The Man Who Could Not Lose | Page 8

must consider now is how we can grow rich quick, and
the quicker and richer, the better. Pawning our clothes, or what's left of
them, is bad economics. There's no use considering how to live from
meal to meal. We must evolve something big, picturesque, that will

bring a fortune. You have imagination; I'm supposed to have
imagination, we must think of a plan to get money, much money. I do
not insist on our plan being dignified, or even outwardly respectable; so
long as it keeps you alive, it may be as desperate as--"
"I see!" cried Dolly; "like sending mother Black Hand letters!"
"Blackmail----" began that lady's son-in-law doubtfully.
"Or!" cried Dolly, "we might kidnap Mr. Carnegie when he's walking
in the park alone, and hold him for ransom. Or"--she rushed on-- "we
might forge a codicil to father's will, and make it say if mother
shouldn't like the man I want to marry, all of father's fortune must go to
my husband!"
"Forgery," exclaimed Champneys, "is going further than I----"
"And another plan," interrupted Dolly," that I have always had in mind,
is to issue a cheaper edition of your book, 'The Dead Heat.' The reason
the first edition of 'The Dead Heat' didn't sell----"
"Don't tell ME why it didn't sell," said Champneys. "I wrote it!"
"That book," declared Dolly loyally, "was never properly advertised.
No one knew about it, so no one bought it!"
"Eleven people bought it!" corrected the author.
"We will put it in a paper cover and sell it for fifty cents," cried Dolly. "
It's the best detective story I ever read, and people have got to know it
is the best. So we'll advertise it like a breakfast food."
"The idea," interrupted Champneys, "is to make money, not throw it
away. Besides, we haven't any to throw away. Dolly sighed bitterly.
"If only," she exclaimed, "we had that three thousand dollars back
again! I'd save SO carefully. It was all my fault. The races took it, but it
was I took you to the races."

"No one ever had to drag ME to the races," said Carter. " It was the
way we went that was extravagant. Automobiles by the hour standing
idle, and a box each day, and----"
"And always backing Dromedary," suggested Dolly. Carter was
touched on a sensitive spot. "That horse," he protested loudly, "is a
mighty good horse. Some day----"
"That's what you always said," remarked Dolly, "but he never seems to
have his day."
"It's strange," said Champneys consciously. "I dreamed of Dromedary
only last night. Same dream over and over again." Hastily he changed
the subject.
"For some reason I don't sleep well. I don't know why."
Dolly looked at him with all the love in her eyes of a mother over her
ailing infant.
"It's worrying over me, and the heat,"' she said. "And the garage next
door, and the skyscraper going up across the street, might have
something to do with it. And YOU," she mocked tenderly, "wanted to
send me to the sea-shore."
Carter was frowning. As though about to speak, he opened his lips, and
then laughed embarrassedly.
"Out with it," said Dolly, with an encouraging smile. "Did he win?"
Seeing she had read what was in his mind, Carter leaned forward
eagerly. The ruling passion and a touch of superstition held him in their
grip.
"He 'win' each time," he whispered. "I saw it as plain as I see you. Each
time he came up with a rush just at the same place, just as they entered
the stretch, and each time he won!" He slapped his hand disdainfully
upon the dirty bills before him. "If I had a hundred dollars!"

There was a knock at the door, and Carter opened it to the elevator boy
with the morning mail. The letters, save one, Carter dropped upon the
table. That one, with clumsy fingers, he tore open. He exclaimed
breathlessly: "It's from PLYMPTON'S MAGAZINE! Maybe--I've sold
a story!" He gave a cry almost of alarm. His voice was as solemn as
though the letter had announced a death.
"Dolly," he whispered, "it's a check--a check for a HUNDRED
DOLLARS!"
Guiltily, the two young people looked at each other.
"We've GOT to!" breathed Dolly. "GOT to! If we let TWO signs like
that pass, we'd be flying in the face of Providence."
With her hands gripping the arms of her chair, she leaned forward, her
eyes staring into space, her lips moving.
"COME ON, you Dromedary!" she whispered.
They changed the check into five and ten dollar bills, and, as Carter
was far too excited to work, made an absurdly early start for the
race-track.
"We might as well get all the fresh air we can," said Dolly. "That's all
we will get!"