"'As the crackling of thorns under a pot,'" he quoted soberly. "A man that laughs all the time ain't likely to mean it, Mose, but I don't know's I would say that Johnson is exackly a fool. No, he's a pretty wise man, of his breed. He owns a controllin' interest in this track (under cover, of course), he's got a couple of books in the ring, and the judges are with him. I reckon from what he said 'bout Walsh that he's in with the jockey syndicate. No wonder he wins races! Sure, he could get Walsh for me, or any other crook-legged little burglar that would send word to Johnson what I was doing! Mose, yonder goes the man we've got to beat!" "Him too, boss?" Little Mose rolled his eyes. "Hawsses, judges, jocks, an' Johnson! Sutny is a tough card to beat!" "'A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again,'" repeated the old man, "'but the wicked shall fall into mischief.' That's the rest of the verse, Mose." "Boss," said the little negro earnestly, "I don' wish nobody no hard luck, but if somebody got to fall, I hope one of them Irish jocks will fall in front an' git jumped on by ten hawsses!" "Don't make any mistake about it, Curry is wise. He may look like a Methodist preacher gone to seed, but the old scoundrel knows what's going on. He ain't a fool, take it from me!" The speaker was Smiley Johnson, who was addressing a small but extremely select gathering of turf highwaymen who had met in his tackle-room to discuss matters of importance. They were all men who would willingly accept two tens for a five or betray a friend for gain: Smiley Johnson, Billy Porter, Curly McManus, and Slats Wilson. All owned horses and ran them in and out of the money, as they pleased, and not one of them would have trusted the others as far as a bull may be thrown by the tail. "We can trim the old reprobate," continued Johnson, "but we can't keep him from finding out that the clippers are on him." "And who cares if he does know?" demanded Slats Wilson. "I'm in favour of making it so raw that he'll take his horses and go somewhere else. Look at what he did last season. Got Al Engle and a lot of other people ruled off, didn't he? Raised particular hell all over the circuit, the psalm-singing old hypocrite!" "He's got a fine, fat chance to get anybody ruled off around this track," interrupted Curly McManus. "These judges ain't reformers. They know who's paying their salaries." "Sure they do," assented Wilson, "but the longer this old rip hangs on the more chance there is to get into a jam of some kind. He's a natural-born trouble maker. If he loses many more races the way he lost that one to-day, I wouldn't put it past him to go to the newspapers with a holler. That would hurt. I'm in favour of giving him the gate!" "When he hasn't won a race?" argued Johnson. "Use your head, Slats. Let him run his horses, and bet on 'em. He may squawk, but he can't prove anything, and when he's lost enough dough he'll quit."