The Man Who Could Not Lose
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Man Who Could Not Lose
From their reserve fund of twenty-seven dollars which each had
solemnly agreed with the other would not be risked on race-horses,
Dolly subtracted a two-dollar bill. This she stuck conspicuously
across the face of the clock on the mantel.
"Why?" asked Carter.
"When we get back this evening," Dolly explained, "that will be the
first thing we'll see. It's going to look awfully good!"
This day there was no scarlet car to rush them with refreshing
swiftness through Brooklyn's parkways and along the Ocean Avenue.
Instead, they hung to a strap in a cross- town car, changed to the
ferry, and again to the Long Island Railroad. When Carter halted at
the special car of the Turf Club, Dolly took his arm and led him
forward to the day coach.
"But," protested Carter, "when you're spending a hundred dollars
with one hand, why grudge fifty cents for a parlor- car seat? If
you're going to be a sport, be a sport." "And if you've got to be
a piker," said Dolly, don't be ashamed to be a piker. We're not
spending a hundred dollars because we can afford it, but because
you dreamt a dream. You didn't dream you were riding in
parlor-cars! If you did, it's time I woke you."
This day there was for them no box overlooking the finish, no
club-house luncheon. With the other pikers, they sat in the free
seats, with those who sat coatless and tucked their handkerchiefs
inside their collars, and with those who mopped their perspiring
countenances with rice-paper and marked their cards with a hat-pin.
Their lunch consisted of a massive ham sandwich with a top dressing
of mustard.
Dromedary did not run until the fifth race, and the long wait,
before they could learn their fate, was intolerable. They knew most
of the horses, and, to pass the time, on each of the first races
Dolly made imaginary bets. Of these mental wagers, she lost every
one.
"If you turn out to be as bad a guesser when you're asleep as I am
when I'm awake," said Dolly, "we're going to lose our fortune."
"I'm weakening!" declared Carter. "A hundred dollars is beginning
to look to me like an awful lot of money. Twenty- seven dollars,
and there's only twenty of that left now, is mighty small capital,
but twenty dollars plus a hundred could keep us alive for a month!"
"Did you, or did you not, dream that Dromedary would win?" demanded
Dolly sternly.
"I certainly did, several times," said Carter. "But it may be I was
thinking of the horse. I've lost such a lot on him, my mind may
have----"
"Did you," interrupted Dolly, "say if you had a hundred dollars
you'd bet it, and did a hundred dollars walk in through the door
instantly?"
Carter, reassured, breathed again. " It certainly did!" he
repeated.
Even in his proud days, Carter had never been able to bet heavily,
and instead of troubling the club-house commissioners with his
small wagers, he had, in the ring, bet ready money. Moreover, he
believed in the ring he obtained more favorable odds, and, when he
won, it pleased him, instead of waiting until settling day for a
check, to stand in a line and feel the real money thrust into his
hand. So, when the fourth race started he rose and raised his hat.
"The time has come," he said.
Without looking at him, Dolly nodded. She was far too tremulous to
speak.
For several weeks Dromedary had not been placed, and Carter hoped
for odds of at least ten to one. But, when he pushed his way into
the arena, he found so little was thought of his choice that as
high as twenty to one was being offered, and with few takers. The
fact shattered his confidence. Here were two hundred book-makers,
trained to their calling, anxious at absurd odds to back their
opinion that the horse he liked could not win. In the face of such
unanimous contempt, his dream became fantastic, fatuous. He decided
he would risk only half of his fortune. Then, should the horse win,
he still would be passing rich, and should he lose, he would, at
least, have all of fifty dollars.
With a book-maker he wagered that sum, and then, in unhappy
indecision, stood, in one hand clutching his ticket that called for
a potential thousand and fifty dollars, and in the other an actual
fifty. It was not a place for meditation. From every side men, more
or less sane, swept upon him, jostled him, and stamped upon him,
and still, struggling for a foothold, he swayed, hesitating. Then
he became conscious that the ring was nearly empty, that only a few
shrieking individuals still ran down the line. The horses were
going to the post. He must decide quickly. In front of him the
book- maker cleaned his board, and, as a final appeal, opposite the
names of three horses chalked thirty to one. Dromedary was among
them. Such odds could not be resisted. Carter shoved his fifty at
the man, and to that sum added the twenty dollars still in his
pocket. They were the last dollars he owned in the world. And
though he knew they were his last, he was fearful lest the
book-maker would refuse them. But, mechanically, the man passed
them over his shoulder.
"And twenty-one hundred to seventy," he chanted.
