The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-22

pounder. and then the pal and did kind O stretch the limit for gladness.
 Mistake at IrgIeside.
 We pulled off a waltz around that big barn that must have been plagiarized by the Merry Wid people, and we knocked each others hats off, and did the Two Macs in their knockabout act, and wal loped each other between the shoulder blades and did the o I am so happy stuff proper, because there was Canal street in New Orleans right in front of us, and the little old French cafe in Eberville street down there, and the gang lounging around on the St. Charles leather chairs, and
 Mistaken bawled the operator just then. Mistake said he. just like that.
 There were five or six big stoves in the St. Asaph room, and it was plenty warm in there. All the same, when the key thumper pulled that mistake shriek on us the pal and l came mighty close to freezing to death right where we stood.
 That was a mistake at Ingleside.' the operator handed it to us then. right on the end of chin dimples Silver Bow gets that race from Faversham by tooth.
 That was all Our combination was busteder than a toy balloon that's leaned against a cactus.
 We heard a big bull roar of joy right behind us and there was the lout of a rummy that my pal had uppercut a-hold- ing his sides and giving us the horse hoot. He knew about our ticket and he was so overjoyed over the puncturing of the same that l thought he was going to loosen his teeth.
 Tt was then clock at night and still showing hard outside, and there wasn't any trolley train back to Washington un- til S:i5, and we didn't have any room to go to in Washington anyhow, and the stoves felt pretty good in the St. Asaph room; and so, cankered with gloom up to the necties of us, we decided to slough off the remaining $2 just for chance to double the eat com on an even-money trick running in the last race at Ingleside, called Nigrette.
 Nigrette Walked In.
 q was getting the case two-spot down on Nigrette when the big rummy who'd been on our bane for the whole afternoon lurched up to the counter and poked in a fifty-dollar bill on San Nicholas to win the same race that Nigrette was in. San Nicholas was 12 to 1 shot, and the rum my leered at me when he tucked the S600 to $50 ticket in his pocket. I hoped San Nicholas would get hit on the wishbone by a cloudburst something before he ever left the post.
 "Nigrette won the race by nothing small CT than 15 lengths, and that left the mate and I four bucks strong to get through the snowy night in Washington with, any how.
 q was, I think, the only one in the room who noticed the move. As soon as the large rum had pasted the ticket against the pillar, he got his ulster out of the check room, and slouched out into the darkness and the snow, to walk the couple of blocks to the trolley station. Then most of the gang began to thump out of the room. Few of them had played Nigrette. but a lot of them had gone to San Nicholas, which was tip.
 "I gave my pal the Nigrette ticket to cash, for I wanted some air. and went down to the trolley station through the foot-deep snow A train that didn't usu- ally stop at St. Aspah pulled up there on account of the snow, and most of the gang at the station, as many as could hang on, clambered aboard of that train.
 Among those that squeezed aboard of her was the large, globular rummy who'd pasted his San Nicholas ticket against the pillar. Just a minute or so before the S:45 trolley was due, my partner came slouchlng down tine snow path, hotter around the neckband than I'd ever seen him before.
 "'what dye thinlk?' he growled at me. They disqualified that Nigrette cheese for interfering with the bunch at the start and they've handed the race to San Nicholas that finished second. Now we're the brace of buns sure enough.
 T started back over the snow to the room at q canter.
 Lifted the Big Ticket.
 "'Wait for me-don't take the train I cheeped back to my mate I'll be back directly and away I shot.
 "Ill bet l did the furlong to the room in Colin time. I figured there was $50 bucks hanging on my speed, for I didn't know but what some dub might pick the pasted ticket off the pillar out of curl osity or that 1t might fall down and be swept out by the cleaners or something.
 "The pool room folks, fixing up their sheets were still back of the counter. There was a lump in my throat the size of a hard young cabbage when I tiptoed through the door and skated quietly over to that pillar.
 Yep, there was the San Mich olas ticket still sticking to the side of the pillar.
 "Is that last race confirmed yetT I asked 'em behind the counter.
 "Yes,' said Lew Bargen, the boss. but we'll pay off on that tomorrow, because all of the gang that played San Nicholas have ducked.'
 You'll pay me off now, chum, be- cause I've got a train for Denver to catch in two hours I bluffed at Bar gen, and after little chaw about 1t, the money boxes having been locked, he drag gged out six centuries and a fifty and took my San Nicholas ticket and tore off the corner of it-and the was I, all filtered up with the dust, and with no more compunction about that way of getting hunk with the rummy than I would have, a few hours later, about eating couple of bushels of steamed oysters at Harvey's.
 "The pal wouldn't believe that he wasn't dreaming when I trudged back to the trolley station through the snow. found him huddled up on a bench, all of the rest of the gang having taken the S:45 train and flashed the ochre slips on him. He told me that we were both raving over the bad break we'd been getting, and that probably when we woke up we'd find that we'd been pinched for macing somebody with a piece of gaspipe.
 We had to wait two hours in the bleak, unwarmed station for another train to Washington, but we were warm enough when we made Washing ton, and the sun was on the job all right enough when we fooled into New Orleans two days later with the tinsel on. That's how I went broke $50 bones' worth once in pool room, and I sup pose that was kind of a lonesome and monotonous finish to a snowy day near the Potomac-what"