"Who, me!" Joe came back. "Why I didn't get here in time to place
a bet. I drove over from Elmhurst and the blue mare burst a tire.
But, say, I've got a mother's darling in the third race! Oh, it's
a ladybug for certain! You guys play 'Perhaps' to win and you'll
go home looking like Pierp Morgan after a busy day. It can't lose,
this clam can't! Say, that horse 'Perhaps' wears gold-plated
overshoes and it can kick more track behind it than any ostrich you
ever see! Why,| it's got ball-bearing castors on the feet and it
wears a naphtha engine in the forward turret. Get reckless with
the coin, boys, and go the limit, and if the track happens to cave
in and it does lose, I'll drag you down to Elmhurst behind the blue
mare and make the suction pump in the backyard do an imitation of
Walter Jones singing 'Captain Kidd' with the bum pipes."

Joe was so much in earnest about it that Bunch and I put up fifty
on "Perhaps" and waited.

We are still waiting.

"Perhaps" may have been a good horse but he had a bad memory and
never could recollect which end of the track was the proper place
to finish.

Joe must have left for Elmhurst immediately after the race because
he failed to answer roll call.

Then we ran across Dave Torrence, the famous inventor of the
disappearing trump so much used by pinochle players.

When Dave began to dope 'em out for us Bunch and I hid our