"'But that's plain superstition, and races ain't won that way,' I said to her.
"'I don't care one bit, so I don't,' she said to me. 'You will simply be throwing your money away, and I need so many things, if you invest it on any other horse than Jodan.'
"I tried to argue with her, but it was no go. She told me that her lost Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy had once won a full-rigged ship race from Shanghai to Boston, and was a pretty speedy old cuss in more ways than one, and that any horse named after her Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy couldn't lose. I told her that, while I didn't know anything about this Jodan horse, I didn't think he could beat the good thing my shoe-clerk friend had given me, but she wouldn't listen to me. The last thing she said to me before I left the house was:
"'If you are determined to be a horrid, vulgar, disgraceful gambler, you play Jodan. You'll be sorry if you don't.'
"Stubborn, when they get an idea into their heads, women, ain't they?"
"No," said the two men in the seat near the strap-clutching man with the ravelled cigar.
"Well, by jing, I got to thinking about my wife's queer hunch on that Jodan horse on my way out to the track, and the more I thought about it the weaker I became on that good thing my shoe-clerk friend had given me.
"'Women have got something away ahead of sense or reason,' says I to myself on the train on the way out, 'and I sure would feel almighty cheap and no-account if my wife happened to be right about her Uncle Joseph Daniel McGeachy and this Jodan horse. I sure would. I've got a good mind to put a little money on that Jodan horse anyhow, derned if I haven't.'
"I was still undecided about it when I got out to the track. That's the edge the bookmakers have got, ain't it—the people that have real good things and then wabble when it comes to sticking to them?"
"Nope," said the two men in the seat.