“I suppose it was in my face. I was broke down an’ I told him. He got it all in his head, an’ then he patted me on the shoulder. ‘Old man,’ he said, ‘a little money ain’t goin’ to do you any good. I’ll get you fifty thousand dollars an’ you go out to the race course this afternoon an’ pick a winner.’
“I tried to turn it down. I didn’t want to lose his money, I didn’t know one horse from another. But he just laughed and kept patting me on the back. ‘A beginner for luck,’ he says. ‘Where’s your nerve, Al?’ Well, I picked that big Dercum colt that nobody had ever heard of, a five-to-one shot, an’ he romped in!
“I was a-limpin’ along the sea-path, a-proddin’ the gravel with my cane an’ a-talkin’ to my feet, same as if I was afraid the recollection would get away with me if I wasn’t careful. The girl didn’t say nothin’ and I went on.
“‘Harry wouldn’t touch the winnin’s; he picked out his fifty thousand and put me out of the room.’
“I limped on, talking to my feet.
“‘And it saved me two ways, for the thing I was agoin’ to do would have ruined me.’
“My voice got down pretty near in a whisper.
“‘I never saw Harry after that,’ I says, ‘until last night.’
“She stopped quick, an’ I went on a step or two.
“‘My father?’ she said.