A mixed party of turf followers in Washington for the Bennings meeting, and Washington men about town, had a cafÉ talk the other night about some things that have happened in former years on running tracks, legitimate and outlaw, in this neighborhood.

"When the outlaw track over at Alexander Island, across the Potomac, was running a few years back," said a New York player, "I came down here from the wind-up meeting in New York one fall to see if there was anything in the game in these parts. Then, as now, I was playing, and not laying. So this Alexander Island happening that I'm going to tell you about didn't bother me any, bad as it knocked a lot of the books.

"I got here before the Alexander meeting began. A couple of days before the game was to be on, while I was in the Pennsylvania avenue refreshment headquarters of the boys who came here from New York and other tracks to write the tickets, a seedy-looking chap, who looked as if the elements had conspired to make him smoke a bum pipe in the game of life for a long time previously, walked in and edged around to the back room where the bookies were figuring on the amount of fresh money they were about to begin taking out of the national capital. The tough-looking man had a horsey look and a horsey smell about him, and as soon as I saw him I knew that he followed 'em in some kind of a hanger-on capacity. He walked over to a table where a number of the bookmakers were seated.

"'Say,' said he, leaning his hands on the table and addressing the party in general, 'you people are sports, ain't you?'

"The looks the bookies gave the shabby-looking man were intended to convey to him the idea that they weren't publicly posing as hot tamales, anyhow. The man got no reply.

"'You're going to make books across the way, ain't you?' the up-against-it-looking chap asked, with an inquiring look all around.

"'Well, what if we are?' asked one of the bookies, just for the good-natured sake of breaking the silence.

"'Well,' said the down-at-the-heel sport, 'I've got a couple o' nags that have been running for the past six weeks over at the Maryland outlaw. They haven't been one, two, six in any race over there, and I've gone broke paying entrance fees for 'em. Maybe they'll be able to do better over across the way at Alexander. I want to chuck 'em in a couple over there, anyhow, for luck. But I owe $30 feed bill to the Maryland outlaw people, and I can't get my plugs away from there until the thirty's paid. Now, you people are sports, and so'm I. What I want to know is, will you people cough up the thirty for me as a loan, so's I can get that pair o' mine down here?'

"The bookies listened to the man with gradually increasing smiles, and when he finished they gave him the laugh in chorus.

"'Stop your kidding,' said one of them. 'I can get all the outlaw racehorses I want for $2 a head.'

"They all chipped in with a crack at the doleful-looking sport, who appeared to be rather a guileless sort of chap for a man with a short stable of racers.

"'They're a good pair, all right, and one of 'em's on edge, too,' he persisted. 'He worked six furlongs in 1:21 flat a couple of days ago.'

"The bookies all looked at the man as if he were demented.

"'One twenty-one flat for a six-furlong route!' exclaimed one of them. 'Why, look here, my friend, you're not smoking hard enough to suppose you can win down here with a skate that does well when he works six furlongs in that time, are you? Don't you know that there's a whole bunch over there now that can go that route in 1:16 or better?'

"'Well, they've got a chance, anyhow,' said the shabby man. 'Do I get the $30 to get 'em out o' hock?'

"The bookies all turned their faces the other way, then, and when the man with the pair of hocked nags saw that it wasn't any use he dug his hands into his pockets disconsolately and shambled out.

"On the day that the meeting opened I saw the shabby man in the betting ring. I was behind him when he handed one of the bookies a $5 bet on one of the horses entered in the second race of the day. The bookmaker had belonged to the party that gave the laugh to the shabby man when he asked for the $30.

"'Playing 'em, eh' said the bookie, smiling at the run-down-looking man. 'Couldn't get your pair away from the Maryland outlaw, I suppose.'

"'Yes, I dug up and got 'em out,' said the man. 'They're here now. The one you just gave me a ticket on at $100 to $5 belongs to me.'

"'Oh, is that so?' asked the bookmaker. 'Well, I hope you win. But you've got a couple of 3 to 5 shots to beat, you know.'

"'I got a chance,' was all the man said, walking away.

"I took a look at his horse, the rank outsider in the race, when he went to the post with the others. He was a six-year-old gelding, and he looked rank and broken down. A boy that the shabby man had brought along from the Maryland outlaw was on the horse. It was a mile race, and the horse was twelfth in a field of twelve. I saw the gloomy-looking, shabby man in the paddock after the race superintending the rubbing down of his nag. He seemed to be a whole lot in the dumps.

"The same horse was entered in the fourth race on the next day's card. It was a field of crack outlaw performers, and his horse was again the extreme outsider at 40 to 1. I saw the shabby man walk around putting down $2 bets here and there on his plug, and I felt sorry for him. The bookies simply smiled commiseratingly at him. The hard-looking man's horse finished ninth in a field of nine.

"'Why don't you cut it out?' asked one of the bookmakers of the man with the tough appearance. 'You're wasting your stake.'

"'I got a chance,' was the reply.

"The man got out his other horse on the following day. He got 50 to 1 on him for the six-furlong race, and his plug, another rank and no-account looker, finished last. This was the horse that could work six furlongs in 1:21. The seedy man's confidence in his pair of skates seemed rather pathetic to me.

