Jimmie says it is the horse and he ought to of knowed being as how he was up on him. Jimmie says it is also a great surprise to him that Peajacket wins, but, naturally, he does not say this out—but just to me—as it is not a good policy to let on that you are surprised when you bring in a winner.
How does it feel to bring in a winner? Brother, you can have the greatest symphony that was ever wrote; I will take the thunder of a winner's hoofs coming down the straightaway. That is something, brother. That is really something. It is like a ... like a ... well, like I said, a kind of a awareness. Like you was conscious of the noise and the feel all at the same minute. Take that there Peajacket. I got it right away. The noise and the feel together, I mean. Like there was two horses running. One on top the other.
We bums a ride back after the seventh and gets out on the main drag and flips a coin to see whether we eats or buys Ditsy something. It comes out buying Ditsy something so we goes to one of these here shops that has a window full of everything from jewelry to tablecloths and we picks out a powder box that plays a tune when the lid is lifted off. A thin, tinkly, sort of plink, plink tune, but pretty. Reminds you of the way ladies used to rustle when they walked, if you know what I mean.
While the guy is wrapping it up, Jimmie goes over and picks up a vase which is setting on a shelf with a lot of other vases. This here vase he picks up is blue and has a lot of well-built dames on it holding garlands of flowers. Jimmie kind of whistles.
"Look at this here," he says.
I agrees it is nice, but points out that we has got exactly twenty-nine cents between us and the price is marked clear two fifty.
"This is a strange coincidence," he says, more to hisself than me, and I says it is not no coincidence it is a vase and if he is thinking about switching over, why, there is a vase on the shelf above which is better-looking on account of as how it has a scene painted on it and the price is twenty-five cents cheaper.
This guy comes up about this time and washes his hands in the air and asks if we are interested in a vase.
"No," I says.