When Carter took his seat beside Dolly, he was quite cold. Still,
Dolly did not speak. Out of the corner of her eyes she questioned
him.
"I got fifty at twenty to one," replied Carter, and seventy at
thirty!"
In alarm, Dolly turned upon him.
"SEVENTY!" she gasped.
Carter nodded. "All we have," he said. "We have sixty cents left,
to start life over again!"
As though to encourage him, Dolly placed her finger on her
race-card.
"His colors," she said, "are 'green cap, green jacket, green and
white hoops.'"
Through a maze of heat, a half-mile distant, at the starting- gate,
little spots of color moved in impatient circles. The big,
good-natured crowd had grown silent, so silent that from the high,
sun-warmed grass in the infield one could hear the lazy chirp of
the crickets. As though repeating a prayer, or an incantation,
Dolly's lips were moving quickly.
"Green cap," she whispered, "green jacket, green and white hoops!"
With a sharp sigh the crowd broke the silence. "They're off!" it
cried, and leaned forward expectant.
The horses came so fast. To Carter their conduct seemed outrageous.
It was incredible that in so short a time, at a pace so reckless,
they would decide a question of such moment. They came bunched
together, shifting and changing, with, through the dust, flashes of
blue and gold and scarlet. A jacket of yellow shot out of the dust
and showed in front; a jacket of crimson followed. So they were at
the half; so they were at the three-quarters.
The good-natured crowd began to sway, to grumble and murmur, then
to shout in sharp staccato.
"Can you see him?" begged Dolly.
"No," said Carter. "You don't see him until they reach the
stretch."
One could hear their hoofs, could see the crimson jockey draw his
whip. At the sight, for he rode the favorite, the crowd gave a
great gasp of concern.
"Oh, you Gold Heels!" it implored.
Under the whip, Gold Heels drew even with the yellow jacket; stride
by stride, they fought it out alone.
"Gold Heels!" cried the crowd.
Behind them, in a curtain of dust, pounded the field. It charged in
a flying wedge, like a troop of cavalry. Dolly, searching for a
green jacket, saw, instead, a rainbow wave of color that, as it
rose and fell, sprang toward her in great leaps, swallowing the
track.
"Gold Heels!" yelled the crowd.
The field swept into the stretch. Without moving his eyes, Carter
caught Dolly by the wrist and pointed. As though giving a signal,
he shot his free hand into the air.
"Now!" he shouted.
From the curtain of dust, as lightning strikes through a cloud,
darted a great, raw-boned, ugly chestnut. Like the Empire Express,
he came rocking, thundering, spurning the ground. At his coming,
Gold Heels, to the eyes of the crowd, seemed to falter, to slacken,
to stand still. The crowd gave a great cry of amazement, a yell of
disgust. The chestnut drew even with Gold Heels, passed him, and
swept under the wire. Clinging to his neck was a little jockey in
a green cap, green jacket, and hoops of green and white.
Dolly's hand was at her side, clutching the bench. Carter's hand
still clasped it. Neither spoke or looked at the other. For an
instant, while the crowd, no longer so good-natured, mocked and
jeered at itself, the two young people sat quite still, staring at
the green field, at the white clouds rolling from the ocean. Dolly
drew a long breath.
"Let's go!" she gasped. "Let's thank him first, and then take me
home!"
They found Dromedary in the paddock, and thanked him, and Carter
left Dolly with him, while he ran to collect his winnings. When he
returned, he showed her a sheaf of yellow bills, and as they ran
down the covered board walk to the gate, they skipped and danced.
Dolly turned toward the train drawn up at the entrance.
"Not with me!" shouted Carter. "We're going home in the reddest,
most expensive, fastest automobile I can hire!"
In the "hack" line of motor-cars was one that answered those
requirements, and they fell into it as though it were their own.
"To the Night and Day Bank!" commanded Carter.
With the genial democracy of the race-track, the chauffeur lifted
his head to grin appreciatively. "That listens good to me!" he
said.
"I like him!" whispered Dolly. "Let's buy him and the car."
On the way home, they bought many cars; every car they saw, that
they liked, they bought. They bought, also, several houses, and a
yacht that they saw from the ferry-boat. And as soon as they had
deposited the most of their money in the bank, they went to a
pawnshop in Sixth Avenue and bought back many possessions that they
had feared they never would see again.
When they entered the flat, the thing they first beheld was Dolly's
two-dollar bill.
"What," demanded Carter, with repugnance, "is that strange piece of
paper?"
Dolly examined it carefully. "I think it is a kind of money," she
said, used by the lower classes."
