38 THE GENERAL. 



ability to win matches, and in order to do that a horse 

 had to be a shade faster than he had ever shown in 

 public. About this time a few of the Quaker City ex- 

 perts also decided that now was the time for an in- 

 dustrious young man like John E. Turner to lose a 

 little of the coin of the realm which he had brought on 

 from the West, and in order to separate him from it 

 they made three matches to be trotted inside of two 

 weeks. The first two were trotted on alternate days, 

 May Queen winning both. In the deciding heat of the 

 second Turner gave her a mark of 2 :3c The day after 

 the second race May Queen was sold for $11,000 and 

 Turner paid forfeit in the third. 



The story of the sale was related by Turner one 

 afternoon while en route to a trotting meeting. "At 

 that time," he said, "I was living quite a piece out of 

 Philadelphia. The day after May Queen's second 

 race a hack drove up to the door and I was called in 

 from the stable where I was looking after the mare. 

 A man that I had seen about the tracks and knew as 

 'Squeally Jack' on account of his shrill voice, stepped 

 out and said that he had come to buy May Queen and 

 was going to take her to California. After looking her 

 over (and she was smooth as oil that day) he asked me 

 my price and I told him $11,000. It "just about took 

 his breath away, but after a time he said that he would 

 give me $10,000; but I would not hear of it. He 

 argued and talked for over half an hour ; told me it was 

 a big pile of money and all that, and it was more than 

 I had ever had at one time up to that date, but it was 

 no use. I saw from his actions that he wanted the 

 mare, and as he was getting in the hack to drive away 

 told him that he had better buy her then and save $10 



