At his hotel the next day, about noon, J. Rufus got the promised wire. It consisted of only one word: “Razzoo.”

Alone, J. Rufus went out to the track, and on the race in which Razzoo was entered at average odds of ten to one, he got down six hundred dollars, reluctantly holding back, for his hotel bill, three hundred dollars—all he had in the world. Then he shut his eyes, and with large self-contempt waited for Razzoo to finish by lamplight. To his immense surprise Razzoo won by two lengths, and with a contented chuckle he went around to the various books and collected his winnings, handing to each bookmaker derogatory remarks calculated to destroy the previous entente cordiale.

On his way out, puffed with huge joy and sitting alone in the big automobile, he was hailed by a familiar voice.

[Pg 173]

“Well, well, well! Our old friend, J. Rufus!” exclaimed Harry Phelps, he of the natty clothes and the curly hair.

With Mr. Phelps were Larry Teller and Billy Banting and Yap Pickins.

“Jump in,” invited J. Rufus with a commendable spirit, forgiving them cheerfully for having lost money to him, and, despite the growl of protest from lean Short-Card Larry, they invaded the tonneau.

“You must be hitting them up some, Wallingford,” observed Mr. Phelps with a trace of envy. “I know they’re not furnishing automobiles to losers these days.”

“Oh, I’m doing fairly well,” replied Wallingford loftily. “I cleaned ’em up for six thousand to-day.”

The envy on the part of the four was almost audible.

“What did you play?” asked Badger Billy, with the eager post-mortem interest of a loser.

“Only one horse in just one race,” explained Wallingford. “Razzoo.”

“Razzoo!” snorted Short-Card Larry. “Was you in on that assassination? Why, that goat hasn’t won a race since the day before Adam ate the apple, [Pg 174]and the jockey he had on to-day couldn’t put up a good ride on a street car. How did you happen to land on it?”

Blandly Wallingford produced the telegram he had received that morning.

“This wire,” he condescendingly explained, “is from the National Clockers’ Association of Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, who are charitable enough to pass out long-shot winners, at the mere bag-o’-shells service-price of five dollars per day or twenty per week.”

They looked from the magic word “Razzoo” to the smiling face of J. Rufus more in sorrow than in anger.

“And they happened to hand you a winner!” said the cadaverous Mr. Teller, folding the telegram dexterously with the long, lean fingers of one hand, and passing it back as if he hated to see it.

“Winner is right,” agreed J. Rufus. “I couldn’t pick ’em any other way, and I took a chance on this game because it’s just as good a system as going to a clairvoyant or running the cards.”

There was a short laugh from the raw-boned Mr. Pickins.

“I don’t suppose they’ll ever do it again,” he observed, [Pg 175]“but I feel almost like taking a chance on it myself.”

“Go to it,” advised J. Rufus heartily. “Go to it, and come home with something substantial in your pocket, like this,” and most brazenly, even in the face of what he knew of them, young Wallingford flaunted before their very eyes an assorted package of orange-colored bank-bills, well calculated to excite discord in this company. “Lovely little package of documents,” he said banteringly; “and I suppose you burglars are already figuring how you can chisel it away from me.”

They smiled wanly, and the smile of Larry Teller showed his teeth.

“No man ever pets a hornet but once,” said Billy, the only one sturdy enough to voice his discomfiture.

Wallingford beamed over this tribute to his prowess.

“Well, you get a split of it, anyhow,” he offered. “I’ll take you all to dinner, then afterward we’ll have a little game of stud poker if you like—with police interference barred.”

They were about to decline this kind invitation when Short-Card Larry turned suddenly to him, with a gleam of the teeth which was almost a snarl.

[Pg 176]

“We’ll take you,” he said. “Just a little friendly game for small stakes.”

J. Rufus elevated his eyebrows a trifle, but smiled. Inwardly he felt perfectly competent to protect himself.

“Fine business,” he assented. “Suppose we have dinner in my rooms. I’m beginning to get them educated at my hotel.”

At the hotel he stopped for a moment at the curb to give his chauffeur some instructions, while the other four awaited him on the steps.

“How’d you come to fall for this stud game, Larry?” inquired Phelps. “I can’t see poker merely for health, and this Willy Wisdom won’t call any raise of over two dollars when he’s playing with us.”

“I know he won’t,” snapped Larry, setting his jaws savagely, “but we’re going to get his money just the same. Billy, you break away and run down to Joe’s drug-store for the K.O.”

They all grinned, with the light of admiration dawning in their eyes for Larry Teller. “K.O.” was cipher for “knock-out drops,” a pleasant little decoction guaranteed to put a victim into fathomless slumber, but not to kill him if his heart was right.

[Pg 177]

“How long will it be until dinner’s ready, Wallingford?” asked Billy, looking at his watch as J. Rufus came up.

“Oh, about an hour, I suppose.”

“Good,” said Billy. “I’ll just have time. I have to go get some money that a fello............