They dined on the roof at Delmonico's. Dolly wore the largest of
the five hats still unsold, and Carter selected the dishes entirely
according to which was the most expensive. Every now and again they
would look anxiously down across the street at the bank that held
their money. They were nervous lest it should take fire.
"We can be extravagant to-night," said Dolly, "because we owe it to
Dromedary to celebrate. But from to-night on we must save. We've
had an awful lesson. What happened to us last month must never
happen again. We were down to a two-dollar bill. Now we have
twenty-five hundred across the street, and you have several
hundreds in your pocket. On that we can live easily for a year.
Meanwhile, you can write 'the' great American novel without having
to worry about money, or to look for a steady job. And then your
book will come out, and you will be famous, and rich, and----"
"Passing on from that," interrupted Carter, "the thing of first
importance is to get you out of that hot, beastly flat. I propose
we start to-morrow for Cape Cod. I know a lot of fishing villages
there where we could board and lodge for twelve dollars a week, and
row and play tennis and live in our bathing suits."
Dolly assented with enthusiasm, and during the courses of the
dinner they happily discussed Cape Cod from Pocasset to Yarmouth,
and from Sandwich to Provincetown. So eager were they to escape,
that Carter telephoned the hallman at his club to secure a cabin
for the next afternoon on the Fall River boat. As they sat over
their coffee in the cool breeze, with, in the air, the scent of
flowers and the swing of music, and with, at their feet, the lights
of the great city, the world seemed very bright.
"It has been a great day," sighed Carter. "And if I hadn't had
nervous prostration I would have enjoyed it. That race- course is
always cool, and there were some fine finishes. I noticed two
horses that would bear watching, Her Highness and Glowworm. If we
weren't leaving to-morrow, I'd be inclined----" Dolly regarded him
with eyes of horror.
"Champneys Carter!" she exclaimed. As she said it, it sounded like
"Great Jehoshaphat!"
Carter protested indignantly. "I only said, "he explained, "if I
were following the races, I'd watch those horses. Don't worry!" he
exclaimed. "I know when to stop."
The next morning they took breakfast on the tiny terrace of a
restaurant overlooking Bryant Park, where, during the first days of
their honeymoon, they had always breakfasted. For sentimental
reasons they now revisited it. But Dolly was eager to return at
once to the flat and pack, and Carter seemed distraught. He
explained that he had had a bad night.
"I'm so sorry," sympathized Dolly, "but to-night you will have a
fine sleep going up the Sound. Any more nightmares?" she asked.
"Nightmares!" exploded Carter fiercely. "Nightmares they certainly
were! I dreamt two of the nightmares won! I saw them, all night,
just as I saw Dromedary, Her Highness and Glowworm, winning,
winning, winning!"
"Those were the horses you spoke about last night," said Dolly
severely. "After so wonderful a day, of course you dreamt of
racing, and those two horses were in your mind. That's the
explanation."
They returned to the flat and began, industriously, to pack. About
twelve o'clock Carter, coming suddenly into the bedroom where Dolly
was alone, found her reading the MORNING TELEGRAPH. It was open at
the racing page of "past performances."
She dropped the paper guiltily. Carter kicked a hat-box out of his
way and sat down on a trunk.
"I don't see," he began, "why we can't wait one more day. We'd be
just as near the ocean at Sheepshead Bay race-track as on a Fall
River boat, and----" He halted and frowned unhappily. "We needn't
bet more than ten dollars," he begged.
"Of course," declared Dolly, "if they SHOULD win, you'll always
blame ME!" Carter's eyes shone hopefully.
"And," continued Dolly, I can't bear to have you blame me. So----"
"Get your hat!" shouted Carter, "or we'll miss the first race."
Carter telephoned for a cab, and as they were entering it said
guiltily: "I've got to stop at the bank."
"You have NOT!" announced Dolly. "That money is to keep us alive
while you write the great American novel. I'm glad to spend another
day at the races, and I'm willing to back your dreams as far as ten
dollars, but for no more."
"If my dreams come true," warned Carter, you'll be awfully sorry."
"Not I," said Dolly. "I'll merely send you to bed, and you can go
on dreaming."
When Her Highness romped home, an easy winner, the look Dolly
turned upon her husband was one both of fear and dismay.
"I don't like it!" she gasped. "It's--it's uncanny. It gives me a
creepy feeling. It makes you seem sort of supernatural. And oh,"
she cried, "if only I had let you bet all you had with you!"
"I did," stammered Carter, in extreme agitation. " I bet four
hundred. I got five to one, Dolly," he gasped, in awe; "we've won
two thousand dollars."
Dolly exclaimed rapturously: "We'll put it all in bank," she cried.
