The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bred In The Bone, by Thomas Nelson Page
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Title: Bred In The Bone
1908
Author: Thomas Nelson Page
Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23516]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRED IN THE BONE ***
Produced by David Widger
BRED IN THE BONE
By Thomas Nelson Page
Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908
Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906
I
It was the afternoon before the closing day of the spring meeting of
the old Jockey Club that so many people know. The next day was to be the
greatest ever known on that course; the Spring Meeting was to go out in
a blaze of
glory. As to this everybody in sight this spring afternoon
was agreed; and the motley crowd that a little before sunset stood
clustered within the big white-painted gate of the grounds about
the Jockey Club race-stables rarely agreed as to anything. From the
existence of the Deity to the effect of a blister on a windgall, through
the whole range of stable-thought and horse-talk, there was no subject,
speaking generally, on which that mongrel population agreed, except, of
course, on one thing--the universal desirability of whiskey. On this one
subject they all agreed, always.
Yet they were now all of one mind on the fact that the next day was to
be the record on that course. In the first place, the prize in the great
over-night event, the steeplechase set for the morrow, was the biggest
ever offered by the club, and the "cracks" drawn together for the
occasion were the best ever collected at a meeting on that course.-