"You bet your life!" said he with emphasis. "Take it from me, he is _some_ horse!"
"Some horse is right!" chimed in Little Calamity fervently. "Just wait till I get him in shape, boss, and I'll show you how much horse he is!"
"And that," said the Bald-faced Kid, "is no idle statement."
"Frank," said Old Man Curry, "you're making more of a fool of that Hopwood than the Lord intended him to be, and it's a sin and a shame. Why can't you let him alone?"
"Because he hands me many a laugh," said the Bald-faced Kid, "and laughs are good for what ails me. He is a three-ring circus and concert all by himself, but he doesn't know it, and that's what makes him so good. And innocent? Say, the original Babes in the Wood haven't got a thing on him. If he stays around here these sharpshooters will have his shirt."
"And you're helping them to get it with your lies. First thing you know you'll have him betting on that hoss when he starts, and Last Chance never won a race in his life and never will. He can quit so fast that it looks like he's going the wrong way of the track. Hopwood was around here to-day all swelled up with the stories you've been feeding him. It ain't right, my son, and, what's more, it ain't _honest_. You might just as well pick his pockets and give the money to the bookmakers."
"The bookmakers won't get fat on what they take away from him," was the careless rejoinder. "This fellow has got a groceryman's heart. He can squeeze a dollar until the eagle screams for help, and he never heard of Riley Grannan. If he bets at all it won't be more than a ten-dollar note. Last Chance goes in the second race to-morrow--nonwinners at the meeting--and I'm going down to the stable now to have a conference and give Calamity his riding orders."
"I wash my hands of you," said the old man. "Fun is all right in its place, but fun that hurts somebody else has a way of coming home to roost. Don't forget that, my son."
"Aw, who's going to hurt him?" was the sulky rejoinder. "I'm only helping the chump to buy some of the experience that you spoke about the other day."
"Solomon says----" began Old Man Curry, but the Kid beat a hasty retreat.
"Put him on ice till to-morrow!" he called back over his shoulder. "This is my busy day!"