“Well, boys,” said Wallingford blandly, the money safely tucked away in his own pocket. “I still have a little coin to wager on Whipsaw. Do you want it?”
“No; we’re satisfied,” returned Larry dryly.
“All right, then,” said Wallingford. “I’m going down and get it on the books.”
Harry Phelps sighed.
“It’s too bad to see that easy money going away from us, Pink,” he confessed.
Jake Block spent but little time that afternoon in the grand-stand by the side of Beauty Phillips and her mother. From the beginning of the racing he was first in the stables and then in the paddock with an anxious eye. He was lined up at the fence opposite the barrier for the start of the fateful fourth, and he stood there, after the horses had jumped away, to watch his great little Whipsaw around the course. But Beauty Phillips was not without company. Wallingford sauntered up at the sound of the mounting bell and sat confidently by her.
“Did you get it all down, Jimmy?” she asked.
“Every cent,” said he, wiping his brow nervously. “Did you?”
“Mother and I are broke if Whipsaw don’t win,” she confessed with dry lips. “What do you suppose makes Mr. Block look up here with such a poison face every two or three minutes?”