"Don't you think they'll last for the mile and a quarter, Mr. Corson?"
"Think? I don't think. I know! Picture hosses like them--well, they'd
ought to be left in books. They run a little. Inside a half mile they
bust down. Look how long they are!"
"But their backs are short," put in Marianne hastily.
"Backs short?" scoffed Corson, "Why, lady look for yourself!"
She choked back her answer. If the self-satisfied old fellow could not
see how far back the withers reached and how far forward the quarters,
so that the true back was very short, it was the part of wisdom to let
experience teach him. Yet she could not refrain from saying: "You'll see
how they last in the race, Mr. Corson."
"We'll both see," he answered. "There goes a gent that's going to lose
money today!"
A big red-faced man with his hat on the back of his head and sweat
coursing down his cheeks, was pushing through the crowd calling with a
great voice:
"Here's Lady Mary money. Evens or odds on Lady Mary!" "That's Colonel
Dickinson," said Corson. "He comes around every year to play the races
here and most generally he picks winners. But today he's gone wrong. His
eye has been took by the legs of them Coles hosses and he's gone crazy
betting on 'em.
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