Old Man Curry, watching at the paddock gate, thrust his hands under the tails of his rusty frock coat and smiled.
"'A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again!'" he quoted softly. "And the wicked: well, they'll have a mighty lame hoss on their hands, I reckon."
Mose began checking Elijah, several lengths in front of the wire.
"Don't go bustin' a lung, hawss," said he. "Might need it again. You winnin' by a mile. A-a-a mile. Sol'mun was right, but maybe he wouldn't have been if I hadn't done some risin' up myse'f this mawnin'! Whoa, hawss! This where they pay off! We th'oo faw the day!"
Old Man Curry was striding down the track from the judges' stand when he met a large man whose face was purple and his language purple also.
"Man, don't talk like that!" said Curry reprovingly. "And ca'm down or you'll bust an artery. You can't win all the time: that's what you told me."
Johnson sputtered like a damp Roman candle, but a portion of his remarks were intelligible.
"Oh, Zanzibar?" said Old Man Curry. "He's a right nice colt. He ought to be. He pretty nigh run the legs off my 'Lisha this mornin'."
"Wha—what's that?"