“What does the boy say,” asked Porter; “you've had him up?”
“He says the mare was 'helped;' that she ran like a drunken man—swayed all over the course, and he couldn't pull her together at all.”
“Does he mean she was doped?”
“You've guessed it,” answered the Steward, laconically.
“That's nonsense, sir; and he knows it. Why, the little mare is as sweet as a lamb, and as game a beast as ever looked through a bridle. Somebody got at the boy. I can prove by Dixon that Lucretia never had a grain of cocaine in her life—never even a bracer of whiskey—she doesn't need it; and as for the race, I hadn't a cent on Lauzanne.”
“But your son.”
“He had a small bet; I didn't know that, even, until they were running.”
“Did you tell him not to back Lucretia, for he did Lauzanne?”
“I told him not to bet at all.”
“And you played the mare yourself?”