"And how are the ponies running?' he asked.
The interview was filling Mannie with excitement and delight. He
chuckled with pleasure. His fear of the great man was rapidly
departing. Could this, he asked himself, be the "terror to evil-
doers," the man whose cruel questions drove witnesses to tears,
whose "third degree" sent veterans of the underworld staggering
from his confessional box, limp and gasping?
"Oh, pretty well," said the boy, "seems as if I couldn't keep
away from them. I got a good thing for today -- Pompadour -- in
the fifth. I put all the money on her I could get together," he
announced importantly, and then added frankly, with a laugh,
"two dollars!" The laugh was contagious, and the District
Attorney laughed with him.
"Pompadour," Winthrop objected, "she's one of those winter track
favorites."
"I know, but today," declared Mannie, "she win, sure!" Carried
away by his enthusiasm, and by the sympathy of his audience, he
rushed, unheeding, to his fate. "If you'd like to put a little
on," he said, "I can tell you where you can do it."
The District Attorney stared and laughed. "You mustn't tell me
where you can do it," he said.
Mannie gave a terrified gasp and, for an instant, clapped his
hands over his lips. "That's right," he cried. "Gee, that's
right! I'm such a crank on all kinds of sport that I clean
forgot!"
He gazed at the much-dreaded District Attorney with the awe of
the new-born hero-worshipper.
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