Evening star., 1899-01-28
IT COST HIM THOUSANDS

Billy Thompson, the 'eX-Duke or GlouceS-
ter is trying to cook up some scheme
whereby the legal authorities of New Jer-
sey'H permit him to reopen the Gloucester
race track, outside of Camden, across the
Delaware from Philadelphia" said a sharp
eyed Warm Proposition who eats great
| many teothpieks in front of the down-to
hotels.
Say, if he makes it stick and prizes that
track open again I'll set the barns on fire.
Hear me say it, don't yeu?-IH burn the
stables up. I've get nothing against
Thompson, Y understand but the Glouces-
ter mud-lafk and snow-bird race track and
me simply can't so on existing together on
the same earth. I've been eating hay and
smoking q pipe ever slnce-well, here's the
way l got the fringe on the bottom of my
pants that I've been exhibiting for seven
or eight years now. If, after you hear me
out, you think I've got any call to throw
my cap up into the air over the prospective
reopening of the Gloucester track, then L
pass yeu up.
I'm 1890 l had nursed together wad of
about $1,000 This made me very chesty.
l concluded I'd try whirl 'on the block
, that is, instead of continuing to take
chances by playing 'enl, I'd go into the
lead-pfpe graft of laying odds myself from
a bookmaker's stool. There was only win
ter racing going on when 1 got that smoky
notion into my lid, and the winter racing
was all at Gloucester. They used to run
EN- IN. snow up to the saddle pommels
at Gloucester. and the plug that could make
out the track best without going over the
fence, and that didn't become crazy from
snow blindness, always won the race at
Gioucestsr-that is, if he was meant to
win.
Il was dead green one at the bookmak-
ing game when L went on the block at
Gioucester, but ! kept my ears open and
NJ my mouth smut, and L had quite a streak
OF luck besides from the go-off, so that
al tha end of my first week of laying odds
found that l he'd averaged cleau-up of
ABOUT 800 day. You couldn't see me
theh without sending up your card 1 was
SO vast and heap-much l was thinking
ABOUT gong down Driveway to make a
DID on the Belle Meade farm, and by the
ehd OF my third week on ths block, when
l nad run my 5000 into a bit more than
SloVo' L was probably the haughtiest geze-
bu this side OF the Rocky mountains.
OIie oay--it was at the beginning of my
tourth week of bookmaking-a duck who
hto a strlng of good ones (of their kind)
chasing the Gloucester merry-go-round for
the pooi-foom purses invited himself TO
take dlnner with me the next night at INV
notei m Phlladelphia. After we had stored
ana sprung what he had in mind He
mentioned the star sprinter of his string
You know, of course he said to me
conhdentiaily, that the nag can eat up any
morse down here at three-quarters of a
mile. He'd never been beaten at that dis
tance II we'd let him out every time he
went TO the post to race But of course
II "a let him win every time out, there
Wouid never be any price on him. He'd
be 1 to 20 shot every time he got a lead
pad on, and I'm not playing that kind of
prices. Neither am / running nv string
over at Gloucester for hygienic reasons
Understand?
Il understood
Well this mild-manrered duck went
on, that horse is entered in a six-furloue
sprint tomorrow, as you've probably MOTTO
a
vorfte. He'll lose.'
- He will hey?' said I, suspicious-like.
fhats blooming good of you to tell me.
But you're not telling me that for your
heasIh, :. IN either Hes going to lose, eh?'
Yep, he'll lose he repeated. Now.
you're a pretty nice young fellow, amt
you? 1 like you. Easy to see that isn't
how?
Well, as I say that horse of mine is
going TO lose, he said again. Now YOU
see this thousand-dollar BILL don't you?
Wen, want you to take just $1,000 worth
OF my horse to win for me, see. when you
make your book on that race? He may be
as good as 2 to ], but he's going to lose
anyhow. You see, just want to pick I'd
an az nom honest dollar or so. You take this
slo0O of the suckers money for me on your
book, and I'll give you your slice of the
rake off. Is 1t go?'
Now. this looked to me like a pretty
Soou tHiHS IL lndt mug morse wasn't GO
ing to lose ], of course knew that ne
wasn't going to risk any 81 900 bills on the
game. 1t looked like a cinch. So I told
him | was on, took his 81 900, and figured
on the big cleanup L was going to maze
the next day.
II chuckled to myself when the other
bookies only laid even money agains. that
horse when the booking on the race be-
gan the next afternoon.
:" They wouldn't do a thing but fall over
n lay 10
knew, like | do. that that favOrite is going
to kerffop, thought, exultantly and / put
to against that horses chances on nv
slate. The other bookies looked over nv
way as if they thought ! was nutty waen
l did this. but I only giggled inside.
You're wise guys / thought but this
Is where l get the big end of it
within three minutes after [ opened my
slate L had taken the horse owners 81 900
worth of his horse at 2 to 1. The Jaws lust
battled to get at my book to get that figure
Said l to myself, III just tap myself on
this good thing and by the time the horses
went to the post / had taken in So 600 of
the public money at to / on that horse
that was going to lose and knew that I'd
be just So,oo3 to the good.
We'll, you see it, don't you?
'''rhe plug that l had laid my whole s1o.-
oOu against won the race in the commonest
kind of a gallop by fifteen lengths There
was nothing to it but that horse He won
under forty wraps, full of running
II paid out my $4,000, bought clay pine
and an Scent package of punk tobacco. and
went out of business, and I've been out of
business ever since. The duck that got INV
bundle was that self-slme duck that told
me his horse was going TO lose, and the
81 800 of his own money he gave me was
only a con, see? The men who collected
my bundle after the race We're his own