C H A P T E R V I I

LUCK THE UNIVERSAL ELEMENT www.LuckLaws.com

"Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast in the stream. When you least expect it, there will be fish."

OVID

THE old Roman poet certainly knew what he was talking about when he wrote those lines, nearly two thousand

years ago. For luck does (or at least may) affect everything. As we

gaze at the varied drama of life, we see luck eternally playing in and out like the flashes in a moving-picture film. What strange occurrences; what extraordinary accidents; what weird coincidences, occur as the result of mere chance hap-penings, entirely unforeseen! All of us can instantly recall one or more notable luck-episodes from our own experience; while some of the chance events chronicled in history or even freshly printed in the columns of the daily press are so amaz-ing as to attest the old saw that "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Out of a wealth of material which might fill volumes, let us select sample incidents of chance and luck, classified along broad lines.

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Extraordinary Accidents Due to Luck FIRST of all, let us consider some strange happenings in the literary world which came about through sheer chance:

Walter Scott, looking for some fish-hooks, found in a drawer the discarded and long-forgotten fragment of a novel. Up to that time, Scott had devoted himself to poetry. Further-more, his poetry was losing popular favor, since Lord Byron was fast nosing him out of that field.

So Walter Scott looked over the forgotten fragment with interest, went to work on it—and began a new and greater literary career. For this chance discovery led to the whole series of the Waverley Novels, which brought the author fame and fortune, and the public a source of perennial delight.

Charles Dickens wanted to be an actor. He was turned away from the theatrical profession to journalism and author-ship by so trivial a thing as a cold in the head. But for that head cold, another great series of novels would probably never have been penned.

Most amazing of all is the series of tragi-comic episodes by which luck ushered Sudermann, the celebrated German novelist, into the literary hall of fame:

Sudermann Finds His Lost Manuscript in Delicatessen Store!

' 'THIS story, if invented by a novelist, would be considered ridiculous and incredible. But being a true story, it shows that life is still more extravagant and more fantastic than all the writers' imaginations.

"Hermann Sudermann, the noted German playwright and novelist, had a hard beginning. He wrote novels for news-papers, and every Monday brought to the editor the chapters needed for a week's supply. One day the editor told him that this system wouldn't do. 'What will happen,' said the

editor, 'if you get sick, and nobody knows how the novel is to be continued ? In future I will buy a completely finished novel or I don't buy at all.'

"In vain Sudermann tried to persuade the editor to stick to the old method. How was he to live all the time necessary to write a whole book? But the editor was adamant; so Sudermann went home to his native village in East Prussia, where his mother was a peasant woman; and on the paternal farm he wrote a book.

"When it was finished, he wired to the editor and an-nounced his coming. Then he started on his journey to Berlin and soon came to Insterburg, a town in East Prussia, where he had to change trains. At the station he happened to run into some old friends who had come to town from the neighborhood, and he could not refuse their invitation to celebrate this unexpected meeting.

"With his manuscript in the pocket of his overcoat he went with them on a spree, and after a night full of songs and alcohol, he woke up the next day in Berlin. Vainly he tried to recollect the events of the night before. Then he felt in his pocket and discovered, to his horror, that his precious manuscript was gone!

"Whoever has been faced with the dire necessity of writ-ing a literary work a second time will understand Suder-mann's feelings. He sat down in his hotel and tried to start his novel again. But he could not find the right words.

"Finally he decided to go back to his native village. He had not enough money to live in Berlin, and if ever he should write that novel again it could only be in the quiet atmos-phere of the old homestead.

"So back he started, and again had to stop at Insterburg to get his local train home. Since there was no evening con-nection, he had to spend the night there. His friends were not in town, and desperate, heartbroken, he started a round

of the inns, trying to drown his sorrows. His round of drinks gave him a rum appetite,' so he dropped into a delicatessen store and asked for a herring.

