* * * * *

The crowd at the race track upon the opening afternoon of the fair was beginning to assume colossal proportions—­colossal, that is to say, for San Lorenzo.  Beneath the grand stand, where the pools are always sold, the motley throng surged thickest.  Jew and gentile, greaser and dude, tin-horn gamblers and tenderfeet, hayseeds and merchants, jostled each other good humouredly.  In the pool box were two men.  One —­the auctioneer—­a perfect specimen of the “sport”; a ponderous individual, brazen of face and voice, who presented to the crowd an amazing front of mottled face, diamond stud, bulging shirt sleeves, and a bull-neck encircled by a soiled eighteen-and-a-half inch paper collar.  The other gentleman, who handled the tickets, was unclean, unshorn, and cadaverous-looking, with a black cigar, unlighted, stuck aggressively into the corner of his mouth.

“Once more,” yelled the pool-selling person, in raucous tones.  “Once more, boys!  I’m sellin’ once more the half-mile dash!  I’ve one hundred dollars for Comet; how much fer second choice?  Be lively there.  Sixty dollars!!!  Go the five, five, five!  Thank ye, sir, you’re a dead game sport.  Bijou fer sixty-five dollars.  How much am I bid fer the field?”

The field sold for fifty, and the auctioneer glanced at Mr. Bobo, who shook his head and shuffled away.  Ten consecutive times he had bought pools.  Ten consecutive times Mr. Rinaldo Roberts had paid, by proxy, sixty-five dollars for the privilege of naming By-Jo as second choice to the son of Meteor.

“Fifteen hunderd,” mumbled the old man to himself.  “Five las’ night an’ ten to-day.  It’s a sure shot, that’s what it is, a sure shot.  I worked him out in fifty-one seconds.  Oh, Lord, what a clip! in fifty-one,” he repeated with his abominable chuckle, “an’ Nal’s filly has never done better than fifty-two.  Nal didn’t buy no pools.  He knows better.”

By a queer coincidence Mr. Roberts was also indulging in pleasing introspection.

“The old cuss,” he mused, “is blooded.  I’ll allow he’s blooded, but he thinks this a dead cert.  Lemme see, fifty-one an’ two make fifty-three.  No clip at all.  Gosh! what a game, what a game!  Why, there’s Mandy a-sittin’ up with Mis’ Root.  I’ll jest sashay acrost the track an’ give ’em my regards.”

Mandy was atop a red-wheeled spring wagon.  A sailor hat—­price, trimmed, forty-five cents—­overshadowed her smiling face, and a new dress cleverly fashioned out of white cheese cloth, embellished her person.  She had been watching her lover closely for upwards of an hour, but expressed superlative surprise at seeing him.

“Why, Nal,” she said demurely “this ain’t you?  You are acquainted with Mis’ Root, I guess?”

Nal removed his cap with a flourish, and Mrs. Root, a large, lymphatic, prolific female, entreated him to ascend the wagon and sit down.

“You have a horse runnin’, Mister Roberts?”