272 TALES OF THE TURF. 



dred franc bettor does. But that is not all the betting 

 done, for at the fall of the starter's flag bedlam breaks 

 loose and every Frenchman constitutes himself a commit- 

 tee of one, empowered, authorized, expected and required 

 to make, in the wonderful gibberish only possible to a 

 native of France, every conceivable betting proposition 

 and as loud as he can. This bedlam continues until the 

 last horse is whipped and spurred under the wire, for 

 there is no proposition "too tough an angle" for French- 

 men to bet upon, provided you give them sufficient odds. 

 One horse may be an eighth of a mile ahead of another 

 and have only one hundred yards more to go, but a 

 French trotting-horse crank will bet that the horse behind 

 will win if you give him odds enough — it's only a question 

 of odds with him. 



But, to conclude this long, desultory letter, I want to 

 say that when Buford and other American horses stepped 

 upon the track, in the great international free-for-all, it 

 brought a thrill of pride and patriotism to both Andy and 

 myself. The Russian trotters, although far and away 

 superior to the French products in appearance, looked 

 very cheap when compared with the American. And 

 when it came to trotting — why, the others "weren't in it." 

 The American horses went like trotters — square and true 

 and frictionless. None of that "hop-and-go -fetch-it," la- 

 bored way that characterized all the others. I wonder 

 what they think in their own minds over there when they 

 compare the genuine with the counterfeit ; the difference 

 between the finished article and the crude, inferior, raw 

 material. It must be mightily discouraging — if anything 

 ever really does discourage a Frenchman. 



But — mark the prediction — ten years from now — and 

 sooner, if intolerant preachers, and cackling old women 