"A girl brought the herring, wrapped up in paper, and while he was eating on the spot he noticed that something was written on the back of the paper. He looked closer— and found it was a page of his lost manuscript!

"'Give me all the wrapping paper you've got!' he cried, and they brought him his novel. Only a few pages were missing. The manuscript, lost a couple of days previously, had somehow or other found its way to the delicatessen store.

"Sudermann himself has vouched for the truth of this story. And we may add that the novel thus strangely recov-ered was Frau Sorge—the book that made him famous."1

A Rowdy's Pot-Shot Starts a Famous Boys' Club "A MISSILE thrown by a street urchin over fifty years ago was instrumental in starting the celebrated Boys' Club of New York. It happened way back in 1876, when Edward H. Harriman was walking along Tompkins Square in the lower East Side. A number of the neighborhood children were en-gaged in a gang fight. During the battle sticks, stones, tin cans and other impedimenta of the gutter were freely em-ployed by the opposing factions in their endeavor to bring home the force of their arguments.

"One of these missiles missed its mark and whizzed perilously by Mr. Harriman's head. As it crashed through a window behind him, Mr. Harriman turned to a friend who was accompanying him, and remarked that the children would be much better off if they had some opportunity to exert themselves in a manner less dangerous to passers-by. A short while later, with a group of friends, he rented space in a building at the corner of Eighth Street and Avenue A, and the now famous Boys' Club came into being."

A Well-Known Physician's Lucky Escape from Death D R . RICHARD H . HOFFMANN, a leading physician of New York City, contributes this striking luck-story:

"If there is any one who does not believe in luck, her twin-sister, 'hard luck,' usually comes around to change his mind.

"I have had so much luck in my own life; so much that I attribute to the incidence of that universally distributed element, that I consider my very living to-day, directly the result of its influence. I can think of at least a dozen inci-dents where that vast chasm which lies between life and death was bridged over by 'luck.' Here is perhaps the most dra-matic one:

"It was in the days when horses were more numerous than automobiles that I was strolling along Fortieth Street opposite the site of the present library, when two magnificent animals dedicated to the hauling of the type of truck which is now obsolete (namely, the beer-truck) were being led along by their bridles.

"A two-lunged contraption that was the forerunner of Commissioner Whalen's present-day troubles honked a sickly siren. This naturally frightened the horses, who careened on to the sidewalk right in my path. To avoid saying 'Pardon me' for having had my foot stepped on, I jumped into the areaway of one of the old-fashioned brown-stone houses that then lined Fortieth Street. The frightened horses continued their stampede right up the stoop of the house. I had scudded to shelter in the arch of the doorway leading to the basement. The iron gate was shut, and there was about eight inches of space between it and the edge of the arch.

"I was thinner in those days than I am now, and I pressed as closely as I could against the gate when the entire heavy stone balustrade of the stoop fell over my head, having been kicked by one of the horses. Furthermore, this stone

avalanche was immediately followed by a two-ton Percheron. The hoof came within an inch of the head that is now record-ing the incident.

"The horrified bystanders did not expect to see a young man, his derby hat covered with sand, emerge safe and sound from the areaway. And I call it Luck."

Some Mighty Lucky Aviators THOSE adventurous souls, the Knights of the Air, have all had close calls at one time or another. Here, however, we have three unusually thrilling escapes in which the element of chance or luck clearly played the leading part.

Captain J. H. Hedley of Chicago has been well termed, "The Luckiest Man Alive." 4 For he fell out of a plane nearly three miles in the air—and then fell back into it again! This almost unbelievable incident is soberly jotted down in Captain Hedley's log-book, duly authenticated by Lieutenant R. C. Purvis, Recording Officer of the Twentieth Squadron, R. F. C.

"January 6, 1918. Mach. No. 7255. Height, 15,000 feet. Lieutenant Makepeace, M. C., reports Captain J. H. Hedley accidentally thrown into air, afterwards alighted on tail same machine and rescued."

