TWO-MINUTE HORSE TRADE 



215 



And one of the syndicate gentlemen ventured the opinion 

 that the price was too high for "that little scrub;" then he 

 went on to say: "I will tell you what we will do. We have 

 a great race horse, Sir Thomas Lipton. But he is a puzzle 

 to us. What he needs is some one to solve him. He went 

 some great races but 'Billy' cannot solve his problem. We 

 will trade you that horse for your two colts." 



"Like hell you will," retorted Walter, then added: "I 

 suppose a problem Bill Andrews can't solve would be dead 

 easy for me." 



He was quiet for a moment and then said: "I'll give 

 you those two colts for Sir Thomas Lipton and $2,000; is 

 it a trade or not?" 



"Good night!" shouted both of the Cleveland men and 

 away they rushed for their boat. The night was a fine one 

 and they sat on deck until late talking about the colts. Sir 

 Thomas Lipton had become a veritable thorn in the flesh, 

 and that means the flesh of everybody who had anything to 

 do with him, and they were ready to bid him farewell with 

 never a tear in any eye. Besides the fact appeared to have 

 stuck in the heads of the men on the boat that there must 

 be something about the colts that was worth while. They 

 were more than well bred and in addition here was a chance 

 to get two colts for no great sum and at the same time pull 

 the thorn before every one was compelled to treat festered 

 wounds. They might not make the situation any better but 

 they could not possibly make it any worse. Then again, it 

 is not unlikely that something Walter had said about the 

 black colt back at Dover had taken pretty deep root and 

 made them want him. These two had wanted colts; Billy 

 Andrews had wanted colts. So next morning they hurried 

 to North Randall to take the matter up with Mr. Devereux, 

 another member of the Pastime Syndicate. They told him 

 of the off^er they had made and of the counter proposition 

 and urged that with two colts they would have something 

 to look forward to. After a certain amount of delil^eration 

 Mr. Devereux said: "Walter likes a gamble; wire him you 

 will toss a coin to decide whether we give him $1500 or 

 $2000 to boot." 



