"See here, nigger!" said Pitkin, "I let you have first pick, didn't I? Gave you all the best of it, and you picked this colt here. If you've changed your mind overnight, I can't help that, can I?"
"My mind ain't changed none," replied old Gabe, "but this colt, he's changed, suh."
"Who would change him on you, eh? Do you think I'd do it? Is that what you're getting at?"
"Why—why, no suh, no, but——"
"Then shut up! You're always beefing about something or other, always kicking! I don't want to hear any more out of you, understand? Shut up!"
"Yes, suh," answered old Gabe, touching his hat, "all the same I got a right to my opinion, boss."
Whatever his opinion, Gabe proceeded to train the two colts in the usual manner, and before long it was plain to everyone connected with the Pitkin establishment that the striking likeness did not extend to track promise and performance. Sergeant Smith developed into a high-class piece of racing property; General Duval was not worth his oats. Sergeant Smith won some baby races in impressive fashion and was immediately tabbed as a comer and a useful betting tool, but every time General Duval carried the racing colours of Gabriel Johnson—cherry jacket, green sleeves, red, white and blue cap—he brought them home powdered with the dust of defeat.
Old Gabe made several ineffectual attempts to persuade Pitkin to take the colt back again on any terms, and was laughed at for his pains.
"You had your choice, didn't you?" Pitkin would say. "Well, then, you can't blame anybody but yourself. Whose fault is it that I got the good colt and you got the crab? No, Gabe, a bargain's a bargain with me, always. The General's a rotten bad race horse, but he's yours and not mine. It's what you get for being a poor picker."
The bay colts were nearing the end of their three-year-old form when the Pitkin string arrived on the Jungle Circuit and took up quarters next door to Old Man Curry and his "Bible horses." Sergeant Smith was the star of the stable and the principal money winner, when it suited Pitkin to let him run for the money, while General Duval, as like his half brother as a reflection in a flawless mirror, had a string of defeats to his discredit and his feed bill was breaking old Gabe's heart. The trainer often looked at General Duval and shook his head.