Then Busyday steered for the lawn to see the finish of the race. He was trying to get some sense out of the list of owners' colors on his program, so as to be able to distinguish his horse as they raced under the wire, when a calm man next to him, with a pair of field-glasses to his eyes, mumbled:
"They're off!"
There was a big shout all around.
"Lady Uncas out in front," said the calm man coolly. "She'll curl up. She seems to be staying, though, at that. Nope, she's collared. Stuart's nailed her. He walks," and the calm man put down his glasses as the horses galloped past the sixteenth pole.
Stuart came in all alone, and Peaceful was back in the ruck.
"I had my suspicions about that Stuart horse right along," said Busyday to himself. He had never seen the horse's name until the evening before. "Don't know why, but I kind o' liked him. Probably because the Stuart were a pretty swift bunch," and he chuckled to himself over his humor as he made his way to the bookmaker's line to cash.
"Somethin' easy—like findin' it, hey?" he heard buzzed into his ear as soon as he put his foot into the betting ring, and there was the old-faced young man, grinning complaisantly up at him.
Busyday handed to the shifty-eyed one, who stuck to him right up to the paying-off line, buzzing learnedly all the time about the race just ran, a $10 bill out of his $35 winning.
"Th' next," said the red-haired wiseacre of the rail when Busyday had fought himself away from the cashing crowd, "is what you might call a one-hoss race. A one-hoss race, right."
"Lambent, of course?" said Busyday, looking at his piece of paper with the selections on it. Lambent was his handicapper's selection.