"Listenin' to the knockers?" he asked, reading me at once. "Furget it—them ole mint juleps is dead 'n' buried. You'll go dippy if you fall fur that stuff."
"But the weight!" I gasped.
"Say, they've got you goin' right, ain't they?" Blister exclaimed. "Now listen! She can carry the grand-stand 'n' come home on the bit! Get that fixed in your nut, 'n' then hit the hay."
"Thanks, I believe I shall," I said, and I had followed his advice, though it was long until sleep came to me.
But now as the blue-gray housetops of Louisville sparkled with tiny points of light, and the window-panes swam with pink-gold flame, I looked out over the still sleeping city and laughed aloud at my fears of the night before.
"A perfect day," I thought. "The favorite will surely win, and Blister and Uncle Jake and Mrs. Dillon will be made perfectly happy. A beautiful day, and a fitting one in which to fix the name of Très Jolie among the equine stars!"
"We read some of your poetry last night after you had gone," said Mrs. Dillon, as we waited for the motor to take us to Churchill Downs. "I liked it, and I don't care for verse as a rule, except Omar. I dote on The Rubaiyat; don't you?"
"Yes, indeed," I replied. "I can't quite swallow his philosophy, but he puts it all so charmingly. Some of his pictures are most alluring."
"Do learnéd persons ever long for the wilderness, and the bough, and—the other things?" Miss Goodloe asked innocently.
"Quite frequently," I assured her.