"We'll put it all on Glowworm!" said her husband.
"Champ!" begged Dolly. "Don't push your luck. Stop while----"
Carter shook his head.
"It's NOT luck!" he growled. "It's a gift, it's second sight, it's
prophecy. I've been a full-fledged clairvoyant all my life, and
didn't know it. Anyway, I'm a sport, and after two of my dreams
breaking right, I've got to back the third one!"
Glowworm was at ten to one, and at those odds the book-makers to
whom he first applied did not care to take so large a sum as he
offered. Carter found a book-maker named "Sol" Burbank who, at
those odds, accepted his two thousand.
When Carter returned to collect his twenty-two thousand, there was
some little delay while Burbank borrowed a portion of it. He looked
at Carter curiously and none too genially.
"Wasn't it you," he asked, "that had that thirty-to-one shot
yesterday on Dromedary?" Carter nodded somewhat guiltily. A man in
the crowd volunteered: "And he had Her Highness in the second, too,
for four hundred."
"You've made a good day," said Burbank. "Give me a chance to get my
money back to-morrow.
"I'm sorry," said Carter. "I'm leaving New York to-morrow."
The same scarlet car bore them back triumphant to the bank.
"Twenty-two thousand dollars?" gasped Carter, "in CASH! How in the
name of all that's honest can we celebrate winning twenty-two
thousand dollars? We can't eat more than one dinner; we can't drink
more than two quarts of champagne--not without serious results."
"I'll tell you what we can do!" cried Dolly excitedly. "We can sail
to-morrow on the CAMPANIA!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Carter. "We'll have a second honey-moon. We'll
shoot up London and Paris. We'll tear slices out of the map of
Europe. You'll ride in one motor-car, I'll ride in another, we'll
have a maid and a valet in a third, and we'll race each other all
the way to Monte Carlo. And, there, I'll dream of the winning
numbers, and we'll break the bank. When does the CAMPANIA sail?"
"At noon," said Dolly.
"At eight we will be on board," said Carter.
But that night in his dreams he saw King Pepper, Confederate, and
Red Wing each win a race. And in the morning neither the engines of
the CAMPANIA nor the entreaties of Dolly could keep him from the
race-track.
"I want only six thousand," he protested. "You can do what you like
with the rest, but I am going to bet six thousand on the first one
of those three to start. If he loses, I give you my word I'll not
bet another cent, and we'll sail on Saturday. If he wins Out, I'll
put all I make on the two others."
"Can't you see," begged Dolly, "that your dreams are just a rehash
of what you think during the day? You have been playing in
wonderful luck, that's all. Each of those horses is likely to win
his race. When he does you will have more faith than ever in your
silly dreams----"
"My silly dreams," said Carter grinning, "are carrying you to
Europe, first class, by the next steamer."
They had been talking while on their way to the bank. When Dolly
saw she could not alter his purpose, she made him place the
nineteen thousand that remained, after he had taken out the six
thousand, in her name. She then drew out the entire amount.
"You told me," said Dolly, smiling anxiously, I could do what I
liked with it. Maybe I have dreams also. Maybe I mean to back
them."
She drove away, mysteriously refusing to tell him what she intended
to do. When they met at luncheon, she was still much excited, still
bristling with a concealed secret.
"Did you back your dream?" asked Carter.
Dolly nodded happily.
"And when am I to know?"
"You will read of it," said Dolly, "to-morrow, in the morning
papers. It's all quite correct. My lawyers arranged it."
"Lawyers!" gasped her husband. "You're not arranging to lock me in
a private madhouse, are you?"
"No," laughed Dolly; "but when I told them how I intended to invest
the money they came near putting me there."
"Didn't they want to know how you suddenly got so rich?" asked
Carter.
"They did. I told them it came from my husband's 'books'! It was a
very 'near' false-hood."
"It was worse," said Carter. "It was a very poor pun."
As in their honey-moon days they drove proudly to the track, and
when Carter had placed Dolly in a box large enough for twenty, he
pushed his way into the crowd around the stand of "Sol" Burbank.
That veteran of the turf welcomed him gladly.
"Coming to give me my money back?" he called.
"No, to take some away," said Carter, handing him his six thousand.
Without apparently looking at it, Burbank passed it to his cashier.
"King Pepper, twelve to six thousand," he called.
