Under One Flag Part 45

"I've no patience with people who want to make fun of the most cherished beliefs of their ancestors."

"Surely, Adeline, you are not superst.i.tious?"

"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 cla.s.s, of cerebral disturbance. He rushed to me as I entered, gazing at me through his eyegla.s.s.

"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?"

"Quite so! quite so! I suppose it is all right?"

"All right? Jackson? What do you mean?"

"In going on as we are going on we're doing nothing wrong, running no unwise risks, or that kind of thing?" As I had been putting a similar inquiry to myself I was without an answer. When I turned away he broke out, in agitated accents, "Short, I've come to warn you!"

"To warn me, Jackson?"

"Whatever you do, don't ride in a cab drawn by a white horse."

"Why?"

"Don't ask me, but don't! Don't walk under a ladder when there's a red-haired woman looking on."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't take the last piece of bread and b.u.t.ter off a plate."

"I never did such a thing in my life."

"Above all, don't sleep in a house in which there is a man with one leg shorter than the other."

"Jackson, occupying the position which I hold, which we both hold, I am surprised to hear you speak in such a strain."

"I knew you would be, but I can't help it. I suppose we're not allowed to believe in dreams?"

"Several of the rules are aimed at that particular form of foolish credulity."

"Foolish, is it? Then all I can say is, that the things I've dreamt about you during the last night or two have been enough to turn a man's brain. I've seen you in the most frightful situations, awful. Such dreams must mean something--they must. Anyhow, Mrs Jackson insisted on my giving you warning. She believes in everything."

"In a woman, Jackson, that sort of thing is excusable. We, as men, know better."

"If she knew that I was going to this--this flare-up I don't know what she would do. She'd expect to see me brought home dead on a shutter. I do hope no harm will come of it all."

"My dear Jackson, it is time to start. Suppose we have a gla.s.s of sherry before we go."

"It would brace us up."

I cannot say why he supposed that I required bracing up. Though his need was plain enough. As we drove to the Coliseum--I noticed, quite by accident, that the cab horse was not white--he entertained me with conversation of a kind to which I had a strong objection.

"I suppose that when thirteen people sit down to dinner, it's the one who rises first who dies within the year. Of course, as President you'll do that." Would I? we should see. "I have heard that if all rise together all are marked for death. I'll see that nothing of that sort happens, because I'll take particularly good care that I sit tight. I don't want to leave my wife a widow, and--and my children." His tone became lugubrious. "Not that I shall get much good by sitting tight, because I had an aunt who used to have it that it was the one who remained last at table who died. Mrs Jackson maintains that when thirteen people dine together the consequences are such that those who don't die within the year wish they could. Which is a cheerful way of looking at the thing."

It was. More than once during the drive I was on the point of informing Jackson that if he did not divert his conversation into different channels I should be moved to take the extreme step of throwing him out of the cab. By the time we reached the restaurant my depression had increased to what I felt must be a visible extent.

As the hansom drew up at the door the horse slipped. It was only by something in the shape of a miracle that the vehicle escaped being overturned. For a second I certainly thought that we were over. I was in a state of tremulous agitation.

"Ah," sighed Jackson, when at last we stood upon the pavement, "that's a precursor of what's to come. If we were sensible men we should act upon the warning, and go and have a chop together round the corner. I feel as if a grim, relentless fate was marching me to execution."

It was with no pleasurable antic.i.p.ations that we approached the feast which had been prepared for us. My own impression is that if it had not been for the attendants we might have acted on Jackson's suggestion and dined upon a chop. A uniformed individual, advancing with what he possibly intended to be an ingratiating smile, murmured,--

"Thirteen Club, gentlemen?"

I do not know why he took it for granted that we belonged to an a.s.sociation of the kind. It is hardly probable that we bore the fact upon our faces. There were other persons coming to the establishment to dine to whom he did not address a similar inquiry; persons who looked quite as likely to belong to such an organisation as we did.

As we were being ushered up the stairs we encountered Boulter, Tom Boulter, who had apparently arrived just in front of us. He regarded me with what I felt to be a doubtful eye.

"Feeling peckish?" he cried.

"Well, I can't say that I do--very. Do you?"

The tone of his reply was decidedly emphatic.

"Not likely. Wish I hadn't come. I've a lot of delicate things on hand just now and want all the luck I can get, instead of fooling it away on a silly show of this kind."

Boulter is a member of the Stock Exchange. I understood him to be referring to speculations in which he was at that time engaged. The reference touched me on a tender spot. The shares of a company in which I was interested had fallen three-quarters that very morning. Suppose I discovered to-morrow that they had dropped another three-quarters, I should feel that the fall was of the nature of a visitation. If, by a sort of sympathetic consequence, all my investments were to become depressed, what would my emotions be?

We were shown into a room which was in partial darkness. Gardiner came forward and gripped me by the hand.

"What," I inquired, "is the matter with the light?"

"My dear Short, what a question. Evil fortune is supposed to lurk in shadows. It is our end and aim to laugh at all such fancies."

As I was about to observe that that was no reason why we should be driven to tread upon each other's toes, to my surprise he made quite a speech to the a.s.sembled company.

"Mr President and Gentlemen of the Thirteen Club,--We are all arrived and will now proceed to partake of that hilarious banquet which has been specially designed to enable us to express our scorn and contempt for those ridiculous superst.i.tions which have bound our ancestors about as with swaddling clothes. We will show that we have risen superior to those foolish traditions, the fear of which haunted them by day and kept them awake at night. By way of making our position quite plain we will commence by doing something the mere thought of which would have made our great-grandmothers shiver and shake. A mirror will be handed to each of you. As you pa.s.s into the dining-room you will dash it to the ground with sufficient force to shatter it to fragments, exclaiming, as you do so, 'So much for the bad luck a broken mirror is supposed to bring!' It will be to begin as we intend to go on."

My own mother used to lay stress on the bad fortune which attends the fracturing of a mirror. It was with sensations almost amounting to dismay that I heard Gardiner's cold-blooded announcement of his determination to compel me, among others, to treat my mother's feelings with what was really equivalent to filial disrespect. Something of the kind, I am convinced, was nearly general, and would have found utterance, had not the man Finlayson stifled any attempt at remonstrance by bustling about and forcing each of us to take a small round mirror, which was without a frame. At the same time Gardiner, putting his hand upon my shoulder, actually impelled me towards a door leading to an inner room.