“Them gamblers,” she replied. “They know it better than a s’ciety woman thinks she knows bridge. Well, let me go on with my story. The next day, about the same time in the mornin’, our phone rings again, and it is another case of wrong number and another case of Mike. After we’d rung off, I gets to thinkin’ again: ‘What does he want with Doyle?’ And the next minute I’ve got the receiver down, and there I am, a peeping Tomerino, waitin’ for what’s comin’ off. I didn’t stay in suspense. Right off I heard Mr. Doyle sayin’:
“‘Hello!’ And then come Mike’s voice. They was talkin’ about a winner that was bein’ held for a killin’. Mr. Doyle was to play it on Mike’s tip.
“‘I ain’t quite sure yet,’ says Mike. ‘They’re keepin’ that horse covered up; but I’ll give you the info in time. You’ll know in two or three days. Then get on, and get on hard.’
“Mr. Doyle was for it, mister. And mebbe you think I ain’t the curious little girl about that time! What horse was goin’ to come through? If I could find out and tell Danny, we’d have a fine, soft place to cut loose in, after the horse had got home ahead of ’em all. The thing got me all excited. I couldn’t hardly wait till the next day, for I meant to listen in again—that telephone had took all my morals away from me, and I just didn’t care what happened, as long as I got that information. I didn’t even excuse myself on the grounds that I was doin’ a’ underhanded thing for the husban’ I loved—and at that, I figgered on gettin’ a swell dress out of the killin’. This money thing, mister, is somethin’ that’s awful quick and sure in givin’ wimmin a crool attack of bein’ wicked. Ain’t it?”
The Boarder thought so.
“Well,” Mrs. Sweeny went on, “it took me out of the Sunday-school class right away. And to make the temptation all the stronger, Mike the Wop alwus seemed to get our number b’fore he got what he wanted. You’d ought to of heard him pan out the service! He was real worked up about them girls makin’ so many mistakes. But I didn’t care. When the bell rung, I knew that them two men was goin’ to talk, so I got right on the job. And I stuck like garlic smell on a’ I-talian. I got crazy to know the name of that horse; and you can know how anxious I was, when I tell you that I almost cut out bein’ company for Mrs. ‘Big Joe’ Goss⸺”
“Er⸺” the Boarder began.
“She was a sick lady I was sittin’ up with afternoons,” Mrs. Sweeny hastened to explain. “And there’s more telephone stuff to her side of the story. But just you wait. It’ll all come out in time. Mrs. Big Joe was the wife of a pool-room keeper that me and Danny knowed real well, and her bein’ all in with neuritis, I was puttin’ out a helpin’ hand and gnawin’ on the rag all afternoon, so’s she wouldn’t have a relapse thinkin’ how Big Joe abused her. I’d been doin’ it about ten days; and lately I’d of gave my right mitt to stick around and listen to what might come over the telephone. Gee! but I was anxious to get the name of that horse, mister! It was real deep anxiety, the kind that makes you forget hatin’ people.”
“I think I can appreciate your position,” the Boarder assured her with sympathy.
“You don’t have to be a bettin’ man to do it,” she said. “If you’ve ever walked down street in a new suit, without no umbrella, and you’re dead sure it’s goin’ to rain, and it don’t,-then you have went through somethin’ like I did about that horse. But things have a habit of comin’ to ends, and this here pony business wasn’t any exception. A day or two later, it all come out. My bell had rung, as usual, and when me and the Wop had quit roastin’ the telephone company to each other, I. hung up and waited long enough for Mike to get his number. Then I kicks in. Mr. Doyle took down his receiver at just about the time I did—say, I had the thing timed to a second—for I heard him say: