so that the true back was very short, it was the part of wisdom to let
experience teach him. Yet she could not refrain from saying: "You'll see
how they last in the race, Mr. Corson."

"We'll both see," he answered. "There goes a gent that's going to lose
money today!"

A big red-faced man with his hat on the back of his head and sweat
coursing down his cheeks, was pushing through the crowd calling with a
great voice:

"Here's Lady Mary money. Evens or odds on Lady Mary!" "That's Colonel
Dickinson," said Corson. "He comes around every year to play the races
here and most generally he picks winners. But today he's gone wrong. His
eye has been took by the legs of them Coles hosses and he's gone crazy
betting on 'em. Well, he gets plenty of takers!"

Indeed, Colonel Dickinson was stopped right and left to record wagers.

"I got down a little bet myself, this morning, agin his Lady Mary."
Corson chuckled at the thought of such easy money.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Marianne, for even if she were lucky
enough to get the mares she felt that from Corson she could learn
beforehand the criticisms of Lew Hervey.

"So sure? Why anybody with half an eye--" here he remembered that he was
talking to a lady and continued more mildly. "Them bay mares ain't
hosses--they're tricks. Look how skinny all that underpinning is, Miss
Jordan."