Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-05-22

and became pals again. as they used 10
be. Gates had been suing Madden over
stock transaction. and when they got to-
getfler in court they first grinned sheep
ishly at each other and then agreed TO
Zip the disk to see who would be the
payer of the costs.
During the litigation between these two
Q bit of testimony was presented to the
effect that Gates had won $4,000 one
day on the winning of Maddens colt,
Uncle.
Gates laughed enjoyably over that bit
of testimony and. happening to be pres
laugh.
Il am laughing over that revival of the
bet-you-a million business that was fas-
tened on to me long time ago, he re-
piled. The amount of money that L
actually won on Maddens colt was $500.
The horse was quoted at 8 to ]. and
had my betting man put down 500. That
was always about my limit in horse bet
ting-S2O0.
But every day after I'd paid visit
to a New York race track l used to pick
up the papers and find that I'd won all
the way from $4,000 TO 100000. 1t was
very distasteful reading. but | found
would have to get used to il or give up
visiting race tracks. l did the latter.
LAS a matter of fact l never have
extracted any very delirious enjoyment
from this Bet-You-a-Million nickname
that they fastened to me long while
ago The members of my family have
enjoyed it considerably less than ! have.
"In the first place, il was piece OF
pure invention About twelve years ago
I was interested in a horse that was
booked TO go in the Burns handicap at
the San Francisco races. The late
Charlie Fair had a horse in the same
race. On the day of the race / walked
over to Charlie on the lawn and l said
lxs,~ arts1 NI.Yyaex xp-ffh
you and lay you about $3.50 that my
horse beats yours in this race He took
the bet with laugh, and he won His
horse ran ahead of mine, and i paid him
the $50 On the following morning a
San Francisco paper solemnly printed the
statement that i had vociferously Of
fered TO bet Fair "a million that my
horse would finish ahead of his. 1t was
the rankest moonshine. but the thing was
taken up all over this broad, fair land.
and they've been calling me Bet-You-a-
Million Gates ever since. l wish they d
behave and stop it. but i suppose they
never will. My case In this respect is
like that of my friend Jimmy Woodruff,
the New York politician. Long, long
years ago. when Timothy was much
younger man than he now is. he used
to flash noisy waistcoat once in a
while. The cartoonists got hold of that
idea, and ever since they've been pictur-
ing Tim with idiotic fancy vests. He
hasn't worn a weskit of the fancy variety
for at least ten years that l know of;
but every time he's depicted in the news
papers heres vest on him that makes
him look to be a victim of acute mania.
TIE thing actually has damaged his po-
htical career irreparably, and yet there $
no way of having 1t stopped.
Another pure hasheesh story in which
] figure perennially has to do with a
certain poker game in which l figured al
the Waldorf some years ago. No matter
where | go. when I'm travelling about the
country, the newspaper interviewers pull
this quaint, not to say naive. ya.n. The
story runs that i was playing poker a!
the Waldorf with Charlie Schwab, jim
Keene and j. Pierpont Morgan-neither OF
the latter of whom has played poker IN