retorted Robin. This was a crusher in that company, where riding stood high above any literary attainment; for the other had been a failure as a jockey. He tried to rally. "I 'll bet you a hundred dollars I can----" Robin gazed at him witheringly. "You ain' got a hunderd dollars; you ain't got a hunderd cents! You would n't 'a' been wuth a hunderd dollars in slave-times, an' I know you ain' wuth it now." The old man, with a final observation that he did n't want to have to go to court as a witness when folks were taken up for stealing their master's money, took out and consulted his big gold stop-watch. That was his conclusive and clinching argument. It was surprising what an influence that watch exercised. Everyone who knew Robin knew that watch had been given him before the war as a testimonial by the stewards of the Jockey Club. It had the indisputable record engraved on the case, and had been held over the

greatest race-horses of the country. Robin could go up to the front door of the club and ask for the president--he possessed this exclusive privilege--and be received with an open hand and a smile, and dismissed with a jest. Had not Major McDowell met him, and introduced him to a duke as one of his oldest friends on the turf, and one who could give the duke more interesting information about the horses of the past than any other man he knew? Did not Colonel Clark always shake hands with him when they met, and compare watches? So now, when, as the throng of horse-boys and stable-attendants stood about him, Robin drew his watch and consulted it, it concluded his argument and left him the victor. The old trainer himself, however, was somewhat disturbed, and once more he gazed up the road anxiously. The ground on which he had predicted the greatness of the next day was not that the noted horses already present were enter-

Go to page: GO