He ate his bacon and beans with even more than usual
relish, laughing softly to himself repeatedly, and when he had
finished and the dishes were washed and put away, he selected, still
laughing, a spade and crowbar from a heap of tools in the corner of
his shanty. These he shouldered and then strode out into the night.
* * * * *
The crowd at the race track upon the opening afternoon of the fair was
beginning to assume colossal proportions--colossal, that is to say,
for San Lorenzo. Beneath the grand stand, where the pools are always
sold, the motley throng surged thickest. Jew and gentile, greaser and
dude, tin-horn gamblers and tenderfeet, hayseeds and merchants,
jostled each other good humouredly. In the pool box were two men. One
--the auctioneer--a perfect specimen of the "sport"; a ponderous
individual, brazen of face and voice, who presented to the crowd an
amazing front of mottled face, diamond stud, bulging shirt sleeves,
and a bull-neck encircled by a soiled eighteen-and-a-half inch paper
collar. The other gentleman, who handled the tickets, was unclean,
unshorn, and cadaverous-looking, with a black cigar, unlighted, stuck
aggressively into the corner of his mouth.
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