That night to every big newspaper office from Maine
to California, was flashed the news that Plunger Carter, in a
Broadway theatre, had announced that the favorite for the Suburban
would be beaten, and, in order, had named the three horses that
would first finish.
Up and down Broadway, from rathskellers to roof-gardens, in cafes
and lobster palaces, on the corners of the cross-roads, in clubs
and all-night restaurants, Carter's tip was as a red rag to a bull.
Was the boy drunk, they demanded, or had his miraculous luck turned
his head? Otherwise, why would he so publicly utter a prophecy that
on the morrow must certainly smother him with ridicule. The
explanations were varied. The men in the clubs held he was driven
by a desire for notoriety, the men in the street that he was more
clever than they guessed, and had made the move to suit his own
book, to alter the odds to his own advantage. Others frowned
mysteriously. With superstitious faith in his luck, they pointed to
his record. "Has he ever lost a bet? How do WE know what HE knows?"
they demanded. "Perhaps it's fixed and he knows it!"
The "wise" ones howled in derision. "A Suburban FIXED!" they
retorted. "You can fix ONE jockey, you can fix TWO; but you can't
fix sixteen jockeys! You can't fix Belmont, you can't fix Keene.
There's nothing in his picking Beldame, but only a crazy man would
pick the horse for the place and to show, and shut out the
favorite! The boy ought to be in Matteawan.
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