Evening star., 1907-05-26

I had an armful of dope charts that couldn
| have weighed less than seventeen pounds
and a quarter, and he had line Of that
| it-cant-lose gas that would have burned
in an air-tight. covered-over cistern.
"'This Martinmas thing, fellers, he gur-
| gled. with pathetic eagerness, to the men
| whose ear he had been feverishly attempt
ing to gain for hours, will tin-can He
can run off and hide from them hawsses
! He used to have the worlds record fr six
| and half furlongs. l know ne ninety
| seven years old and all that, but he'll only
hit the ground four times in coping this
! race. Fellers, it's in. Leave 1t to me- 1t 8
done in. Go to it.
1.-The half-dozen hard-looking men to
addressing himself were skeptical people, all
| right, but the hard-lucker with the stack
| Of heavy dope was SO doggedly In earnest
them finally grunted that they'd look 1t
over when the figures came in, If the price
should be right
We'll, old Martinmas-a good ,old used
| to-was that nevertheless gets something
occasionally-came over the wire the punk
| outsider in the field of really good sprint
| ers. He was chalked up at 1o and 3, and
| one by one the craggy-looking clients OF
! the new tout edged up to the counter and
| took the Martinmas end of 1t, all of them
slapping twenty each way on it.
This pool room was on the second hOOr
| over an immense saloon-honka-tonk. and
| the tout was standing at one of the front
| windows in order to get enough of the light
Of the declining day to run over his dope
sheets.
Looked Dark for the Tout.
| when the operator announced post time
| for that last race, the half dozen men who
| had gone to Martinmas on the new tout 8
| say-so silently formed Gordon around him.
They had exchanged glances, and their
glances didn't portend any good for that
tout in case the Martnmas hopper failed
to connect with some part of the change.
| "Then they were off at San Francisco,
| and the operator started to drone the race.
AS he called it. Judge, the favorite, led all
| the way to the stretch, with Cabin second
| and Reservation third.
| when the operator got the field into the
| stretch that way, one of the touts clients
suddenly reached out and hoisted the sec
| ond-story window overlooking a messy
| looking board sidewalk that had sprin-
king of belated snow on it.
| Another of the tout's clients suddenly
| grabbed the unfortunate chap by the
| scruff of his coat and another loose por-
| ton of his apparel, and stood waiting for
| the operators final call-off of the result
| of the race with Martinmas presumably
| left out, before incontinently chucking the
| poor devil of a tout out of the window.
| 1.-The tout looked 80 much like q mon
grel street dog rounded up by the pound
| masters helpers that 1 sure felt sorry
| for him.
And Martinmas Won.
| Wits, SoHlelnlHB
by four lengths" sung out the telegrapher
| The huge miner who had hold of the
tout suddenly let go of the man, while his
chops wreathed into broad grin. All OF
the rest of them were grnning nightly,
| too.
'"Then, each and all Of them consignine
| themselves to eternal torment in the deep.
most pits of Gehenna for bull-headed luck.
nailers, they escorted the tout up to the
| bar and shot cold quart of the wealthy
water of France into his system. Then
when the confirmation had come in and
they had collected, they took the tout out
and bought him a complete outfit of toe
gear, from underwear out to ulster, anC
| each man skinned a 800 from his wac
J and pushed it over to the packer of the
| dope sheets.
'"rhe tout had run his stake up to 5000
| at one of the faro tables before night fel
down hard on Goldfield, and l looked
| him over that night, clean and nobby
pink and shaved, and everything breaking
| just right for him, 1 couldn't help but con
trast the way the game would have beer
| going for him if he had missed his pure
| guess, and If old Martinmas had neglected
to fetch home at least little piece of the
kale at Oakland"