Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-10

1t is regretfully acknowledged that not
| all Of these narratives of horse-racing
lunches" are capable of absolute vertical
| ton. But the one that follows Ia. The
bunch had its inception and outcome in and
around Washington. The beneficiary Of
| the bunch was Washington man who Is
known to a great many Washington people.
| He is a committee clerk at the Capitol. The
| bunch happened to him a year ago last
| spring, but the correct story thereof has
never been printed.
The bunch gathered in the committee
| clerk one morning, before the regular east
| ern racing season had begun. when he
picked up paper and caught sight of the
name of the horse Honolulu entered for the
Kentucky Club handicap. an event to be
run that day at the opening of the race
track at Hot Springs, Arkansas. The COM
mittee clerk knew that old mud runner,
and had cleaned up on him several times
But, in addition to his liking for the horse
Honolulu, the following reasons were quick
ly borne In upon him why he should play
Honolulu that day:
l. The horse Honolulu was a famous mud
lark. and the report from Hot Springs
stated that 1t was raining hard there for
the opening day, and that the track would
be deep and sloppy.
2. Honolulu was to run in the Kentucky
Club handicap, and the committee clerk
was from Kentucky.
3. The committee clerk had sodiered
with the volunteer army at Honolulu after
the Spanish war. and liked Honolulu better
than any place he had ever seen, barring
Washington.
4. He has brother living in Honolulu.
5. Only the day before he had received a
letter from his brother with the Honolulu
postmark, stating that the most remark
able rainstorm ever known in Honolulu
had taken place the week before, and that
1t had rained only fraction less than eight
inches within few hours. ('Bfg rain at
Honolulu, raining at Hot Springs, where
Honolulu's going to rum guess that's
bad" figured out the committee clerk. ex-
ultingly.)
6. At vaudeville show on the previous
night the committee clerk had listened to
the music of five male Kanaka singers.
with taro-patch fiddles, singing the Ha-
waiian folk-songs.
Z. Prince Cupid" the delegate from Ha-
wall, had, that morning. entered for the
first time since his arrival in Washington
the committee room in which the man upon
whom all Of these variations of a bunch
were swooping is employed during the ses-
sions of the Congress.
Thus the committee clerks bunch on the
horse Honolulu had grown by accreton
and he resolved to have bet down on the
mud lark
cheerful auguries, and benevolently passed
the tabulation around among his pals at
the Capitol. However. none of them could
see 1t as he did. The bunch thing had been
sweeping through the Capitol for some
time. Only a few days before sad thing
in the bunch line had dented large num-
Der of enthusiasts employed under the great
white dome. An Alaska mine owner had
been showing large nugget of gold around
among people he met up with at the Cap
itol. On the day that he did this the
bunch players among the employees on the
House side discovered, upon looking at
the entries that Our Nugget was slated to
so at New Orleans that afternoon, and Our
Nugget had easily won her previous race.
All hands, consequently, Clipped into the
Our Nugget pool, and one of them sent
to the old ST. Asaph pool room to string
the money across the board on the mare
Our Nugget fell in the race, after leading
for most of the distance, and had to be
destroyed
Two weeks before that the whole outfit
both House and Senate sides, had gone
to- the horse Capitol, running at Los An
geles, with a whoop, Capitol being tipped az
a sure thing by somebody or another and
the bunch on the horses name adding to
the rosiness of the outlook. Capitol had
finished a disgraceful last in a field of
fourteen.
So that when the committee clerk with
the Honolulu bunch tabulation glided
around the great building and tried to tell
them that Honolulu was just as good as
in they all whitfield him. They agreed
that the bunch looked fine on paper. but
they declared that he had faxed some of
the contributory augures-which, however,
he really had not, all of them having been
perfectly on the level, just as he set them
down.
All the same. the seven typewriter rea-
sons were good enough for the committee
clerk, who had been swept fore and aft by
the bunch. He had such exalted idea
Of the horse Honolulu's undermining quail
tiles that he figured it that the horse would
be about a l to 3 shot in the field with
which he was entered, despite the fact
that he had not been out for many months.
Acting this belief he pulled $500 out of
his bank, his idea being that the 500 that
he would pick up should the horse really
be l to chance, would come in handy
for spring toggery and such.
When he reached the pool room he took
a seat away back in the rear, out of sight
of the blackboard, SO that he wouldn't be
tempted, by hypnotizing himself through
gazing at juicy odds against horses running
at other tracks, to play other horses that
he liked. He wanted to get the whole $500
down on Honolulu.
When the first line of betting on the
Kentucky Club Handicap at Hot Springs
came in and was chalked up on the black
board the committee clerk came near wa
vering. Honolulu's price was TO- and 2.
This didn't look right The price was too
astonishingly liberal against a Star Ruby
horse that in former years had shown HIM
self to be one of the best mudders in train
ing, and half brother, besides, to the great
mudder Africander. 1t was an unusually
long price, it seemed to the startled COM
mitee clerk with the bunch, in view of the
fact that there were only six horses in the
race The fact that the bookmakers at
Hot Springs had made Honolulu next to
the rank outsider in a six-horse field In a
mud race, with none of the others In the
field amounting to much, and even with
Honolulu carrying top weight. took a great
deal of the spine out of the committee
clerk, who had expected nothing better
than one to three against his hunch Hon.
oluu, not having been to the post in such
a long time couldn't be ready or any
where near ready for a race-that was the
only way the crestfallen committee clerk
could fix the thing up in his own mind.
He got hold OF bunch of old past per-
char ID aIe,-ard found tia