Australia may have a shortage of productive workmen, but it has no shortage of bookies (who, in Australia, are highly respectable gentry). Aussies, who hate to miss a chance to get a lot for a little, play the horses heavily. In sports-mad Brisbane, the favorite race-track bet is a long-shot version of the U.S. daily doubleĀa combined long-odds bet on two races. Some bookmakers, known as "doubles fielders" will not accept bets of any other kind.
Doubles-Fielder Wally Northcott, wanting to cut his son Kefford in on this easy money, entered his name on the bookmakers' waiting list of the Queensland...