Jake Block, on some brief errand to the press box, returned just as J. Rufus was starting down to the betting-shed, and he stopped a moment.
“How are you picking them to-day, Wallingford?” he asked perfunctorily, with his eye on Beauty Phillips.
“Same way,” confessed Wallingford. “I haven’t cashed a ticket in the meeting. I have the kind of luck that would scale John D. Rockefeller’s bank-roll down to the size of a dance-program lead pencil.”
“Well,” said Jake philosophically, his eyes still on the Beauty, “sometimes they come bad for a long time, and then they come worse.”
At this bit of wisdom J. Rufus politely laughed, and the silvery voice of Beauty Phillips suddenly joined his own; whereupon J. Rufus, taking the hint, introduced Mr. Block to Miss Phillips and her mother. Mr. Block promptly sat down by them.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he began, “but I’ve not been around to see The Pink Canary yet. I don’t go to the theater much.”
“You must certainly see my second-act turn. I sure have got them going,” the Beauty asserted modestly. “What do you like in this race, Mr. Block?”
“I don’t like anything,” he replied almost gruffly. “I never bet outside of my own stable.”
“We’re taking a small slice of Bologna,” she informed him. “I suppose he’s about the—the wurst of the race. Guess that’s bad, eh? I made that one up all by myself, at that. I think I’ll write a musical comedy next. But how do you like Bologna?” she hastily added, her own laugh freezing as she saw her feeble little joke passed by in perplexity.