"Are you superstitious, Roddy? Of course you are: and so are all
of us who pretend that we are not. . . . Monte Carlo is the hell
of a hole. I had never seen it before: but as I went into the
Casino, all of a sudden I had a queer recollection--of a
breakfast-party at Cambridge in young La Touche's rooms, in
King's (he was killed in the South African War), and of his
saying solemnly as we lit cigarettes that he'd had a dream
overnight. He dreamed that he walked into the Casino at Monte
Carlo, went straight to the first table on the left, put down a
five-franc piece on Number 17, and came out a winner of
prodigious sums.
"Well, we are all humbugs about superstition. I don't believe
there's a man existent--that's to say, a tolerable man, a fellow
who isn't a prig--who doesn't touch posts, or count his steps on
the pavement, or choose what tie he'll wear on certain days,
or give way to some such human weakness when he's alone.
We so-called 'men of science' are, I truly believe, the worst of
the lot.
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