' 'Ten rods,' said he,
'for twenty dollars.' Well, we run, and I made Old Clay bite in his
breath and only beat him by half a neck. 'A tight scratch,' says I,
'that, and it would have sarved me right if I had been beat. I had
no business to run an old roadster so everlastin' fast, it ain't fair
on him, is it?' Says he, 'I will double the bet and start even, and
run you agin if you dare.' 'Well,' says I, 'since I won the last it
wouldn't be pretty not to give you a chance; I do suppose I oughtn't
to refuse, but I don't love to abuse my beast by knockin' him about
this way.'
"As soon as the money was staked, I said, 'Hadn't we better,' says
I, 'draw stakes? That 'ere blood horse of your'n has such uncommon
particular bottom, he'll perhaps leave me clean out of sight.' 'No
fear of that,' said he, larfin', 'but he'll beat you easy, anyhow. No
flinchin',' says he, 'I'll not let you go back of the bargain. It's
run or forfeit.' 'Well,' says I, 'friend, there is fear of it; your
horse will leave me out of sight, to a sartainty, that's a fact,
for he CAN'T KEEP UP TO ME NO TIME. I'll drop him, hull down, in tu
tu's.' If Old Clay didn't make a fool of him, it's a pity. Didn't
he gallop pretty, that's all? He walked away from him, jist as the
Chancellor Livingston steamboat passes a sloop at anchor in the north
river.
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