When King Pepper won, and Carter moved around the ring with
eighteen thousand dollars in thousand and five hundred dollar bills
in his fist, he found himself beset by a crowd of curious, eager
"pikers." They both impeded his operations and acted as a
body-guard. Confederate was an almost prohibitive favorite at one
to three, and in placing eighteen thousand that he might win six,
Carter found little difficulty. When Confederate won, and he
started with his twenty-four thousand to back Red Wing, the crowd
now engulfed him. Men and boys who when they wagered five and ten
dollars were risking their all, found in the sight of a young man
offering bets in hundreds and thousands a thrilling and fascinating
spectacle.
To learn what horse he was playing and at what odds, racing touts
and runners for other book-makers and individual speculators leaped
into the mob that surrounded him, and then, squirming their way
out, ran shrieking down the line. In ten minutes, through the bets
of Carter and those that backed his luck, the odds against Red Wing
were forced down from fifteen to one to even money. His approach
was hailed by the book-makers either with jeers or with shouts of
welcome. Those who had lost demanded a chance to regain their
money. Those with whom he had not bet, found in that fact
consolation, and chaffed the losers. Some curtly refused even the
smallest part of his money.
"Not with me!" they laughed. From stand to stand the layers of odds
taunted him, or each other. "Don't touch it, it's tainted!" they
shouted. "Look out, Joe, he's the Jonah man?" Or, "Come at me
again!" they called. "And, once more!" they challenged as they
reached for a thousand-dollar bill.
And, when in time, each shook his head and grumbled: "That's all I
want," or looked the other way, the mob around Carter jeered.
"He's fought 'em to a stand-still!" they shouted jubilantly. In
their eyes a man who alone was able and willing to wipe the name of
a horse off the blackboards was a hero.
To the horror of Dolly, instead of watching the horses parade past,
the crowd gathered in front of her box and pointed and stared at
her. From the club-house her men friends and acquaintances invaded
it.
"Has Carter gone mad?" they demanded. "He's dealing out
thousand-dollar bills like cigarettes. He's turned the ring into a
wheat Pit!"
When he reached the box a sun-burned man in a sombrero blocked his
way.
"I'm the owner of Red Wing," he explained, "bred him and trained
him myself. I know he'll be lucky if he gets the place. You're
backing him in thousands to WIN. What do you know about him?"
"Know he will win," said Carter.
The veteran commissioner of the club stand buttonholed him. "Mr.
Carter," he begged, "why don't you bet through me? I'll give you as
good odds as they will in that ring. You don't want your clothes
torn off you and your money taken from you."
"They haven't taken such a lot of it yet," said Carter.
When Red Wing won, the crowd beneath the box, the men in the box,
and the people standing around it, most of whom had followed
Carter's plunge, cheered and fell over him, to shake hands and
pound him on the back. From every side excited photographers
pointed cameras, and Lander's band played: " Every Little Bit Added
to What You've Got Makes Just a Little Bit More." As he left the
box to collect his money, a big man with a brown mustache and two
smooth-shaven giants closed in around him, as tackles interfere for
the man who has the ball. The big man took him by the arm. Carter
shook himself free.
"What's the idea?" he demanded.
"I'm Pinkerton," said the big man genially. "You need a body-
guard. If you've got an empty seat in your car, I'll drive home
with you. From Cavanaugh they borrowed a book-maker's hand-bag and
stuffed it with thousand-dollar bills. When they stepped into the
car the crowd still surrounded them.
"He's taking it home in a trunk!" they yelled.
That night the "sporting extras" of the afternoon papers gave
prominence to the luck at the races of Champneys Carter. From
Cavanaugh and the book-makers, the racing reporters had gathered
accounts of his winnings. They stated that in three successive
days, starting with one hundred dollars, he had at the end of the
third day not lost a single bet, and that afternoon, on the last
race alone, he had won sixty to seventy thousand dollars. With the
text, they "ran" pictures of Carter at the track, of Dolly in her
box, and of Mrs. Ingram in a tiara and ball-dress.
Mother-in-law WILL be pleased cried Carter. In some alarm as to
what the newspapers might say on the morrow, he ordered that in the
morning a copy of each be sent to his room. That night in his
dreams he saw clouds of dust-covered jackets and horses with
sweating flanks, and one of them named Ambitious led all the rest.
When he woke, he said to Dolly: "That horse Ambitious will win
to-day."
"He can do just as he likes about THAT! "replied Dolly. "I have
something on my mind much more important than horse- racing. To-day
you are to learn how I spent your money. It's to be in the morning
papers."
When he came to breakfast, Dolly was on her knees. For his
inspection she had spread the newspapers on the floor, opened at an
advertisement that appeared in each. In the Centre of a half-page
of white paper were the lines:
SOLD OUT IN ONE DAY!
ENTIRE FIRST EDITION
THE DEAD HEAT
BY
CHAMPNEYS CARTER