"Filly hurted?" he asked faintly.
The trainer laughed.
"Nothin' to hurt," he said. "Skinned her knees a bit, but I was goin' to put her out o' trainin' anyhow. She's O.K."
To Tim's unspeakable relief he lumbered away.
With his arm in a sling, Tim was out again at the end of a week. Much against the boy's will, Faulkner took him one day to the meeting at Aqueduct. There the trainer was soon surrounded by professional colleagues, and Tim fled to a seat in the highest row of the grandstand. Thence he looked down upon the first stages of a six-furlong sprint, but when three horses labored home in a tight-fit finish he buried his face in his hands that he might not see them.
When he lifted his face again, he glanced furtively about, thankful, oh, so thankful, that nobody had noticed him.
Then self-scorn descended upon him. If he could only go away somewhere and die! Furtively, he wept, wiping the tears away with one pudgy, brown fist. For some minutes he stared, heavy-eyed and broken, at his feet.
"Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta! Ta-ra-ta-ta!"
The bugle spoke, calling the handicap horses to the post.
Tim started up and edged toward the aisle. His racing feet carried him in panic half way down to the lawn. One idea possessed him—to get away—to hide himself, he didn't care where—anywhere where he couldn't see the horses run.