"Or take the case of studs," he went on. "You drop a stud, and it
promptly and inevitably rolls away into some quite impossible
hiding-place. So most of us believe. As a matter of fact it only does so
approximately three times out of a hundred. Or bootlaces. If you are
exceptionally late in the morning; your bootlace always snaps, you say.
Not at all. It breaks in such circumstances only four times out of a
possible hundred. And with bicycles, to take another example. If ever
you get a puncture, you fancy that it always occurs on some occasion
when you are sorely pressed for time. Again, not at all. Out of a
hundred punctures only seventeen are sustained at such unfortunate
moments."
"You seem to have studied the subject pretty deeply," I remarked.
"Oh, my dear Sir, I cannot myself recall a tithe of the material I
collected. I carried out my inquiries in every conceivable direction.
Suppose we take the obscure case of a--let me see--of a burglar. This
was one of my most difficult researches. A burglar will assure you, if
you happen to be in his confidence, that every time he enters a house,
at a moment when absolute quiet is from his point of view essential, a
door slams, or a pot of jam falls off a shelf, or a--a canary commences
to sing loudly, or there occurs one of a hundred other unlucky noises he
will name. As you may imagine, my investigations into this problem were
extraordinarily difficult. But the result was a triumph. In only .375
per cent. of cases is our burglar disturbed by an unexpected noise for
which he is not himself responsible. As for the specific examples given,
the results here are even more striking. The pot of jam, for instance,
only falls down in, I think, .0025 per cent. of cases, the canary bursts
into song in only .00175 per cent., and so on."
"It is astonishing," I admitted. "I must certainly obtain a copy of your
book. Perhaps----"
"I never published it," he interrupted. "As a matter of fact I became
converted."
"Converted?" I exclaimed in amazement. "In the face of all your
statistics?"
"Yes," he said meditatively. "I remember the occasion well. It happened
a few months ago, in early Spring. I had just completed the last chapter
of my book, and I laid down my pen with a sigh. There before me lay all
the statistics I had so laboriously collected, neatly tabulated and
arranged with the proper explanatory notes and diagrams. It was finished
after all these years! I can assure you it was an emotional moment. I
don't know if you have ever brought a great work to a successful
conclusion; if so, you can understand my feelings."
"I can imagine them," I said.
"Well, I opened the French windows and stepped out into the garden to
calm myself. It was a lovely March day, I remember, sunny and fresh, and
I paced up and down the garden till my emotions subsided and I gradually
recovered my self-control. Then I went indoors again."
The train slowed down and he began to gather his things together. "While
I was gone," he said sadly, "the wind blew my manuscript and the best
part of my notes into the fire."
"How excessively unfortunate!" I murmured sympathetically. "And this
converted you to the 'cussedness' theory?"
"Yes," said he, as he stepped down to the platform. "It was the only
book I ever wrote, and it was burned practically to a cinder. It works
out you see, at exactly 100 per cent...."
* * * * *