What music I've got is the ingrowin' kind. When anybody starts up a real lively tune I can feel it throbbin' and bumpin' away in my head, like a blowfly in a milk bottle; but if ever I try uncorkin' one of my warbles, the people on the next block call in the children, and the truck drivers begin huntin' for the dry axle.
Now look at what bein' musical did for Rusty Quinn. Who's Rusty? Well, he ain't much of anybody. I used to wonder, when I'd see him kickin' around under foot in different places, how it was he had the nerve to go on livin'. Useless! He appeared about as much good to the world as a pair of boxin' gloves would be to the armless wonder.
First I saw of Rusty was five or six years back, when he was hangin' around my trainin' camp. He was a long, slab sided, loose jointed, freckled up kid then, always wearin' a silly, good natured grin on his homely face. About all the good you could say of Rusty was that he could play the mouth organ, and be good natured, no matter how hard he was up against it.
If there was anything else he could do well, no one ever found it out, though he tried plenty of things. And he always had some great scheme rattlin' round in his nut, something that was goin' to win him the big stake. But it was a new scheme every other day, and, outside of grinnin' and playin' the mouth organ, all I ever noticed specially brilliant about him was the way he used cigarettes as a substitute for food. Long's he had a bag of fact'ry sweepin's and a book of rice papers he didn't mind how many meals he missed, and them long fingers of his was so well trained they could roll dope sticks while he slept.
Well, it had been a year or so since I'd run across him last, and if I'd thought about him at all, which I didn't, it would have been to guess what fin'lly finished him; when this affair out on Long Island was pulled off. The swells that owns country places along the south shore has a horse show about this time every year. As a rule they gets along without me bein' there to superintend; but last week I happens to be down that way, payin' a little call on Mr. Jarvis, an old reg'lar of mine, and in the afternoon he wants to know if I don't want to climb up on the coach with the rest of the gang and drive over to see the sport.
Now I ain't so much stuck on this four-in-hand business. It's jolty kind of ridin', anyway, and if the thing upsets you've got a long ways to fall; but I always likes takin' a look at a lot of good horses, so I plants myself up behind, alongside the gent that does the tara-tara-ta act on the copper funnel, and off we goes.
It ain't any of these common fair grounds horse shows, such as anyone can buy a badge to. This is held on the private trottin' track at Windymere—you know, that big estate that's been leased by the Twombley-Cranes since they started makin' their splurge.
And say, they know how to do things in shape, them folks. There's a big green and white striped tent set up for the judges at the home plate, and banked around that on either side was the traps and carts and bubbles of some of the crispest cracker jacks on Mrs. Astor's list. Course, there was a lot of people I knew; so as soon as our coach is backed into position I shins down from the perch and starts in to do the glad hand walk around.
That's what fetches me onto one of the side paths leadin' up towards the big house. I was takin' a short cut across the grass, when I sees a little procession comin' down through the shrubbery. First off it looks like some one was bein' helped into their coat; but then I notices that the husky chap behind was actin' more vigorous than polite. He has the other guy by the collar, and was givin' him the knee good and plenty, first shovin' him on a step or two, and then jerkin' him back solid. Loomin' up in the rear was a gent I spots right off for Mr. Twombley-Crane himself, and by the way he follows I takes it he's bossin' the job.
"Gee!" says I to myself, "here's some one gettin' the rough chuck-out for fair."