Lieutenant Makepeace was a Canadian flying officer, and Captain Hedley was an observer in his plane, when they were attacked over the German lines. In the running fight that ensued, Hedley was bucked from the plane when making a sudden vertical dive, and fell several hundred feet in a direct line with the machine. Then (probably owing to suction) he alighted on the tail and was brought safely to earth from a height of over 10,000 feet.

"Pitched out of an airplane at a high altitude without a parachute sixteen years ago, Commander John H. Towers has lived to become assistant chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics.

"As the oldest pilot in the Navy in point of service, he has encountered most of the thrills others have experienced and, in addition, this particular experience which he shares with no one in the service.

"He made his unique escape during a flight over Chesa-peake Bay in June, 1913. With Ensign William D. Billings-ley, he was 'bucked' from the plane. The ensign fell to his death, but Towers grabbed for a strap and caught it. Hanging onto the plane as it dropped 1700 feet, he was hurled into the waters of the bay.

"He came out with several broken ribs and internal in-juries, and spent months convalescing. But he lived—some-thing no one else ever did who had a similar experience." 5

A recent press despatch from Elko, Nevada, relates the following "thriller":

"Courage, skill, and chance played their respective parts to-day in the victorious fight made near here by Pilot Hugh Barker, trapped in a burning tri-motor transport plane, to save his life, the life of his co-pilot, and the lives of seven passengers, one of them a woman.

"Barker left Salt Lake City last night on his regular trip to Oakland, Cal. When flying high over the Nevada moun-tains, his faulty portside motor suddenly burst into flames. The wind whipped the fire about the fuselage, and within a few moments the right side of the cabin was ablaze.

"Already handicapped by the failing motor, and by the absence of suitable landing-places in this mountainous region, Barker suddenly found it necessary to fight also against the heavy weight placed on one side as the passengers huddled out of reach of the fire.

"He righted the plane, which was quickly becoming a blazing mass, and undertook a long glide to earth, side-slipping from time to time in order to keep the flames from the part of the cabin in which the passengers were huddled.

"At this moment, by a light of his own blazing plane, he happened to espy a small landing spot, and brought his plane down with a sudden pancake landing. Abe Warner, the co-pilot, smashed open the cabin door and the passengers scrambled out, unhurt save for the shaking-up they received from the rough landing. Barker was the last to leave the plane.

"Chance had provided the landing place; for in his hurried descent, Barker had not had time to drop flares, and was forced to depend on such light as was provided by his burning plane to pick out a possible landing spot in very broken country.

"The plane was completely consumed, together with the load of mail. The loss was estimated at $100,000."

A Brace of Hair-Breadth Escapes in Everyday Life "CLOTHESLINES stretched across the courtyard in the rear of 95 West 119th Street saved the life of James Planen, 25 years old, a laborer. After spending the night in his room with a friend, Sabird Trewitt, 28, an argument arose, in the midst of which, according to the stories both told detectives, Planen suddenly dived out of the window, five stories above the courtyard.

"However, as he fell, the clothesline at each floor below broke the force of his fall. He was taken to Harlem Hospital with possible internal injuries, but is expected to live. Trewitt was booked on a charge of disorderly conduct."7

Spencer, Mass.—"Homer Fredette, 45, is probably the only man to experience being struck by two automobiles at the same time, and live to tell the tale. In crossing the street recently, Fredette was struck by one automobile and hurled squarely into the path of another, which also struck him. He received nothing worse than a broken collar bone, abrasions on both legs, and a few cuts."

A 3-to-1 Shot Against Certain Death DURING a severe fire in a grain elevator in a small town in Sweden, whose fire-fighters were all volunteers, one of the men ventured to the top of a tower that was already ablaze, thinking that if a hose could be stretched to that point, the fire might be controlled.

However, the daring venture was useless, for by the time the hose was brought up to this vantage point, the man was completely surrounded by flames. There was but one thing for him to do—jump. But the tower was four stories high, and the firemen were not equipped with blankets.

