“I'm not sure,” continued the Banker, “but that having stuck Porter with Lauzanne, you shouldn't give him a hint about—well, as to what course of preparation would make Lauzanne win a race for him. The ordinary diet of oats is hardly stimulating enough for such a sluggish animal.”
Langdon frowned. If Crane had not been quite so strong, quite so full of unexpressed power, he would have rebelled at the assertion that he had stuck Porter; but he answered, and his voice struggled between asperity and deprecation, “There ain't no call for me to give that stable any pointers; Porter put it to me pretty straight that the horse had been helped.”
“And what did you say?” blandly inquired Crane.
“Told him to go to hell.”
This wasn't exactly truthful as we remember the interview, but its terseness appealed to Crane, and he smiled as he said: “Porter probably won't take your advice, Langdon; he's stubborn enough at times. And even if he does know that—that—Lauzanne' requires special treatment, he won't indulge him—he's got a lot of old-fashioned ideas about racing. So you see Lauzanne is a bad betting proposition.”
After Langdon had left Crane's thoughts dwelt on the subject they had just discussed.
“From a backer's point of view Lauzanne is certainly bad business,” he mused; “but the public will reason just as Langdon does. And what's bad for the backers is good for the layers; I must see Faust.”
“You had better make a book to beat Lauzanne,” Crane said to Jakey Faust, just before business had commenced in the ring that afternoon.
The Cherub stared in astonishment; his eyes opened wide. That was nearly the limit of his fat little face's expression, no matter what the occasion.
“You don't own him now, do you, sir?” he blurted out, with unthinking candor.