You Never Know Your Luck | Page 9

all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing
which ever infested the West. Come--he come like that!"--Deely made
a motion like a swoop of an aeroplane to earth--"and here he is buckin'
about like a rough-neck same as you and me; but yet a gent, a swell, a
cream della cream, that's turned his back on a lady--a lady not his own
wife, that's my sure and sacred belief."
"You certainly have got women on the brain," retorted Sibley. "I ain't
ever seen such a man as you. There never was a woman crossing the
street on a muddy day that you didn't sprint to get a look at her ankles.
Behind everything you see a woman. Horses is your profession, but
woman is your practice."
"There ain't but one thing worth livin' for, and that's a woman,"
remarked Deely.
"Do you tell Mrs. Deely that?" asked Sibley.
"Watch me now, she knows. What woman is there don't know when
her husband is what he is! And it's how I know that the trouble with
James Gathorne Kerry is a woman. I know the signs. Divils me own,
he's got 'em in his face."

"He's got in his face what don't belong here and what you don't know
much about--never having kept company with that sort," rejoined
Sibley.
"The way he lives and talks--'No, thank you, I don't care for anny
thing,' says he, when you're standin' at the door of a friendly saloon,
which is established by law to bespeak peace and goodwill towards
men, and you ask him pleasant to step inside. He don't seem to have a
single vice. Haven't we tried him? There was Belle Bingley, all frizzy
hair and a kicker; we put her on to him. But he give her ten dollars to
buy a hat on condition she behaved like a lady in the future--smilin' at
her, the divil! And Belle, with temper like dinnemite, took it kneelin' as
it were, and smiled back at him--her! Drink, women--nothin' seems to
have a hold on him. What's his vice? Sure, then, that's what I say,
what's his vice? He's got to have one; anny man as is a man has to have
one vice."
"Bosh! Look at me," rejoined Sibley. "Drink women--nit! Not for me!
I've got no vice. I don't even smoke."
"No vice? Begobs, yours has got you like a tire on a wheel! Vice--what
do you call gamblin'? It's the biggest vice ever tuk grip of a man. It's
like a fever, and it's got you, John, like the nail on your finger."
"Well, p'r'aps, he's got that vice too. P'r'aps J. G. Kerry's got that vice
same as me."
"Annyhow, we'll get to know all we want when he goes into the
witness box at the Logan murder trial next week. That's what I'm
waitin' for, "Deely returned, with a grin of anticipation. "That
drug-eating Gus Burlingame's got a grudge against him somehow, and
when a lawyer's got a grudge against you it's just as well to look where
y' are goin'. Burlingame don't care what he does to get his way in court.
What set him against Kerry I ain't sure, but, bedad, I think it's looks.
Burlingame goes in for lookin' like a picture in a frame--gold seals
hangin' beyant his vestpocket, broad silk cord to his eye-glass, loose
flowin' tie, and long hair-makes him look pretentuous and showy. But
your 'Mr. Kerry, sir,' he don't have anny tricks to make him look like a

doge from Veenis and all the eyes of the females battin' where'er he
goes. Jealousy, John Sibley, me boy, is a cruil thing."
"Why is it you ain't jealous of him? There's plenty of women that watch
you go down-town--you got a name for it, anyway," remarked Sibley
maliciously.
Deely nodded sagely. "Watch me now, that's right, me boy. I got a
name for it, but I want the game without the name, and that's why I ain't
puttin' on anny airs--none at all. I depend on me tongue, not on me
looks, which goes against me. I like Mr. J. G. Kerry. I've plenty dealin's
with him, naturally, both of us being in the horse business, and I say
he's right as a minted dollar as he goes now. Also, and behold, I'd take
my oath he never done annything to blush for. His touble's been a
woman--wayward woman what stoops to folly! I give up tryin' to pump
him just as soon as I made up my mind it was a woman. That shuts a
man's mouth like a poor-box.
"Next week's fixed for the Logan killin' case, is it?"
"Monday comin', for sure. I wouldn't like to be in Mr. Kerry's shoes.
Watch me now, if he gives the, evidence they