Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/150

 been too much cleaned out to telegraph him to meet them, they plunged through the three miles of dreary Jersey midnight, and cursed the inventors of railroad ties and patent leather shoes.

But they were unlucky remarkably seldom, and sometimes they did some big things. That is, Reddy did them. His round boy's face became familiar and somewhat fearful to the bookmakers. There were half a dozen followers, at Monmouth and at the other places that he frequented, who had learned that to bet as the little red-haired sport did was more efficient than rubbing the hump of a humpback.

These gentlemen dressed in huge checks, and, with large, black cigars under their large, black moustaches, used to watch for the round, freckled, smiling face, followed by the other smiling, unfreckled one. Then they would flock about the two boys and ask: "Say, do yous t'ink Jacobin can carry dat much?" "Garrison ain't to ride Petrel to-day. See?" and so on. And Reddy, who enjoyed all this, would look out over the