The next day I hit the track with three sure-fires and a couple of
perhapses.
There was nothing to it. All I had to do was to keep my nerve and
not get side-tracked and I'd have enough coin to make Andrew
Carnegie's check book look like a punched meal ticket.
I played them--and when the Angelus was ringing Moses O'Brien and
three other Bookbinders were out buying meal tickets with my money.
Things went along this way for about a week and I was all to the
bad.
One evening Clara J. said to me, "John, I looked through your check
book to-day and I've had a cold on my chest ever since. At first I
thought I had opened the refrigerator by mistake."
At last the blow had fallen!
I had promised her faithfully before we were married that I'd never
play the ponies again and I fell and broke my word.
The accident was painful, and I'd be a sad scamp to put her wise at
this late day, especially after being fried to a finish.
I simply didn't dare confess that my money had gone into a fund to
furnish a home for Incurable Bookmakers--what to do? What to do?
She had me lashed to the mast.
"May I inquire," my wife continued with the breath of winter in her
tones, "why it's all going out and nothing coming in? Have you
begun so soon to lead a double life?"
Mother, call your baby boy back home! If Uncle Peter would only
drop in, or Tacks or Aunt Martha or even the janitor!
Suddenly it occurred to me:
"Dearie," I said, "you have surprised my secret, and now nothing
remains but the pleasure of telling you everything.
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