f my ill luck.

At length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated my
imagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressed
among the first purchasers, had not my ardour been withheld by
deliberation upon the probability of success from one ticket rather
than another. I hesitated long between even and off; considered the
square and cubic numbers through the lottery; examined all those to
which good luck had been hitherto annexed; and at last fixed upon one,
which, by some secret relation to the events of my life, I thought
predestined to make me happy. Delay in great affairs is often
mischievous; the ticket was sold, and its possessor could not be
found.

I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication,
fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Never did
captive, heir, or lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace of
time, as I suffered between the purchase of my ticket and the
distribution of the prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as well as I
could, by frequent contemplations of approaching happiness; when the
sun arose I knew it would set, and congratulated myself at night that
I was so much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket
appeared, and rewarded all my care and sagacity with a despicable
prize of fifty pounds.

My friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success, were very coldly
received; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrin
might fume away without observation, and then returning to my shop,
began to listen after another lottery.

With the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now found
the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I resolved to
take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not
omitting, however, to divide them between the even and odd numbers,
that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form,
and many experiments did I try to determine from which of those
tickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable
to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon
dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing
them in a garret; and examining the event by an exact register, found,
on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers
had been turned up five times more than any of the rest in three
hundred and thirty thousand throws.

This experiment was fallacious; the first