“We might just as well get to an understandin’,” said the Cap’n, not yet placated.  “I ain’t used to a dog underfoot, I don’t like a dog, and I won’t associate with a dog.  Next thing I know I’ll be makin’ a misstep onto him, and he’ll have a hunk out of me.”

“Why, my dear captain,” oozed Hector’s proprietor, “that dog is as intelligent as a man, as mild as a kitten, and a very—­”

“Don’t care if he’s writ a dictionary and nussed infants,” cried the Cap’n, slatting out his arm defiantly; “it’s him or me, here; take your choice!”

“I—­I think your dog would be all right if you let him stay down-stairs under the stand,” ventured President Kitchen, diplomatically.

“He’s a valuable animal,” demurred Mr. Bickford, “and—­” He caught the flaming eye of the Cap’n, and added:  “But if you’ll have a man sit with him he may go.

“Now we’ll settle down for a real nice afternoon,” he went on, conciliatingly.  “Let’s see:  This here is the cord that I pull to signal the horses to start, is it?”

“No, no!” expostulated President Kitchen, “you pull that bell-cord to call them back if the field isn’t bunched all right at the wire when they score down for the word.  If all the horses are in position and are all leveled, you shout ‘Go!’ and start your watch.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Bickford.

“It’s the custom,” went on the president, solicitous for the success of his strange assortment of judges, yet with heart almost failing him, “for each judge to have certain horses that he watches during the mile for breaks or fouls.  Then he places them as they come under the wire.  That is so one man won’t have too much on his mind.”

“Very, very nice!” murmured the Honorable J. Percival.  “We are here to enjoy the beautiful day and the music and the happy throngs, and we don’t want to be too much taken up with our duties.”  He pushed himself well out into view over the rail, held his new gold watch in one gloved hand, and tapped time to the band with the other.

XII

A narrow flight of rickety, dusty stairs conducted one from the dim, lower region of the little stand through an opening in the floor of the judge’s aerie.  There was a drop-door over the opening, held up by a hasp.

Now came a thumping of resolute feet on the stairs; a head projected just above the edge of the opening, and stopped there.

“President, trustees, and judges!” hailed a squeaky voice.

Cap’n Sproul recognized the speaker with an uncontrollable snort of disgust.

It was Marengo Todd, most obnoxious of all that hateful crowd of the Cap’n’s “wife’s relations”—­the man who had misused the Cap’n’s honeymoon guilelessness in order to borrow money and sell him spavined horses.

Marengo surveyed them gloomily from under a driving-cap visor huge as a sugar-scoop.  He flourished at them a grimy sheet of paper.