"Mead's judgment on Silver Coin is good enough reason to warrant advising people to put a wager on another one of his choices," Campbell argued. I agreed.
How to convey the information in merchantable form was the next question. A typist in the Hotel Marlborough, across the way, was sent for and asked to strike off the name "Annie Lauretta" 500 or 1,000 times on slips of paper. Envelopes were bought and a typed slip was placed in each. The line increased until it was a block and a half long.
When all was ready, the door was opened. Campbell passed the envelopes out as each man handed me $5. I stuffed the money in the right-hand drawer of the desk, and when that became choked, I stuffed it in the left-hand drawer. Finally, the money came so thick and fast that I picked up the waste-paper basket from the floor, lifted it to the top of the desk and asked the buyers to throw their money into the receptacle. When a man wanted change, I let him help himself.
For two and a half hours, or until within fifteen minutes of the calling of the first race at New Orleans, the crowd thronged in and out of our office. When the last man passed out we counted the money and found the day's proceeds to be $2,755.
"What will we do next?" asked Campbell. "What's my job, and what do I get?"
"How much do you want?" I asked.
"Ten dollars a day," he said.
Thereupon he got possession of the $10 and he admitted it was more money than he had seen in a month.
"What will we do next?" he repeated.
"Let us take a walk," I said. "Lock the office until after the fourth race, when we see what Annie Lauretta does."