"Because Henry was watching both of us," was the reply. "And, speaking of Henry, it was you told me the sons of Belial had gone into the spy business, so I p'tected your interests the best I could. Here's a little ticket calling for quite a mess of money. It's on the Abe Goldmark's book, and I didn't cash it because I wanted you to have a chance to laugh at him when he pays off. Last I seen of him he was sore but solvent."
THE LAST CHANCE
It was the Bald-faced Kid who christened him Little Calamity because, as he explained, Jockey Gillis was a sniffling, whining, half portion of hard luck and a disgrace to the disreputable profession of touting. "Every season," said the Bald-faced Kid, "is a tough season for a guy like that. He carries his hard luck with him. He's cockeyed something awful; his face was put on upside down; you can't tell whether he's looking you in the eye or watching out for a policeman, and drunks shy clear across the betting ring to get away from him. That's the tip-off; when a souse won't listen to your gentle voice, it's time to change your system of approach. This Little Calamity person has only got one thing in his favour, and that's an honest face; he looks like a thief, and, by golly, he is one. He couldn't sell a twenty-dollar gold piece for a dime or make a sucker put down a bet with the winning numbers already hanging on the board in front of him. They all give him the once over and holler for the police. And as for his riding, he's about as much help to a horse as a fine case of the heaves. I'm darned if I know how he manages to live!"
Little Calamity sometimes wondered about this himself. Of course there were the rare occasions when he was able to persuade a weak-minded owner to give him a mount on a hopeless outsider or a horse entered only for the sake of the workout, but the five-dollar jockey fees were few and far between. They could not be stretched to cover the intervening periods, so Little Calamity did his best to be a petty larcenist with indifferent success.
He infested the betting ring with a persistence almost pitiful, but he had neither the appearance nor the manner which begets confidence in unlikely tales, and in his mouth the truth itself sounded like a fabrication. He was a willing but an unconvincing liar, and the few who lingered long enough to listen to his clumsy attempts went away smiling.
Little Calamity was nearer thirty than twenty, wrinkled and weazened and bow-legged. Worse than everything else, he was cross-eyed. The direct and compelling gaze is an absolute necessity in the touting business because the average man believes that the liar will be unable to look him in the eye. Little Calamity could not look any man in the eye without first undergoing a surgical operation. He had few acquaintances and no friends; he ate when he could slept where he could, and life to him was just a continued hard-luck story.
Imagine, then, the incredulous amazement of the Bald-faced Kid when Old Man Curry informed him that Jockey Gillis had secured steady employment.
"That shrimp?" said the Kid. "Why, if he had the ice-water privilege in hell he'd starve to death!"