Pat hesitated, caught a glimpse of Sandy's pleading eyes, and was lost.
"Very well," he said. "We'll do it. Mr. Mallory, enter Tapwater in the Gold Stakes. We'll put on the most spectaceous exhibition in the history of gambilizing!"
Thus it was that approximately one week later our piratical little crew was assembled once again, this time in the paddock at Laurel. In case you're an inland aborigine, let me explain that Laurel race track (from the township of the same name) is where horse fanciers from the District of Columbia go to abandon their Capitol and capital on weekends.
We were briefing our jockey—a scrawny youth with a pair of oversized ears—on the use of Pat's lightening rod. Being short on gray matter as well as on stature, he wasn't getting it at all.
"You mean," he said for the third or thirty-third time, "you don't want I should hit the nag with this bat?"
"Heavens, no!" gasped Pat, blanching. "It's much too delicate for that."
"Don't fool yourself, mister. Horses can stand a lot of leather."
"Not the horse, stupid," I said. "The bat. This is the only riding crop of its kind in the world. We don't want it damaged. All you have to do is carry it. We'll do the rest."
"How about setting the dial, Don?" asked Joyce.