The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-05

ging along in the wake of the gee-gees,
said follower of the cavorting thor
oughbreds who IS now in the enjoyment
of one of those purely temporary up-in-
the-world periods that come the way OF
the devotees Of the most precarious of
all games.
He was speaking of the rough-and-
ready, but almost weirdly astute, John
]. Ryan, the turf plunger on gigantic
scale who was ruled off the turf by the
Eastern turf authorities last season and
reinstated by the same authorities before
the beginning of the Benning meeting.
Ryan has been sizzling the ring, too,
since the first day at Benning.
He's got the gravies of a square man
in him, anyhow went on the turf fol-
lower, (which is a lot more than can
be said for some of these four-hushers
of stoolmen and imitation plungers who
hike in and out to and from the track in
their yelling murder gasoline gigs. I'll
tell you little story to prove it.
"They had me rocking toward the
wind-up Of last season, and there were
days when supper money looked as big
to me as a seven-foot 1ongshorenan on
rnixed-a1e drunk. [ was gum-shoeing
around the ring making little crabby 81
and So bets with the dead-line layers and
lying to get a long shot or two over to
.s5gart me up III business again.
Zone stake-race day at the fall meeting
at Sheepshead Bay I was paving around
in the middle of the big betting ring
gang, trying to get 3 to I against the
favorite in big event. I only had S.
left out of the bundle I'd been packing
around earlier in the season, and | want
ed TO get So to So. The horse had open
ed at that figure, but had been cut to
21s in most of the books.
II drifted up in front of the stool OF
swell-headed bookmaker who of late
years has got into the habit of bawling
at people who nudge Up to his chair to
get bets down He surrounds himself
with a bunch of cheap pink policemen
when he's booking on the big New York
tracks to keep the pil<ers back, as he
calls the was wearing wooden shoes
when he hit this country from Poland
as tylse, they tell nle-and when any
body unfamiliar with his rules edges
toward him on big race day with any
thing shorter than v in his fin; that
elephantiasis-afflic layer gives him
the grouchy shout and tries to show him
up and make him feel like plugged yen
in the eyes of the bunch around the
stool.
However. as l had been playing the
game in the ring for a good many years,
had worked for a lot of bookmakers as
an outside man, sheetwrlter, cashier and
all the rest of the works. and as this |
book-maker Pm speaking of knew me
perfectly we'll and knew, too, as every |
body else did, that | was down in my |
luck, | squeezed up to his stool to take
So worth of the 8 to that l saw
chalked on his slate against the favor
lie. | passed the three ones over to him,
and named the favorite.
cav. nothin' smaller'n fves go here,
ripped that bookmaker, giving me
scowl. I wish you pi<ers from the gas
house district 'ud keep away from here.
T. hell with this rag carpet and kitchen
stove money-notfir' but fves-fives are
the smallest here, and / fell back, feel
ing like piece of the supplement of last
Sundays paper that's been left out on
the back stoop and rained on.
Il felt tug at my coat when got 10
the outskirts of the crowd, and the man
giving my coat the tug was John Ryan
He had heard the bawling the bookie had
dancing with the wrath of it-maybe be-
cause he knew that /, like himself, was a
harp and a rough neck. He had his
black cigar tilted at the sixty-degree
angle in his face, but the gig-lamps scat
tered all over him weren't any more
blazy than his lamps.
Here. he said, handing me some
thing that | couldn't see for minute
after he passed it to me, the crowd was
so dense. go and slap those few INTO
the suuash-chart of that four-tiush ana
see if he's game enough to take EN- l ne {
favorite. see, at 3 to I, his price. Ano
if he doesn't take the bundle, snow MIN {
upP I'D clio
ped into my hand. The things were ten {
81, 600 bills.
sT drilled into the crowd and got my
self directly in front of the layer, so that /
ne had to notice me, and he was JUST
about to release his trap and hand me {
another Jolt on that So thing when L S
slipped the $4,000 into his grabber e
1.-THE favorite', said l. Three to one y
"FIe looked at the $4,000 with fallen It
pair of fowls. and the whole crowd v
round the stool saw what was coming @
IF and had their eyes on HIM.
'Well-er-I'll tail take $1,000 OF y
=, he gasped when he'd got his vocal Il
,hords fabricated up again. il
1-All right, you big sludge, 1 SAID to f
i'm. Now what are you laying tor the o
,ther S. 600. Talk upl Don't crawl into 2
our hoIel You're the big store, amt p
-ou? And you're giving the shout to II
,eople whose secondhand clothes you'd il
ave been SELLING if you hadn't got into a
his game, amt you? Well. gum 1t out Ct
What are you laying against this other o
5.ooo?' .o,. W
We got all want said the big counter a
eli. feebly. and I edged back and hand bi
d the other 5000 to Ryan whose eyes h
ere sDarkling with serene Joy. b1
Ten minutes later I had the fun OF b,
ming mn back of that bawling bookle,s IL
TOOL and taking $4,000 away from his Mt
asbieTMthe 2 to favorite had only T
-aiosed home. When I handed the win il
, RYAN. he slipped me $1,000 for mine, bi
- +b,+ that was about the value