Morgan after a busy day. It can't lose, this clam can't! Say, that horse 'Perhaps' wears gold-plated overshoes and it can kick more track behind it than any ostrich you ever see! Why,| it's got ball-bearing castors on the feet and it wears a naphtha engine in the forward turret. Get reckless with the coin, boys, and go the limit, and if the track happens to cave in and it does lose, I'll drag you down to Elmhurst behind the blue mare and make the suction pump in the backyard do an imitation of Walter Jones singing 'Captain Kidd' with the bum pipes."

Joe was so much in earnest about it that Bunch and I put up fifty on "Perhaps" and waited.

We are still waiting.

"Perhaps" may have been a good horse but he had a bad memory and never could recollect which end of the track was the proper place to finish.

Joe must have left for Elmhurst immediately after the race because he failed to answer roll call.

Then we ran across Dave Torrence, the famous inventor of the disappearing trump so much used by pinochle players.

When Dave began to dope 'em out for us Bunch and I hid our pocketbooks in our shoes.

"Here's a good one," Dave suggested; "listen to this 'Easy Money' out of 'Life Insurance' by 'Director.' And here's a good one, 'Chauffeur' out of 'Automobile' by 'Policeman!' Do you care for those?"

There were tears in Bunch's eyes, but I was busy looking for a rock.

"Here are some more peacherinos," Dave went on, relentlessly, "here is 'Golf Player' out of 'Business' by 'Mosquito,' and here's another good one, 'Eternal Daylights' out of 'Russia' by 'Japan'—like 'em?"

Bunch and I handed Dave the reproachful face and fled for our lives.

Then we got down to business and began to lose our money with more system and less noise.

At the end of the fifth race we hadn't the price of a leather sandwich between us.

Every dog we had mentioned to the Bookies proved to be a false alarm.

Every turtle we plunged on carried our money to the bonfire and dumped it in.

"My little black man is whimpering, Bunch," I said. "I'm cured."

"One hundred and sixty bucks to the bad for mine," laughed Bunch. "I guess that will hold me temporarily. Come on, John; let's hop in the Bubble and dash back to the Hotel Astor; the girls will be waiting for us."

We hurried to the spot where Flash Harvey was to leave the gas-hopper but there was no sign of Flash or the machine.

Seven o'clock came and still no sign of Flash or the Bubble, and there we sat, two sad boys without a baubee in the jeans, hungry to the limit and with an ever present vision of our two worried wives displacing a bunch of expensive space in a restaurant while they waited for us to show.

It was pitiful.

Eight o'clock came, no Flash, no machine, while there we waited and watched our hair as it slowly turned gray.

I had gone through my pockets till I wore holes in them without locating anything in the shape money, but finally on about the 919th lap Bunch discovered dollar bill tucked away in a corner, whereupon we turned our faces to every point of the compass and called down maledictions on the head of Flash Harvey, wherever he might be, and then ducked for the trolley.

When we finally reached the Hotel Astor it was a quarter past ten, so we decided it was too late for dinner and we didn't go in.

At home—but what's the use?

The war is over now and a treaty of peace has been signed.

We are even with Flash Harvey, though.

He got speed-foolish in the Bubble and tried to give an imitation of a torpedo destroyer, with the result that a Reub constable pinched him and the whole outfit and threw him in a rural Bastile for the night.

That's what delayed him.

JOHN HENRY ON BRIDGE WHIST

I received a letter the other day that put me over the ropes.

I'll paste it up here just to show you that it's on the level:

PHILADELPHIA, This Week.

Dear John:—I have never met you personally, but I've heard my brother, Teddy, speak of you so often that you really seem to be one of the family.

(Teddy talks slang something fierce.)

Dear John, will you please pardon the liberty I take in grabbing a two-cent stamp and jumping so unceremoniously at one who is, after all, a perfect stranger?

Dear John, if you look around you can see on every hand that the glad season of the year is here, and if you listen attentively you may hear the hoarse cry of the summer resort beckoning us to that burn from which no traveller returns without getting his pocketbook dislocated.

Dear John, could you please tell me how to play bridge whist, so that when I go to the seashore I will be armed for defraying expenses.

Dear John, I am sure that if I could play bridge whist loud enough to win four dollars every once in a while I could spend a large bunch of the summer at the seashore.

Dear John, would you tell a loving but perfect stranger how to play the game without having to wear a mask?

Dear John, I played a couple of games recently with a wide faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture at me because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence of a lady?

If you please, dear John, tell me how to play bridge whist.

  Yours fondly,
    GLADYS JONES.

P.S.—The furniture which he threw was not his property to dispose of. G.J.

When my wife got a flash of this letter she made a kick to the effect that it was some kind of a cypher, possibly the beginning of a secret correspondence.

It was up to me to hand Gladys the frosty get-back, so this is what
I said:

Respected Madam:—I'm a slob on that bridge whist thing, plain poker being the only game with cards that ever coaxes my dough from the stocking, but I'll do the advice gag if it chokes me:

Bridge whist is played with, cards, just like pinochle, with the exception of the beer.

Not enough cards is a misdeal; too many cards is a mistake; and cards up the sleeve is a slap on the front piazza if they catch you at it.

You shouldn't get up and dance the snakentine dance every time you take a trick. It looks more genteel and picturesque to do the two-step.

When your opponent has not followed suit it is not wise to pick out a loud tone of voice and tell him about it. Reach under the table and kick him on the shins. If it hurts him he is a cheater; if it doesn't hurt him always remember that you are a lady.

Don't forget what is trumps more than eighteen times during one hand. The limit used to be twenty-six times, but since the insurance people have been playing Hyde and seek the best bridge whist authorities have put the limit down to eighteen.

It isn't wise to have a conniption fit every time you lose a trick. Nothing looks so bad as a conniption fit when it doesn't match the complexion, and generally it delays the game.

When the game is close don't get excited and climb up on