"'Truly?' said the priest.
"'Monkeys,' repeated the trainer, and then he pulled out a huge new wallet that he had bought on the way to the priest's residence. He handed the wallet to the father. 'When I was here, a couple o' days ago,' said the trainer, looking interestedly out of the window, 'I had along with me a fifty-dollar bill that, feeling pretty prosperous that morning, I intended to hand to you to be distributed among the poor of the parish—used to be an acolyte and serve mass myself, a good many years ago, when I was a kid. Well, I forgot to pass you the fifty, you see, and so I invested it in—er-uh—a little matter of speculation, to your account, so that it amounts to—er-uh—well, I understood there's a bit of a mortgage on your church, you know."
"The priest opened the wallet and counted out seven one thousands, one five hundred and one fifty-dollar bill. The trainer had put the $50 down on Caspar for the priest—without the father's sanction or countenance, of course—at 150 to 1.
"'Well,' went on the trainer, anxious to talk so as to save any questions as to the nature of his speculation, 'it certainly would have done your heart good if you could have seen that old nag cantering down the stretch'——
"'It did,' said the father, with a smile. 'It is no sin, I conceive, for even a man of my cloth to watch noble beasts battling for the supremacy, there being, I take it, nothing cruel in such contests. I saw the race.'
"Old Caspar was wound up by that race. He went to the paddock as sore as a boil, all of his old infirmities breaking out with renewed strength, and he was turned out to grass and died comfortably two years ago. If he could have known, it might have cheered his declining days to realize that he had paid off the mortgage on a nice little brick and stone edifice of worship on the outskirts of Cincinnati."
[A SEEDY SPORT'S STRING OF HORSES.]
How the Incredulity of a Lot of Bookmakers Was Turned Into Gasping Astonishment.
A mixed party of turf followers in Washington for the Bennings meeting, and Washington men about town, had a café talk the other night about some things that have happened in former years on running tracks, legitimate and outlaw, in this neighborhood.
"When the outlaw track over at Alexander Island, across the Potomac, was running a few years back," said a New York player, "I came down here from the wind-up meeting in New York one fall to see if there was anything in the game in these parts. Then, as now, I was playing, and not laying. So this Alexander Island happening that I'm going to tell you about didn't bother me any, bad as it knocked a lot of the books.