"The Lennox Mess has always been lucky," said Major Parker.
"Luck is nothing," said the doctor.
"One can see you are not a gambler," remarked Aurelle.
"One can see that you are not a mathematician," said the doctor.
The padre expostulated:
"What? Luck nothing? How about little Taylor, killed by a shell in Poperinghe Station at the very moment that he was arriving at the front for the first time! You don't call that bad luck?"
"Not more than if an old habitué like me was wiped out by a whizz-bang, padre. You are astonished at Taylor being killed the first minute, just as you would be surprised if, in a lottery of a million tickets, Number One should win, although that number had obviously as much chance as, say, 327,645. Someone must be the last man killed in this war, but you will see that his family will not think it ordinary."
"You are a fanatic, O'Grady," said Parker, "you must have an explanation for everything; there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I believe, myself, in good luck and bad luck because I have noticed it: I believe in presentiments because I have had them, and events have confirmed them. When I was being sent home, after the Transvaal War, I got an order to embark on a certain ship. Well, two days before it started I suddenly had a presentiment that I must avoid sailing in that ship at all costs. I went sick and waited a fortnight longer. The transport I missed was completely lost and no one ever knew how. Then again, why are you so certain, doctor, that aspirin will cure your headache? Because aspirin has cured it before. Where's the difference?"
"The major is right," said Aurelle. "To say that you do not believe in a man's bad luck because you cannot find it at his autopsy, is like saying that the tuner has taken the piano to pieces, and therefore Mozart had no soul."
The quartermaster, who was dining with them that evening, threw his weight into discussion: