Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-28
CHAPTER III.

kdlelQOScOplc Gays that followed, Durkln
| found himself drawing aside to ask II, after
all, he were not living some restless dream
| In which all things hung tenuous and in
substantial. The fine linen and luxury of
life were SO new to him that in itself 1t half
intoxicated; yet, outside the mere ventral
pleasures Of existence, with its good dinners
IN quiet cafes Of gold and glass and muffiing
carpets. it's visits to rustling, dmly lighted
theaters. it's drives about the open city. its
ever-mingled odors of Havana and cut flow
ers-there was the keener and more pene-
trating happiness of listening to the soft
English voice Of what seemed to him a be-
wilderingly beautiful woman.
She was that, at least to him: and Durkn
was content to let the world think what 1t
liked. He found work to be done, 1t is
true-rigorous and exacting work while 1t
lasted, when the appointed days for holding
up Penfeld's dispatches came around. But
the danger Of 1t all, for some reason, never
entered his mind. as he sat over his instru-
ment. reading off the horses to the woman
at his side, who. in turn. repeated them
over the telephones, in cipher, to MacNutt
and Mackenzie; and then, when the time
allowance had elapsed, cutting in once more
and sending on the intercepted dispatches
even Initiating to nicely the slip-shod, err
ratio volubility Of Corcoran's blind send "
Once only did disturbing incident tend to
rufi1e the quiet waters of Durkin's strange
contentment. 1t was one afternoon when
Mackenzie had been sent in to make a re-
port. and had noticed certain things to
which he did not take kindly, Durkin
thought.
I'm not saying anything" he blurted out
when they were alone, but don't you let
that woman make fool of your
You shut up about that woman!' re-
torted Durkin, holly. Then. imagining he
saw some second and deeper meaning In
the others words, he caught him by the
lapel Of the vest and held him against the
wall.
You are saying something you hound!
What do you mean by that, anyway" he
the wall could see that a word would bring
the onslaught, but he was used to trouble
Of that sort, and many a keener menace.
So he only laughed contemptuously, with
his shoulders up, as he pulled the others
fingers from his throat
You ID lobster, your he said, going
off on the safer tack of amiable profanity.
Then feeling himself free once more his old
bitter audacity proclaimed itself.
You fool you, don't you know that
woman's been"
But here the entrance Of the girl herself
put a stop to his speech. Yet, troubled in
uation left him, Durkin breathed no word to
the girl herself Of what had taken place.
imperiously as she demanded to know what
Mackenzie had been saying.
On the day following, as MacNutt had ar
ranged the two paid their first visit to PEN
fields lower house, from which Durkin car
ri0d away confused memories of square,
jawed doorkeeper-who passed him, readily
enough, at a word from the grl-of we'll
dressed men and overdressed women crowd
ed about sroke-wrea thed, gas-lit room.
one side Of which was taken up with a
blackboard on which attendants were fe-
verishly chalking down entries, Jockeys,
weights and Odds while on the other side
of the room opened the receiving anu pay
ing teller's little windows through which
now and then he saw hurrying clerks; of
Iaff4 in C1 vxyhi ol,
appeared with their money through the
mysterious pigeon-hole in the wall; of the
excited comments as the announcer called
the different phases and facts Of the races,
crying dramatically when the horses were
at the post, when they were off, when one
horse led and when another; when the win
ner passed under the wire; of the long,
wearing wait while the jockeys were weigh
ing in, and of the posting of the official re-
turns, while the lucky ones-faded> beauties
with cigarette-stained fingers. lean and
cadaverous-l looking 'habituals," stout and
flashy-looking professionals girlish and in
nocent-ooking young women. heavy dow
ayers respondent in their morning dia-
monds-gathered jubilantly at the window
for their money The vaster army of the
unlucky on the other hand, dropped for
lorniy away, or fingered for still another
plunge.
Durkin found it hard, during each of these
brief visits. to get used to the new order of
things. Such light-f1ngered handling of
what, to his eyes, seemed great fortunes.
unstrung and bewildered him. He had
never believed the newspaper story that
when the district attorneys men had broken
open a gambling-house safe a few months
before they had found deposited there
roll of greenbacks amounting to over three
quarters of million dollars. That story
the loss Of even a hundred dollars
horse although not his own money, in some
way depressed him for the day. Frances
Gambler picked her winners, however. with
ND dali 70 clxi md nflch
they bet freely, it was not often that their
losses, in the end, were heavy.
She had no love for this part of the work;
and in this Durkin heartily agreed with her.
1.-The more know of track-racing and its
army of hangers-on," he declared to her,
1.-The more I hate 1t, and everything about
1t! They say there are over fifty thousand
men in the business, altogether-and you
may have noticed how they all-the owners
and the bigger men, mean-dilate on their
purpose of improving the breed~of the thor
oughbred'-but to my mind, It's to improve
the breed of rascality!"
He noted her habitual little head-shake as
she started to speak.
Eyes, I think more unhappiness, more
wrecked lives and characters, more thieves
and criminals, really come from the race
track than from all the other evils in your
country. It's not the racing itself and the
spectacular way of your idle rich for vast
way what you call the smaller fry cluster
about 1t, SO cruelty and mercilessly on the
make as they put it, and infect the rest
of the more honest world with their dis
eased lust for gain without toll. l have
watched them and seen them. 1t is deadly:
1t STILES every last shred of good out of
themi And then the stewards an. the
jockey clubs themselves try to hide the
shameful conditions of things, and drape
and hang their veil of lies and hypocrisy
and moral debauchery over these buzzing
clouds of parasites; and SO it goes on! For,
indeed. I know them,' she ended, bitterly,
"Oh. know them well!'
Durkin thought of the four great circuits,
eastern, southern, western and Pacific SLOPE
Of the huge and complicated ana mys-
teriously half-hidden gambling machinery
close beside each great center of American
population. New York and Washington, Chi
cago and st. Louis. Memphis and New Or
leans. where duplicity and greed daily con-
gregate, where horses go round and round
In their killing and spectacular short-speed
bursts, and money flashes and passes back
and forth. and portly owners sit back and
talk of the royal sport, as they did, Durkin
told himself, in the days Of Tyre and Rome.
But day by day, with the waning afternoon,
the machinery comes to a stop. the sac
r1f1cial tWO-year-OldS are blanketed and