[2132] It is still a saying, and perhaps a belief, that “There is luck in odd numbers.”
[2133] This has been a practice from the earliest times to the present day. See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Vol. III. p. 123, Bohn’s Ed.
[2134] In France and England, at the present day, this notion, or rather, perhaps, the memory of it, is universally to be found. If the right ear tingles, some one is speaking well of us; if the left ear, the reverse.
[2135] King Attalus Philometor. See end of B. viii.
[2136] “Two.”
[2137] This passage, it is pretty clear, ought to follow the preceding one, though in the Latin it is made to precede.
[2138] The thumb was turned upwards as a mark of favour, downwards, as a mark of disfavour.
[2139] “Repositorium.”
[2140] It was not yet the custom to bring in several courses, each served up on a separate table.
[2141] Good manners possibly, more than superstition, may have introduced this practice.