The Trainer's face brightened. “Did you get Lucretia after all?”
“No; I bought a big black, Diablo.”
The look of delight faded from Langdon's eyes quickly. “The devil!” he exclaimed.
“That's what I said; that's his name.”
“But he's the most uncertain brute that ever wore a set of plates. You'll get no good of him, sir; he's bad, clean through. It's come down to him from his second sire, Robert the Devil, without a bit of the good, either. He'd break a man that would follow him.”
“He won't break me,” answered Crane, quietly; “nor you, either, Langdon—you've got too much sense.”
This subtle tribute mollified the Trainer.
Crane proceeded: “I remember the horse quite well. Four thousand was paid for him as a yearling; as a two-year-old he was tried out good enough to win the Futurity; but when it came to racing he cut it and finished in the ruck.”
“That's right,” commented Langdon. “He owes me a good bit, that same Johnny; his people thought him a lead-pipe cinch, and I went down the line on him to my sorrow.”
“Just so. You know him as well as I do. It's a great way to get acquainted with them, isn't it, Langdon; put your money on, and have the good thing go down?”