"Drive like the devil to ——'s!" he shouted to the driver, and in something under three minutes he had rushed into the upstairs poolroom about four blocks from his office.
The second line of betting was in on the second race at St. Louis, and the horse Jim Conway was the rank outsider at 60 to 1. The junior partner crowded his way up to the counter and laid down a ten-dollar note.
"Gimme Jim Conway," he said to the man behind the counter.
"Conway, $600 to $10," said the money taker, and he had no sooner finished the words than the instrument began to click.
"They're off at St. Loo!" sang out the operator. "Rushfields in the lead, Cathedral second." Pause. "Cathedral at the quarter by two lengths, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral at the half by three lengths, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral at the three-quarters by a length, Rushfields second." Pause. "Cathedral in the stretch by a neck, Rushfields second by a neck." Longer pause. "Jim Conway wins, easy, by three lengths!"
"Whoopee-wow!" The yell went up from the long-shot players in the room who had taken a chance on Jim Conway.
The junior partner stood around with a broad grin on his face while he waited for the race to be confirmed. Then he collected, bounded downstairs, hailed another cab, and in exactly seventeen minutes from the time he had left his office he was back there again. He was greeted with the same frigidity as characterized his original welcome. He still wore his broad grin, and he walked over to his desk, raised the lid, and began to dig into his pockets. He produced first one fat roll of bills and then another, and he slammed each roll down on his desk as if it were so much shavings. His wife and his wife's mother and his senior partner watched his performance with open mouths, as did the office boy who stood in the doorway. When the junior partner had made a pyramid of bills on his desk about as big as a fair-sized derby hat, he turned to his wife and asked her, still grinning:
"Did you read this telegram, my dear?" holding the message out in his hand.
"I certainly did," she replied, "and you would oblige me greatly if you would"——
"And who do you think this Jim Conway was, Patsy?" he interrupted.