"'One of the largest and best patronized of the poolrooms of the town was 'way on the outskirts of the city. The duck that runs it is worth close on to a million, and the ticket writers have instructions never to turn any man's money down, no matter how big the sum or how lead-pipey the cinch he appears to have. Lumps of $20,000 and $30,000 have frequently been taken out of that poolroom on single tickets, and it's one of the few poolrooms where track odds are given.
"'My two new pals had sized up the layout, and when I met them they already had things fixed to pull down a few comfortable wads. They had rented a vacant frame cottage about 300 yards across a big vacant lot from the poolroom, and, by a little night work—they were both practical wiremen, as well as expert telegraphers—had got the wire into a room on the second floor of the house all right. It was prairie land all around and slimly frequented territory, and they had no trouble in rigging up the wire paraphernalia, which they carried alongside a picket fence to the porch of the cottage, and thence upstairs. They had the thing all tested, and every dot and dash that reached the poolroom registered also in the second floor of that cottage.
"'One of the fellows had formerly worked in a poolroom himself and he had the race code down as pat as butter. They took me out to have a look at the layout, not because they wanted a dollar out of me, for they were on velvet, but simply because they both seemed to take a kind o' shine to me, and it surely looked good. I spent two or three afternoons in the second floor front room where the layout was fixed, and the chap who was expert with the racing code broke the report direct from the track a dozen times and sent it in himself, after having mastered the operator's style at the track end of the line, and the poolroom operator was never a bit the wiser. It was good, all right, that layout, and when they were all ready to begin work I was in on the play.
"'We decided to make the first killing on the day the Belmont Stakes were to be run for at Morris Park. I was against their starting it off on such a big stake event, especially as the race looked to be such a moral for Hamburg, but they said stake events were as good as selling races in their business, and so we had a little rehearsal and stood by. My end of the job was to happen in the poolroom. I was to locate there by a dust-covered window that looked out of the poolroom across the big vacant lot to the frame cottage where the layout was installed and wait for the signal. The signal was to be made by means of a handkerchief waved in the air by one of the fellows from the window. The color of the handkerchief was to tell the name of the winner. For instance, if Hamburg won a white handkerchief was to show at the second-story window; if Bowling Brook captured the stakes a yellow handkerchief was to be the signal, and so on. When I got the signal I was to put the money down on the winner, the tapper was to hold the result from the pool operator for five minutes to give me time to get the money down, and then I was just to wait for the poolroom operator to announce the race. It was the easiest thing in life, and it would have gone through with a rush, not only on that race, but on a whole lot of other ones later on, if I hadn't been color blind.
"'I was on hand in the poolroom on the afternoon that we were to do business and I put a few dollars down on the first races at Morris Park, just for the sake of getting the ticket writers used to my face and to avert suspicion. I had a pretty fair line on the horses in training then and I won two or three out of the bets that I played simply on form. The fourth race on the card was for the Belmont Stakes, and after the third race had been confirmed and the first line of betting came in on the stake race I lounged over to the dust-colored window and looked uninterested. But I had the tail of my eye on the window of that frame cottage all the time, nevertheless. I had $2,000 of my pals' money in my clothes and $1,000 of my own. I was a bit nervous, but I knew that I had a pipe, and I also knew that the poolroom people had mighty little show to get next. I had all kinds of a front on me then, and a $5,000 or even larger bet was, as I say, not so unusual in that poolroom as to scare 'em or cause 'em to become suspicious.
"'Well, the second line of betting came in, with Hamburg the natural favorite at 4 to 5 on in the betting, Bowling Brook 4 to 1 against and the rest at write-your-own-ticket figures. The poolroom took in thousands of dollars of Hamburg money, for nobody in the big crowd that surged about the poolroom could figure any other horse in the race to have a chance. I myself thought it was a sure thing for Hamburg, but I wasn't playing thinks, but cinches, and so I just stood at that window and waited for the signal. I was, I suppose, somewhat excited internally when I thought of the possibilities of the game, but nobody knew it. The poolroom operator announced, 'They're at the post at Morris Park,' and then I knew that 'ud be the last direct communication he'd have with Morris Park until after the running of the Belmont Stakes. I leaned there on that window, with one hand resting on my chin comfortably, waiting for the flutter of the handkerchief away across the vacant lot. The sun shone brilliantly, and the window of the frame cottage was in plain view, and I didn't figure it as among the possibilities that I could make a mistake.
"'Well, when the whole crowd in the poolroom had become sort o' mute with expectancy and the betting at the desk was almost over, I got the signal. It was the quickest flash in the world, a white handkerchief, as I was perfectly positive, nervously waved three times from the second-story window of the frame cottage. I didn't see my pal waving the handkerchief—only the flutter of the white handkerchief which announced that Hamburg had won. So, without any apparent excitement, but in the laziest kind of a way in the world, I just yawned, stretched my arms, and remarked to a few fellows standing nearby:
"'"What's the use of doping over the race. It's a pipe for Hamburg. I'm going up and put a couple of thousand on Hamburg."
"'So I walked up to the desk, passed over six $500 bills and said "Hamburg." The ticket writer took the money without any visible emotion and wrote me a ticket. Then I walked out among the crowd to hear the calling off of the race, which I knew would happen within three or four minutes.
"'"They're off for the Belmont," the operator shouted in about three minutes, and then said I to myself, "What an exercise gallop for Hamburg! What a dead easy way of picking up large pieces of money!"