ther, on a trip, he would shut himself up in his berth with
them: the thump of the toiling engines pulsated in his ear; and he
would weary his brain poring over the rows of disconnected figures,
bewildering by their senseless sequence, resembling the hazards of
destiny itself. He nourished a conviction that there must be some logic
lurking somewhere in the results of chance. He thought he had seen
its very form. His head swam; his limbs ached; he puffed at his pipe
mechanically; a contemplative stupor would soothe the fretfulness of his
temper, like the passive bodily quietude procured by a drug, while the
intellect remains tensely on the stretch. Nine, nine, aught, four,
two. He made a note. The next winning number of the great prize was
forty-seven thousand and five. These numbers of course would have to
be avoided in the future when writing to Manilla for the tickets. He
mumbled, pencil in hand . . . "and five. Hm . . . hm." He wetted his
finger: the papers rustled. Ha! But what's this? Three years ago, in the
September drawing, it was number nine, aught, four, two that took the
first prize. Most remarkable. There was a hint there of a definite rule!
He was afraid of missing some recondite principle in the overwhelming
wealth of his material. What could it be? and for half an hour he would
remain dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a muscle.
At his back the whole berth would be thick with a heavy body of smoke,
as if a bomb had burst in there, unnoticed, unheard.

At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of unshaken
confidence, jump and go out. He would walk swiftly back and forth on
that part of the foredeck which was kept clear of the lumber and of the
bodies of the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but they
were also a source of profit that could not be disdained. He needed
every penny of profit the Sofala could make. Little enough it was, in
all conscience! The incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since
he had somehow arrived at the conviction that, in the course of years,
every number was bound to have his winning turn. It was simply a matter
of time and of taking as many tickets as he could afford for every
drawing. He generally took rather more; all the earnings of the ship
went that way, and also the wages he allowed himself as chief engineer.
It was the wages he paid to others that he begrudged with a reasoned
and at the same time a passionate regret. He scowled