"The bookies all looked at the man as if he were demented.
"'One twenty-one flat for a six-furlong route!' exclaimed one of them. 'Why, look here, my friend, you're not smoking hard enough to suppose you can win down here with a skate that does well when he works six furlongs in that time, are you? Don't you know that there's a whole bunch over there now that can go that route in 1:16 or better?'
"'Well, they've got a chance, anyhow,' said the shabby man. 'Do I get the $30 to get 'em out o' hock?'
"The bookies all turned their faces the other way, then, and when the man with the pair of hocked nags saw that it wasn't any use he dug his hands into his pockets disconsolately and shambled out.
"On the day that the meeting opened I saw the shabby man in the betting ring. I was behind him when he handed one of the bookies a $5 bet on one of the horses entered in the second race of the day. The bookmaker had belonged to the party that gave the laugh to the shabby man when he asked for the $30.
"'Playing 'em, eh' said the bookie, smiling at the run-down-looking man. 'Couldn't get your pair away from the Maryland outlaw, I suppose.'
"'Yes, I dug up and got 'em out,' said the man. 'They're here now. The one you just gave me a ticket on at $100 to $5 belongs to me.'
"'Oh, is that so?' asked the bookmaker. 'Well, I hope you win. But you've got a couple of 3 to 5 shots to beat, you know.'
"'I got a chance,' was all the man said, walking away.
"I took a look at his horse, the rank outsider in the race, when he went to the post with the others. He was a six-year-old gelding, and he looked rank and broken down. A boy that the shabby man had brought along from the Maryland outlaw was on the horse. It was a mile race, and the horse was twelfth in a field of twelve. I saw the gloomy-looking, shabby man in the paddock after the race superintending the rubbing down of his nag. He seemed to be a whole lot in the dumps.