines."