"Well, as you know, two days after I found the Luck, I slipped on the steps as we were going out shooting, and sprained my ankle—in consequence of not looking where I was going, say you, and I also, for that matter. The Luck, say the superstitious: that is the frost. As soon as I get right, I go out shooting again, get wet through, and catch a pretty bad chill—because I didn't go and change, say you. The Luck, say the superstitious: that is the rain. Finally, the very day you left, I tripped over the hearthrug, fell into the fire, and burned half my hair off. Well, if that isn't fire I don't know what is. 'Fear both fire and frost and rain,' you see. Certainly I have suffered from all three, but if old Francis could only give me a cold, and a sprained ankle, and a burn, I don't think much of his magic. Well, I've paid the price, and now there is the Luck to look forward to. Dear me, I'm afraid I've been jawing."
"I wonder if you believe it at all," said Geoffrey. "For myself, I should chuck the beastly pot into the lake, not because I believed it, but for fear that I some day might. If you get to believe that sort of thing, you are done."
"I am sure I don't believe it," said the other, "and so I shall not chuck the beastly pot into the lake. Nor would you if it were yours. But, if I did believe it, Geoff, there would be all the more reason for keeping it. Don't you see, I've been through the penalties, now let me have the prizes. That's the way to look at it. I don't look at it, I must remind you, in that way; I only say, what a strange series of coincidences! You can hardly deny that that is so."
"What have you done with it?" asked Geoffrey.
"The beastly pot? It's down at Vail. Uncle Francis is there, too. I wanted him to come up to London with me, but he wouldn't. Now, there's a cruel thing, Geoff. My God, it makes my blood boil when I think of it!"
"Think of what?"
"Of the persistent ill luck which has dogged my uncle throughout his life. Of the odious—well, not suspicion, it is not so definite as that—which seems to surround him. I was at Lady Oxted's the other night, and mentioned him casually, but she said nothing and changed the subject. Oh, it was not a mere chance; the thing has happened before."
Geoffrey squirted some soda water into his glass.
"Suspicion! what do you mean?" he asked.
"No; suspicion is the wrong word. Uncle Francis told me all about his life on the last evening that I was at Vail, and I never heard anything so touching, so cruel, or so dignified. All his life he has been the victim of an ill luck so persistent that it looks as if some malignant power must have been pursuing him. Well, I am going to try to make it up to him. I wonder if a rather long and very private story about his affairs would interest you at all?"