"Then only this mornin'," goes on Uncle Jimmy enthusiastic, "I runs across a mighty friendly, spruce-dressed pair,—big Pittsburgh fi-nanciers, they said they was,—who was makin' money hand over fist bettin' on hoss races somewheres."
"Well, well!" says I. "Had an operator who'd tapped a poolroom wire and could hold up returns, didn't they?"
"That's it!" says Uncle Jimmy. "They explained just how it was done; but I'm a little slow understandin' such things. Anyway, they took me to a place where I saw one of 'em win two thousand inside of ten minutes; and b'gum, if I'd been a bettin' man, I could have made a heap! I did let one of 'em put up fifty cents for me, and he brought back five dollars in no time. They seemed real put out too when I wouldn't take the chance of a lifetime and bet a thousand on the next race. But somehow I couldn't bring myself to it. What would Cynthy think if she knew I was down here in New York, bettin' on hoss races? No, Sir, I couldn't."
"And you got away with the five, did you?" says I.
"Don't tell," says Uncle Jimmy, "but I slipped it in an envelope and sent it to that shiftless Hank Tuttle, over at the point. You see, Hank guzzles hard cider, and plays penny ante, and is always hard up. He won't know where it come from, and won't care. The fine cigars them two handed out so free I'm keepin' to smoke Sunday afternoons."
"Huh!" says I. "That's a good record so far, Uncle Jimmy. Anything more along that line?"
"Wall," says he, "there was one chance I expect I shouldn't have let slip. Got to talkin' with a feller in the hotel, sort of a hook-nosed, foreign-speakin' man, who's in the show business. He says his brother-in-law, by the name of Goldberg, has got an idea for a musical comedy that would just set Broadway wild and make a mint of money. All he needed to start it was twenty or thirty thousand, and he figured it would bring in four times that the first season. And he was willin' to let me have a half interest in his scheme. I'd gone in too, only from what he said I thought it must be one of these pieces where they have a lot of girls in tights, and—well, I thought of Cynthy again. What would she say to me bein' mixed up with a show of that kind? So I had to drop it."
"Any taxi rides or cigars in that?" says I.
"Just cigars," says Uncle Jimmy.
"But you mean to invest that fifty thousand sooner or later, don't you?" says I.