"I've no patience with people who want to make fun of the most cherished beliefs of their ancestors."
"Surely, Adeline, you are not superstitious?"
"I am. All nice people are in their heart of hearts. I wouldn't walk under a ladder for anything, nor sit at a table on which the knives were crossed. And whenever I spill the salt I'm unhappy."
I was silent. I had myself driven up to the house because there seemed to be three black dogs in every street. What could I say?
When, the following evening, I went to that preposterous, and, I had almost begun to think, sacrilegious dinner, my heart was in my boots.
II
Somewhat to my surprise, just as I was about to start, Lawrence Jackson called. Jackson is an invertebrate, lymphatic creature, of whose mental equipment I have no opinion at all. How he ever brought himself to belong to such an organisation as the Thirteen Club was to me a mystery. I had not quite finished dressing when he arrived. When I entered the room I found him fidgeting in his usual purposeless way from chair to chair, and from table to table. I noticed at once that his shirt front was creased; a sure sign, in a man of his class, of cerebral disturbance. He rushed to me as I entered, gazing at me through his eyeglass.
"Now that I have come I don't know what to say to you, you are such an enthusiastic upholder of the club."
I was not so sure of that myself. Though I was aware that such an idea was current among certain of its members. To use what I believe is an Americanism--in my reply I sat on the fence.
"In its President what would you expect?"