“Yes,” he said, “I’ve had a deal of luck in my time, but it’s never turned out well.”
“I was born on a Wednesday,” he continued, “which, as I daresay you know, is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a widow, and none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every penny of his money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All I ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims upon me when I came to be a rich man.”
He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.
“Then there are black cats,” he went on; “they’re said to be lucky. Why, there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them.”
“Didn’t it bring you luck?” I enquired, finding that he had stopped.
A far-away look came into his eyes.
“Well, of course it all depends,” he answered dreamily. “Maybe we’d never have suited one another; you can always look at it that way. Still, I’d like to have tried.”
He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to intrude upon his evidently painful memories.
“What happened then?” I asked, however, at last.
He roused himself from his reverie.