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had to fall for the spiel and
loaned him the Bubble forthwith.
Ten minutes later we were so busy listening to the sure-things falling
from the eager tongues of the various friends we met that we quite
forgot all about Flash and the busy barouche.
The first cinch-builder we fell over was Harry McDonough, the
inventor of the stingless mosquito now in use on his Jersey farm.

Harry has the mosquito game down so fine that he's going to take a
double sextette of them into vaudeville next season.
He has trained these twelve skeets to sing "Zobia Grassa," and Al
Holbrook has promised to teach them a Venetian dances.
Harry offered us four winners in the first race and two cigars. He told
us if we lost to smoke the cigars carefully and we'd forget our troubles
and our names; but if we won we could use the cigars as firecrackers.
Then we ran across Jeff D'Angelis, the composer of the new tune now
played on the automobile horns.
Jeff hadn't picked out a horse to win any race because his loyalty to
sneeze-wagons is so intense that he won't even drink a horse's neck.
He explained that he only came to the race track to show the horses his
smoke-buggy and make them shiver.
George Yates, the inventor of the machinery for removing sunburn
from pickles, was there and he tried to present us with a sure winner in
the third race.
A little later on we discovered that the horse Yates was doing a rave
over had been dead for four years and that the card from which he was
lifting his dope was the program of the meet at Sheepshead in 1896.
Some kind and thoughtful stranger had lifted fifty cent| from George's
surplus and in return had stung him with an ancient echo of the
pittypats.
Our next adventure was with Joe Miron, the famous horse trainer and
inventor of the only blue mare in captivity at Elmhurst.
"Say, why didn't I see you guys before the first race; I had a
plush-covered pipe!" yelled Joe.
"I had that race beat to a stage wait," Joe went on, enthusiastically.
"Why, all you had to do was play 'The Goblin Man' to win and

'Murderallo' for a place--it was just like getting money from the patent
medicine business."
"How much did you win, Joe?" I inquired.
"Who, me!" Joe came back. "Why I didn't get here in time to place a
bet. I drove over from Elmhurst and the blue mare burst a tire. But, say,
I've got a mother's darling in the third race! Oh, it's a ladybug for
certain! You guys play 'Perhaps' to win and you'll go home looking like
Pierp Morgan after a busy day. It can't lose, this clam can't! Say, that
horse 'Perhaps' wears gold-plated overshoes and it can kick more track
behind it than any ostrich you ever see! Why,| it's got ball-bearing
castors on the feet and it wears a naphtha engine in the forward turret.
Get reckless with the coin, boys, and go the limit, and if the track
happens to cave in and it does lose, I'll drag you down to Elmhurst
behind the blue mare and make the suction pump in the backyard do an
imitation of Walter Jones singing 'Captain Kidd' with the bum pipes."
Joe was so much in earnest about it that Bunch and I put up fifty on
"Perhaps" and waited.
We are still waiting.
"Perhaps" may have been a good horse but he had a bad memory and
never could recollect which end of the track was the proper place to
finish.
Joe must have left for Elmhurst immediately after the race because he
failed to answer roll call.
Then we ran across Dave Torrence, the famous inventor of the
disappearing trump so much used by pinochle players.
When Dave began to dope 'em out for us Bunch and I hid our
pocketbooks in our shoes.
"Here's a good one," Dave suggested; "listen to this 'Easy Money' out
of 'Life Insurance' by 'Director.' And here's a good one, 'Chauffeur' out

of 'Automobile' by 'Policeman!' Do you care for those?"
There were tears in Bunch's eyes, but I was busy looking for a rock.
"Here are some more peacherinos," Dave went on, relentlessly, "here is
'Golf Player' out of 'Business' by 'Mosquito,' and here's another good
one, 'Eternal Daylights' out of 'Russia' by 'Japan'--like 'em?"
Bunch and I handed Dave the reproachful face and fled for our lives.
Then we got down to business and began to lose our money with more
system and less noise.
At the end of the fifth race we hadn't the price of a leather sandwich
between us.
Every dog we had mentioned to the Bookies proved to be