“Can you beat that?  This betting person picks the whole card but this one race.  I lose my fifty and was thinking seriously of going home when I got a yen to try it again, so I dug up a twenty out of the hose.  Honest, it nearly broke my heart to separate myself from that roll, but I just had to do it.  I get twenty to one, go into hysterics at the quarter, faint at the half, but come to in time to see my money coming in so far ahead it looked as if he was out for a pleasure trip.  Can you see me with that 400 in my mit?  Talk about throwing fits.  Why, I had the Leamy Ladies looking like children romping on the nursery floor.

“There was nothing to it.  I had a hunch to grab the bundle and beat it for home and crawl under the bed.  And then I had another hunch that told me to stick for the big show.  I plant one century in my war bag and get seven to two on the next with the other three.  I win.

“Then I do want to go home.  I felt ill.

“But just then a gentleman introduced himself to me and we went and had a little drink.  That made me feel better, and so I ditched the purveyor of refreshments and fled to the clubhouse.  There is nothing more to tell except that I couldn’t lose and I came home in an automobile with my clothes so full of this evergreen stuff that I looked as if I had spavins or something else.

“I made $6,000 on the day, which is not so bad for a poor fluff like me.  That night the gentleman who gave me the tips called me up and wanted his original twenty back, saying the public got all his roll.  Can you beat that?  I told him I thought he was a moonstone sport, and to never darken my door again.

“He needed money bad, and through a friend I let him have a couple of thou on this machine.  Ain’t I the business woman?

“Wilbur and I have just been riding ourselves to death ever since.  He has been acting awful lately.  Ever since he heard that Friar Weber and Friar Field were going to appear together at the festival he has been soused.  It was all I could do to restrain him from kissing Phil Mindel in the Cadillac the other evening.  He just don’t care what he does.

“Have you bought your tickets?  Let me see.  I have six choice ones here in the seventh row.  You’ll want to bring your family, of course, ’cause it will be the chance of a lifetime.  Nothing like it seen before under one canvas.  For stellar attractions it’s going to have Barnum & Bailey’s looking like a Sunday school entertainment.  Yes, sir, and I personally will be there like the Trinity chimes.

“Alla McSweeney has gone and blown herself for one of these racecourse hats.  You know these big things that have a half-mile track around the outside.  While I do not wish to injure the poor dear, still I will say that she certainly looks one of these long-handled Jap umbrellas.  You know she is such a skinny thing!  Honest, this new hip style they are boosting this season just saved her life.  She was getting saddle galls from carrying so many naturals.  I wouldn’t say this unless I absolutely knew, and of course I have seen her early in the morning when you haven’t.