"I did; but my brother was broke," replied Gamble carelessly, and stopped in front of a blackboard. The price on Nautchautauk was one and a half to two. "I don't want a bet," he remarked, shaking his head at the board; "I need an accident. I wonder if that goat Angora has horns and a beard?"
"People try fifty-to-one shots just before they cut their throats," warned Loring.
"Hide my safety-razor then. Angora carries my hundred. I'll feed a sawbuck apiece to ten books."
Loring lost sight of him for a few moments, but found him outside, by and by, in conversation with "Colonel" Bouncer, a heavily-jowled man with grizzled hair and very friendly eyes which, however, could look quite cold enough on occasion. The colonel was staring up at the box occupied by the young lady to whom Loring had bowed.
"Bless my soul, I'm getting near-sighted!" he was saying as Loring joined them. "Isn't that Paul Gresham up there with Miss Joy?"
"Is that her name?" asked Gamble eagerly. "Well, I believe it."
The colonel turned from him impatiently.
"You know Gresham, don't you, Loring? Is that he up there in that box?"
"That is Saint Paul all right," answered Loring with a smile, as he glanced up at the prim and precise Gresham, who had now succeeded in fencing Miss Joy in a corner, away from the other young men.
"Thanks," said the colonel, and walked away abstractedly, his eyes still turning in the direction of the box, although he did not even start to go up into the grandstand.