Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-23
By Clarence L. Cullen.

ri was on my way out to this Benning
track in a trolley a few years ago-in
the fall of 1903, think it was-when some
thing happened to the Juice and the
whole line was tied up for about three
quarters OF an hour said an owner and
trainer who is winterlng his string at Ben
ming. 1.-THE halt happened Just about a
quarter Of an hour before the horses were
due to go to the post for the first race. All
of the men on my car took the hitch philo-
sophically except one. and this one looked
a lot worried. Finally he pulled out a note
book and pencil and asked bunch OF us
to be good enough to give him our names
and addresses. We looked him over curl
ously. and nobody made any reply.
" Don't think that | am a bug said the
man with the notebook and pencil, his
face wearing a wan and frozen grin. m
not bug, neither am | sleuthing for evil
dence against the books or anything of that
sort. You won't be standing for any pinch
by giving me your names and addresses
It's this way: I've got another man s money
in my clothes to bet on horse in the first
race. He's a Washington lawyer. but he
couldn't make the track today, because he's
got court case. This morning somebody
handed him this Totness plug for good
thing. A couple of hours ago he handed
me century note and asked me to sprad-
die the hundred bones across the board on
Totness. ] wouldn't give so cents for Tot
ness myself, but he may cop, at that. There
isn't a chance in life of my making .he
track for the first race. So l want to be
protected. I've been there before. This
lawyer person is a pretty good friend OF
mine, and he has no reason to suppose that
I'm a highlander or a seconds story man.
But this is racing business, and that makes
1t different. The majority Of 'ud sus-
pect Father Kelly If we gave him a racing
commission to perform, and, after the thing
had hoped through, he came back to us
| with drawn mouth and a story of how
q | Inc
| stand
I'VE understood all right, and four of us
willingly gave the man our names and adj
| dresses. The outcome proved his wisd ON.
| Our trolley car didn't make the track un-
! til the first race had been run. The winner
| of that first race was Totness. and Tot
ness had good figure as co to / chalk
| ed against his chance. A couple of us
| dropped around to the lawyer and
| square his commissioner on the following
morning. We fixed 1t all right for the com
missioner, even though the lawyer was in
| a most melancholy state of mind the
! fall-down Of his bet on the good thing
Now, that chap who took our names
| had his head on straight all right in doing
that, but he would have been good deal
| wiser if he hadn't taken a friends money
| to bet at all. No real wise cove is willing
! in these days to take upon himself the re-
| sponsibility of attending to another man s
gambling I've been SO badly Jared at that
sort of thing myself that now L wouldn
| place a 81 bet on a lead-pipe cinch, due to
pop over at 100 to /. for my best pal if
he was laid up in a hospital with a broken
| wing.
| You're bound to get in bad one way or
| another every time you allow yourself to
| be conned into making a bet for a friend
| at race track. The man that | buy my
cigars from when I'm here in Washington
will never get over believing that I'm a
| fink and bullet-head. One day during the
| last spring meeting here l pulled my gaso-
| line glug-cart up in front of his shop TO
| stake myself to some smokes The cigar
man handed me his picks for the six races
| on that days card, and ten-case note.
| He wanted me to parlay the H-paper on his
\ six selections.
somebody else, and l leaned back in the
! hiss-drosky and spent ten minutes ex-
planning to him why I'd cut out frivolins
with other peoples money at the race
that he didn't know of anybody else going
| out to the track that afternoon. But !
| had to flag him, all the same.
| ''Wefh every one OF those six picks OF the
| cigar mans won, some Of them at any old
| odds. He got busy with a pad and pencil
! that evening after he'd seen the results,
| and figured il out that my refusal to take
| his sawbuck and bet it for him the
parlay system had cost him round one
| hundred and thirty-nine million dollars and
| a few odd cents. I'm still dealing with him,
| but I'm dead sure that he looks upon me
| as mean shine.
"A few years ago a friend Of mine, an
| old timer at the game, was driving his fast
| PAGER out from Chicago to the old Roby
| track. He had in his kick a $1,000 note
which chum of his big expressman In
| Chicago, had passed to him to bet on old
Rifle in the first race. When he was half
| way to the track his PAGER got away from
| him in shy over piece OF flying paper,
| took the iron in his molars and went off
| over the prairie at a 2.OO-fat scamper or
something pretty close to it. My friend
| was tossed into some scrub brush near the
| road, and the horse went on till the cart
was overturned, when he pulled up
MY friend picked himself up and caught
| the horse. The trap was wreck: He let
| it lie and took the horse half a mile up the
! road to roadhouse barn. He was foollng
| around in the back yard of the road house,
! after seeing to the horses care, when he
| backed into an unprotected cistern that was
| being dug. 1t was a neat backfall OF about
| ten feet but he lit on his shoes and went
yellow water. -
"'AIl of this, think, portends,' he coolly
| called up to the excited roadhouse man,
| that Rifle is going to get it where Katie
! wore the fichu. But, say, first thing of all,
| before taking any steps whatever to pry me
| out of here, send down a bucket, hltcheu 10
| a string wild you?
| "The roadhouse man did as he was asked.
| .aThe man in the cistern, who was unln-
! iured Wrigsled around when the bucket
| was let down to him. and dropped some
! thing into the bucket that looked ike
| small lump of sculptors clay.
".Pull away, Jake he said to the road