"Broke," replied Wallingford briefly. "They cleaned me. Got any money?"
Mr. Daw opened the top drawer of his desk, and it proved to be nearly full of bills, thrown loosely in, with no attempt at order or sorting.
"Money"s the cheapest thing in Boston," he announced, waving his hand carelessly over the contents of the drawer. "Help yourself, old man.
The New York mail will bring in plenty more. They"ve had two winners there this week, and when it does fall for anything, N"Yawk"s the biggest yap town on earth."
Wallingford, having drawn up a chair with alacrity, was already sorting bills, smoothing them out and counting them off in hundreds.
"And all on pure charity--picking out winning horses for your customers!" laughed Wallingford. "This is a real gold mine you"ve hit at last."
"Pretty good," agreed Blackie. "I"d have enough to start a mint of my own if I didn"t lose so much playing the races."
"You don"t play your own tips, I hope," expostulated Wallingford, pausing to inspect a tattered bill.
"I should say not," returned Daw with emphasis. "If I did that I"d have to play every horse in every race. You see, every day I wire the name of one horse to all my subscribers in Philadelphia, another to Baltimore, another to Washington, and so on down the list. One of those horses has to win. Suppose I pick out the horse Roller Skate for Philadelphia. Well, if Roller skates home that day I advertise in the Philadelphia papers the next morning, and, besides that, every fall-easy that got the tip advertises me to some of his friends, and they all spike themselves to send in money for the dope. Oh, it"s a great game, all right."
"It"s got yegging frazzled to a pulp," agreed Wallingford. "But I oughtn"t to yell police. I got the lucky word my first time out. I played Razzoo and cleaned up six thousand dollars on the strength of your wire."
"Go on!" returned Blackie delightedly. "You don"t mean to say you"re sorting some of your own money there?"
"I sure am," laughed Wallingford, picking up a five-dollar bill. "I think this must be it. What"s the New York horse to-day?"
Blackie consulted a list that lay on his desk.
"Whipsaw," he said.
"Whipsaw! By George, Blackie, if there"s any one thing I"d like to do, it"d be to whipsaw some friends of yours on Broadway." Whereupon he told Blackie, with much picturesque embellishment, just how Messrs.
Phelps, Teller, Banting and Pickins had managed to annex the Razzoo money.
Blackie enjoyed that recital very much.
"The Broadway Syndicate is still on the job," he commented. "Well, J.
Rufus, let this teach you how to take a joke next time."
"I"m not saying a word," replied Wallingford. "Any time I let a kindergarten crowd like that work a trick on me that was invented right after Noah discovered spoiled grape juice, I owe myself a month in jail. But watch me. I"ll make moccasins out of their hides, all right."
"Go right ahead, old man, and see if I care," consented Blackie.
"Slam the harpoon into them and twist it."
"I will," a.s.serted Wallingford confidently. "I don"t like them because they"re grouches; I don"t like them because they"re cheap; I don"t like their names, nor their faces, nor the town they live in. Making money in New York"s too much like sixteen hungry bulldogs to one bone.
The best dog gets it, but he finishes too weak for an appet.i.te. What kind of a horse is this Whipsaw you"re sending out to-day?"
"I don"t know. Where"s the dope on Whipsaw, Tillie?"
A girl with a freckled face and a keen eye and a saucy air went over to the filing-case and searched out a piece of cardboard a foot square. Blackie glanced over it with an experienced eye.
"Maiden," said he; "been in four races, and the best he ever did was fourth in a bunch of goats that only ambled all the way around the track because that was the only way they could get back to the stable."
The mail carrier just then came in with a huge bundle of letters.
"New York mail," observed Blackie. "After that Razzoo thing it ought to be rich pickings."
"Pickings!" exclaimed J. Rufus, struck by a sudden idea. "See if Pickins or Teller or any of that crowd have contributed. Pickins said they were going to try it out, just to see if lightning could really strike twice in the same place."
Blackie wrote a number of names on a slip of paper and handed it to Tillie.
"Look for these names in the mail," he directed, "and if a subscription comes in from any one of them let me know it."
Wallingford had idly picked up the card containing Whipsaw"s record.
It was a most accurate typewritten sheet, giving age, pedigree, description and detailed action in every race; but the point that caught Wallingford"s eye was the name of the owner.
"One of Jake Block"s horses, by George!" he said, and fell into silent musing from which he was interrupted by the girl, who was laughing.
"Here"s your party," she said to Blackie, handing him an envelope.
"This twenty"s in it, and I think it"s bad money."
Blackie pa.s.sed the bill to Wallingford, who slipped it through experienced fingers.
"You couldn"t pa.s.s this one on an organ-grinder"s monkey," he said, chuckling. "But that"s all right; just put "em on the wiring-list, anyhow. Make "em lose their money. It"s the only way you can get even."
The girl looked to Blackie for instructions, and he nodded his head.
"Who sent it?" asked Wallingford idly.
"Peters is the name signed here," replied Blackie. "That means Harry Phelps. I gave Tillie all the aliases this bunch of crimples carry around with them, knowing they"d probably send it in that way."
Wallingford nodded comprehendingly.
"They"d rather do even the square thing crooked. Well, you know what to do."
"I"ll send them special picks," declared Blackie with a grin. "Nothing but a list of crabs that would come in third in a two-horse race. But come on outside; we"re too far from cracked ice," and grabbing an uncounted handful of bills from the drawer of his desk, Blackie stuffed them in his pocket and led the way out.
It was at luncheon that Blackie made his first protest.
"What"s the matter with you, J. Rufus?" he demanded. "I never saw you insult food and drink before."
"I"m thinking," returned Wallingford solemnly. "I hate to do it, for it interferes with my appet.i.te; but here"s a case where I must. I have got to put one over on that Broadway bunch or lose my self-respect."
That evening, on the way down to the boat, their feet c.o.c.ked comfortably on the opposite seat of a cab, Wallingford formulated a more or less vague plan.
"Tell you what you do, Blackie," he directed; "you send to Phelps and to me, until I give you the word, a daily tip on sure losers. In the meantime, bank all your money, and don"t make a bet on any race."
"What are you going to do?" asked Blackie curiously.
"Land a sure winner for us and a loser for the Broadway Syndicate.
Hold yourself ready when I wire you to take a quick train for my hotel, loaded down with all the money you can grab together."
"Fine!" returned Blackie. "You wire me that it"s all fixed, and when I start for New York there"ll be a financial stringency in Boston."