Evening star., 1901-11-16

The workmen were still busy on the new
Benning grand stand when the crowd be-
gan to pour through the gates on Monday
afternoon. The painters had only just fin
ished giving the grand stand benches the
last coat of brilliant red paint, so that
many of the seats were still wet-painty.
Bob Pinkerton, the eastern head of the
famous detective agency, who, with his
staff, controls affairs on all of the Jockey
Club race tracks, was a good deal worried
over this paint situation. He expressed his
selicitude for the women's wraps and other
garments in tender terms and finally, beck
oning to Conductor Haley to stop the bands
| music for a moment, he took his stand at
the foot of the main stand aisle, cleared has
throat, blushed very rosily, and said:
Ladies and gentlemen, some OF these
grand stand seats are still wet with paint,
and 1 suggest that you spread newspapers
on them before sitting down."
After which awful effort for a naturally
| taciturn man Mr.. Pinkerton bolted pre-
| cipitately.
However his warning had been sounded
too late in number of instances. lot
of gayly-clad women, too intent upon the
life and action going on around them when
they reached the stand failed to notice
the fresh paint on the seats, and pumped
themselves onto the benches with never
Thought OF paint. The suddenness with
which they all got to their feet when Mr..
Pinkerton made his little talk would have
been amusing had it not been more or less
tragic one very pretty and very peeVlsh
young woman-she had exhibited her pee
vishness even before the paint accident
found, when she investigated, that the
whole rear of her fine tan automobile coat
was ornamented with heavy daubs and
stripes Of bright crimson. In her wrath
her face turned almost as red as the paint.
and for a full moment she was quite
speechless. But when she at length found
her voice she surely made up for that
dumb moment. The remarks she made with
reference to paint and painters and grand
stands and the management of race tracks
were simply vitrioiic, and the miId-Ioolling
young man accompanying her appeared to
the afternoon off.
The young woman's audible anger at
tracted the attention of many of those
In her neighborhood on the stand, and the
incident furnished a tip for the supersti-
tious.
Land sakes alive, just look at her coat!''
exclaimed funnylooking little old woman
in a frowsy bonnet and a frayed shawl,
who attends all of the Benning meetings
and invariably bets heavily-generally WIN
ming, 1t should be said-on each and every
| race. Il know what I'm goin' to do-Fm
| goin' to bet on Red Damsel to win the
| first race!
And thus the word that Red DamseI was
the good thing in the first race went flying
around the stand. Everybody who had wit
messed the incarnadining of the peevish
young woman's automobile coat decided
that the incident was a good omen for
Red Damsel Great was the chagrin of all
OF these persons when the word got around
shortly afterward that Red Damsel had
been scratched.
The mild-looking youth with the peevish
young woman succeeded somehow or an
other in fetching her around to good hui
mor-perhaps by volunteering to provide a
rev coat in place of the ruined one-by the
time the first race had been run off, and
when the grand stand commissioners We're
going around the stand with the betting on
the second race she was looking quite
| cheerful and talking animatedly and smil-
ingly with her escort.
"Um-she's got over bein' mad hasn't
she?' commented the funny-looking little
old woman. Looks happy as a big
sunflower w-happy-happy-why, there's
horse in this second race named Happy
she exclaimed in louder tone, so that
those around her couldn't fail to overhear
her remark. Well. Happy's goin' to wn,''
and she called over one of the grand stand
commissioners and handed him two yellow
bills to be placed on Happy. A lot of the
womans neighborhood followed suit, and
placed their bets on Happy. And Happy
won the race easily. 1t was really the
most difficult race, of the day, an affair for
maiden two-year-olds, and yet the old wo-
mans "hunch" on Happy had been the
means of making lot of her neighbors
JOYOUS.
Throughout the entire opening afternoon
clipper-built, but very dirty, little fox
terrier, that had evidently lost it's master
barked and yowled and moaned and whim-
pered noisily all over the grand stand The
dog moved all over the stand shifting at al
hands for Identification purposes. and keen
ing UP a steady whining and whimpering
and barking, while the women expressed
their sympathy for 'the poor little thing
and the men wondered why some one of
the Pinkerton men didn't see that the ca
nine waif wasn't bestowed elsewhere than
on the grand stand.
Yet the presence of this bit of short
haired misery in the shape of a dog on
the stand furnished a tip to the occa sional
racegoers, who put their money down in ac
cordance with the rules and regulations of
the omen system The terrier was particu-
| larly noisy in his manifestations of grief
just before the third race, steeplechase
event, and big man who had been GU
riousiy observing the little animal turned
to his companions with a grin and re-
marked:
That sure is the noisiest, boisterousest
four-1egged thing that 1 ever saw outside
OF a circus, and by that token there's
morse In this jumping race that's named
Bolsterous. Consequently, no other tim
ber-topper is a-going to do the jumps for
my money" and he raced down to the bet
| ting ring to put his money on Boisterous
Perhaps twenty people In his neighborhood.
beside his companions, made haste to fol-
| low his lead, and they had very soft and
| sympatheuc feeling in their bosoms for
| that stray fox terrier when the steeple-
chase horse Boisterous hoped out In front
of his field at the fall of the flag and
| spread-eagled the other horses from start
to finish. winning by twenty lengths and
! pulled to walk.
The usual aggregation of black men and
! boys had positions on the fence and in the
forks of trees outside the grounds over at
! the far end Of the track. superbly ar
rayed colored man was doing a land Office
business making book for these rank out
sfders Of the talent. He took any old sum
| down to 10 cents, and he had all he could
do to handle the coin that was pushed to-
ward him. The well-known soft spot which
the man and the brother has for the long
shots In running races was in evidence In
| this outside field, and there was a big tip
| out over there on Cherished to win the last
race. Cherished was at 40 to in the bet
ting, and the ebony exquisite who was
making book was almost swamped with
| the weight of Cherished money that poured
| in upon him before the horses went to the
post for the final event of the day. The
wild, weird, voodooish roofing that the oc-
cupants of the fence and the tree forks did
for the rank outsider Cherished when the
flag fell was a study, and when Cherished
began to pull up on his field at the far
turn, and evinced disposition to head the
leader, their enthusiasm was boundless.
When Cherished shot to the van in the