"Stop there! You see that big white cliff? I'll have that stone cut in chunks as big as you and your horse put together. I'll have 'em piled on a foundation as strong as the bottom of those hills. You see the way those mountain-tops walk into the sky? That's how the stairways will step up to the front of your house and put you out on a big terrace with columns scooting up fifty feet, and when you walk across the terrace a couple of great big doors weighing about a ton apiece will drift open and make a whisper when you mosey in. And when you get inside you'll start looking up and up, but you'll get dizzy before your eyes hit the ceiling; and up there you'll see a lighting stunt that looks like a million icicles with the sun behind 'em." He paused an instant for breath and saw David smiling in a hazy pleasure. "I follow you," he said softly. "Go on!" And his hand stretched out as though to open a door. "What I've told you about is only a beginning. Turn yourself loose; dream, and I'll turn your dream into stone and color, and fill up your windows with green and gold and red glass till you'll think a rainbow has got all tangled up there! I'll give you music that'll make you forget to think, and when you think I'll give you a room so big that you'll have silence with an echo to it." "All this for my horses?" "Send one of the grays--just one, and let me place the wagers. You don't even have to risk your own money. I've made a slough of it betting on things that weren't lead pipe cinches like this. I made on Fidgety Midget at fifty to one. I made on Gosham at eight to one. Nobody told me how to bet on 'em. I know a horse--that's all! You stay in the Garden; I take one of the grays; I bring her back in six months with more coin than she can pack, and we split it fifty-fifty. You furnish the horse. I furnish the jack. Is it a go?" A bird stopped above them, whistled and dipped away over the treetops. David turned his head to follow the trailing song, and Connor realized with a sick heart that he had failed to sweep his man off his feet. "Would you have me take charity?" asked David at length. It seemed to Connor that there was a smile behind this. He himself burst into a roar of laughter. "Sure, it sounds like charity. They'll be making you a gift right enough. There isn't a horse on the turf that has a chance with one of the grays! But they'll bet their money like fools." "Would it not be a sin, then?" "What sin?" asked Connor roughly. "Don't they grab the coin of other people? Does the bookie ask you how much coin you have and if you can afford to lose it? No, he's out to get all that he can grab. And we'll go out and do some grabbing in turn. Oh, they'll squeal when we turn the screw, but they'll kick through with the jack. No fear, Davie!" "Whatever sins may be theirs, Benjamin, those sins need not be mine." Connor was dumb.