“Must be a-gittin’ blind!  Where?”

“The feller all dressed up an’ walkin’ with the lady.  Sure it is!  Hi, Curly, hel-lo!  It’s Babe.  Well, ain’t I glad — "

The woman with Curly fixed Babe with a stony glare.  “If you wish to converse with this ... woman, kindly do so when your wife is not accompanying you,” she said to him in an angry undertone, and went majestically on.

“I’ll come back, Babe.  We’ve been married just a month and she doesn’t understand.  I’ll be back later,” and he hurried off.

“Bet, did you see who that was with Curly?  His wife, he said.”

“Aw-w, Babe, don’t you fret!  I guess we fill our little place out here in Californy near as much as some o’ the fine ladies do.”

“I didn’t care.  No, I was thinkin’ that the ways o’ the Lord are curi-us.  That lady used to be married to George Spellman.”

“An’ Curly shot him, down at Sonora, last year!”

“Ye-aw.”

“Well, I’ll be — .”

The Race of the Shoestring Gamblers

VIII

“Judge not too idly that our toils are mean,
Though no new levies marshall on our green;
Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small,
Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall.”

- Bret Harte.

If dancing was the first form of amusement to emanate from prehistoric savagery, then racing must surely have come next.  It may possibly have come first.  However, we shall leave the “theorizin"’ to be settled by the lips of the first mummy whose centuries-old tissues shall be roused to full life by modern science.  What has science not achieved?  We have gone beyond wonder.  We can only believe, and become blase!

Meantime there is still enough red blood in the modern effete productions of humans to enjoy a contest of stress and strain, and brain and brawn, and to gamble upon the outcome.

In the ’49 days, racing was one of the most popular forms of chance, and it often reverted in bizarre tangents.  This, then, is what happened at a golden fiesta during the week of races: 

“Sweet Lady, are all my importunities to be in vain?”

“I must confess that I can not bring my mind to a decision, Mr. Saul,” answered Mistress Patty Laughton, blushing and curtsying prettily.

“It is surely not for your lack of worldly goods that you hesitate,” persisted Slick-heels Saul.  “As for what your father is owing me, it shall, at the moment of your acceptance, be wiped entirely from the books.”

Patty was incensed at the hint of insolence in the gambler’s allusion to her improvident father’s financial condition.

“Believe me, Mr. Saul,” she said, with spirit, “no ulterior motive for worldly advancement has the power to coerce my afflections.”

“But you will consider my proposition of marriage?”