"After each of his horses had been in about half a dozen races each, always finishing last, the both of them, and the seedy man putting twos and fives down on them right along until the bookies felt like not taking his money, I thought he'd take a tumble and quit the game. But on the eleventh day of the meeting his 'mile racer,' the six-year-old gelding, was entered again. He went to the post with a field composed of the cracks among the outlaws. I happened to be close to the seedy man when he went around according to his custom, putting down small bets on his horse. He seemed to be rather better fixed than usual that day, for he had quite a bundle of fives with him.

"'What do I get on my horse?' he asked the first bookie he struck.

"The layer grinned, for he knew there were eight or ten good ones in the race, three or four of them quoted around even money.

"'I've got 75 to 1 hung up about him, and all you want of it,' said the bookie. 'You can write your own ticket, in fact.'

"'Hundred to 1?' asked the seedy man.

"'Why, sure,' replied the bookmaker. And he took $5 of the 'owner's' money at 100 to 1. Just out of curiosity I followed the seedy man in his tour of the books and I saw him put down $70 in $5 bets on his horse to win at 100 to 1. It struck me then that there was to be something done on the seedy man's horse. But I wasn't capping the bookies' game, and I've got a fad for minding my own business, anyhow, and so I kept off the race and went into the stand to watch it. I had a hunch to play the seedy man's horse for a good wad, but I reflected that if I got on and the good thing went through the bookies 'ud be suspicious about such a well-known player as I was being in on it, and in the investigation the seedy man might be cut out, and I didn't want to knock him. But I surely was a whole lot interested in the way that race was to come out.

"I took a good look at the seedy man's horse as they filed past the stand to the post. He looked much better and pretty nippy at that for such a rancid outsider. The same boy that had ridden the horse in his first race at Alexander Island and landed him nowhere was up. It was a mile race.

"The favorite, a horse called Walcott—4 to 5 on in the betting—got off on the right foot with a jump and started to tiptoe the field. At the quarter he led by three lengths, with the second choice, a good outlaw named Halcyon, beginning to set sail for him. The rest of the field of thirteen were all strung out, the seedy man's horse 'way in the ruck. But I kept my glasses on that horse all the way, and I could see that at the half he was under the devil's own pull. The boy had half a dozen wraps on him and I felt then, even if the favorite was still a good four lengths in the lead, and going easily, that there was but one horse in the race, and that horse the seedy man's. It was a watermelon just opening, but I suppose I was the only man at the track that happened to have got next to the game. The judges didn't observe, of course, that the seedy owner's horse was under twenty wraps, for they looked upon him as a dead one and paid no attention to his running.

"At the far turn Walcott, the favorite, was still three or four lengths in front, Halcyon, the No. 2 choice, having fallen back, beaten out. They were all in a bunch behind the leader, and all going mighty well at the head of the stretch. All the time I had my glass focused on the horse belonging to the shabby man. Walcott seemed to be just galloping, as I say, at the head of the stretch, when I saw the jockey suddenly sit down on the shabby man's horse and start to ride a-horseback. It was pretty, I tell you, to see that old six-year-old hop out after the galloping favorite and chase him down the stretch. The old horse, without a bit of whipping or spurring—the boy had simply given him his head—pumped up like an express engine, and the favorite was taken out of his gallop and extended, under whip and spur, before they were half way down the stretch. Passing the stand, Walcott and the seedy man's horse were nose and nose, the latter gaining at every jump. Walcott was beaten a head on the wire by the rank outsider in a pretty finish.

"The stewards had the seedy man in the stand immediately and then called the boy up. It was an astonishing reversal of form, and action seemed to be called for. The seedy man's story was straight, however. He had given his horse a half pint of whisky before the race and he supposed that was responsible for the win. Doping horses was all right at Alexander, and so the stewards couldn't kick about that. The stewards touched upon the ringer question, but the seedy man was such a simple kind of duck, and his story was so connected about past owners of his two horses and their life-long careers on the outlaw tracks, that the stewards finally declared the race all hunk and the bets stood.

"I saw the shabby man cash his $70 worth of 100 to 1 tickets. He didn't gloat any over the bookies who had grinned in his teeth before the race—just collected his money quietly, saying: 'Well, I had a chance, didn't I?' The bookies were confident that the seedy man had a mighty valuable pair of ringers on his staff, and that one of them had just won the mile race in the beautiful, finely-drawn nose finish, but they couldn't welch on their bets. With his $7000 the seedy man took his string of two away the next day.

"I ran across him last summer at the St. Louis Fair Grounds' racing. He was no longer a seedy man. He was covered with gig lamps, and he had it in every pocket. Said I to him:

"'D'ye remember that neat 100 to I thing you pulled off in Washington a few years ago? There was some quality in that old outlaw of yours that got the money.'

"He looked at me with a broad grin.

"'Outlaw be damned,' said he. 'That horse was one of the cracks out of the West, on licensed tracks. He was a bit of paint. He had done a mile in 1:39-1/2 twice—round miles—and he was as game as a wild turkey egg. Me and my pardner pulled down $20,000 or so, running him as a ringer all over the country. I was going to open my six-furlonger in Washington that time, but $7000 was enough. My six-furlonger was a crack from Frisco. He was dyed, too. Six furlongs in 1:14 was a common canter for him. The Willie Wises back in the East are not so many at that, are they?'"