, just as the New York astrologer
had and that he was likely to alter the course of his life radically in
the middle portion of it? Were there any fixed laws of being? Did any of
the so-called naturalistic school of philosophers and scientists whom he
had read know anything at all? They were always talking about the fixed
laws of the universe--the unalterable laws of chemistry and physics. Why
didn't chemistry or physics throw some light on his peculiar physical
condition, on the truthful prediction of the astrologer, on the signs
and portents which he had come to observe for himself as foretelling
trouble or good fortune for himself. If his left eye twitched he had
observed of late he was going to have a quarrel with someone--invariably
Angela. If he found a penny or any money, he was going to get money; for
every notification of a sale of a picture with the accompanying check
had been preceded by the discovery of a coin somewhere: once a penny in
State Street, Chicago, on a rainy day--M. Charles wrote that a picture
had been sold in Paris for two hundred; once a three-cent piece of the
old American issue in the dust of a road in Tennessee--M. Charles wrote
that one of his old American views had brought one hundred and fifty;
once a penny in sands by the Gulf in Biloxi--another notification of a
sale. So it went. He found that when doors squeaked, people were apt to
get sick in the houses where they were; and a black dog howling in front
of a house was a sure sign of death. He had seen this with his own eyes,
this sign which his mother had once told him of as having been verified
in her experience, in connection with the case of a man who was sick in
Biloxi. He was sick, and a dog came running along the street and stopped
in front of this place--a black dog--and the man died. Eugene saw this
with his own eyes,--that is, the dog and the sick man's death notice.
The dog howled at four o'clock in the afternoon and the next morning the
man was dead. He saw the crape on the door. Angela mocked at his
superstition, but he was convinced. "There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

CHAPTER XVI

Eugene was reaching the point where he had no more money and was
compelled to think by what process he would continue to make a living in
the future. Worry and a hypochondriacal despair had reduced his body to
a comparatively gaunt condition. His eyes had a nervous, apprehensive