It was a dull night. The St. Charles Hotel Turkish baths were but half filled with patrons, although overcrowded with snores. The light patronage and the dejected mood of Prosias were due to the same cause: the winter meeting at the Fair Grounds race-track in New Orleans had ended two days before, the army of men and horses that had encamped in the Crescent City during the winter, and the swarm of plump patrons which nightly had crowded the St. Charles, had moved northward to Baltimore, and Prosias Trimble, top sergeant in that army, with the rank of tout, was left behind, to eke out a livelihood by working as rubber in the bath-house. The pearl-colored spats, the pointed russet shoes, the fawn waistcoat checkerboarded in green, the massive watch-chain draped in two graceful curves from buttonhole to pockets, the four-carat near-diamond which glistened with fading brilliancy in the purple necktie, were of the vanities vain: the “hosses” were gone, and Pro, compelled to return to the profession he had disowned when he became a race-follower, was not with them. Two days before this night of gloom Prosias had strutted the streets of New Orleans--the envy of colored men, the admired of many colored women. His shining countenance, which reflected joy and happiness, had added color to the throngs in paddock and betting ring. In the evenings his presence had graced social affairs of the negro eight hundred, and Miss Luck had smiled consistently upon him. He had spent three evenings bidding farewell to the friends he had accumulated during the winter, had lightly promised half a dozen of his newly acquired lady friends to see them when the horses came back, and had created envy and dark hatred among the men by the casual carelessness with which he bade them polite farewells and expressed hopes of seeing them at Baltimore or Louisville or even at Saratoga during the meetings. Until the morning of “Get Away Day” Miss Luck had smiled, and on that morning she beamed. Prosias and his bankroll had prospered, waxed fat, and flourished. The customary rumors had circulated on that morning--the old, old story of the “Get Away Killing” and the feed man’s bill--and straight from the oats-box the rumor had come to Pro, alighted upon him, and stung him. It was a hot tip--so hot that it singed and burned. The tip was to the effect that Centerdrink had been nominated to win--that he was to be shooed in at long odds, and that all the grievances of the bettors against the bookmakers were to be evened up in one great killing.