On the opposite side of a narrow alley-way, was a one-story building with a glass roof. Inside that building were three large tanks. One of these tanks contained a solution of dangerous acid, the second one some poisonous chemical, while the third was filled with water. The fireman was wholly ignorant of the situation below him and jumped blindly, crashed through the glass roof, and—fell practically unharmed into the water tank!

Had he fallen into either the acid or chemical tank, he would have met a horrible death. Instead, through good luck, he escaped with only superficial cuts from broken glass; and after having had these dressed by the surgeon in attendance, he was able to resume his task as a volunteer fireman.

The Big Jelly-Roll Badly Squeezed by Very Tough Luck

T H A T was what recently happened when Orator Francis Woodward, the multi-millionaire manufacturer of Jello, with-drew his divorce suit against his wife, Persis, handed her the tidy sum of $1,650,000, and settled trust funds of $750,000 on each of their two children.

Thus the Jelly King's roll was squeezed to the tune of over $3,000,000—to say nothing of his legal defeat in the

divorce court. And it all occurred through an amazing run of hard luck for the Jelly King.

For months, the marital troubles of the Woodwards had been aired in bitter litigation. Sensational charges and counter-charges flew thickly back and forth. Mrs. Woodward charged that her husband had been seen often in public places with a Turkish dancer, while Mr. Woodward claimed that his wife had run around with gigolos during her stay abroad.

To back up his allegations, Mr. Woodward imported from Europe, at great expense, five hotel employees, to testify in the divorce court regarding Mrs. Woodward's alleged in-discreet behavior. And then—the "jinx" which pursued the Jelly King got to work; for those five star witnesses, though they reached America right enough, proved of no help what-ever to his cause. A strange fatality seemed to dog their foot-steps: mishaps befell some; others fell in love and were ren-dered tongue-tied by "heart trouble," while homesickness and quarrels took the minds of the others off the divorce action.

"Poor rich Mr. Woodward's woes with the menials he especially imported to bolster up his case against his wife were pronounced and maddening. First, Alexander Zimlian-sky, one of the hostelry henchmen, had barely set foot on Ellis Island when he perished of acute alcoholism. . . . And then there were four.

"Next, Mile. Pauline Streckfusse, counted on as a star witness, up and fell in love with some one at the Hotel Brevoort, and there was nothing doing on testifying—she was too much infatuated to bother with courtrooms.

"Mme. Pauline Rochon had a bad attack of homesick-ness, and burst into tears, exclaiming that all she wanted to do was to go back to that dear France.

"Finally, Otar Berk Tugai, a Russian, and Dirk Pen from tulip-land, who had taken a pronounced aversion to one another, got into a grand row in the Ritz-Carlton lobby.

"By the time their little differences had been adjusted, worried Mr. Woodward had decided that the simplest thing to do would be to give Mrs. W. her $1,650,000 and call it a lifetime!"

Driverless Ambulance Runs Wild: Nobody Hurt "EARLY yesterday morning Patrolman James O'Connor was walking in East 23rd Street when he heard the clang of an ambulance speeding eastward. He looked up as the machine, bell ringing wildly, came abreast of him in the full glare of a street lamp. There was no one in the driver's seat!

"Much mystified, O'Connor followed the uncanny course of the ambulance, which seemed to be going straight for all its lack of human control. He chased it to Second Avenue, where it skidded, veered into a shoe-shine stand, and came to a halt against a building. Although he is not a supersti-tious man, O'Connor approached the machine circumspectly.

"A search of both the driver's seat and the interior of the ambulance still revealed no one. So, with much scratching of his head, the patrolman had the machine taken back to the Knickerbocker Hospital. It was not damaged enough to put it out of commission.

"At the hospital it was learned that the ambulance had left its garage at 130th Street and Convent Avenue at 4 A.M. Edward Elliott, a night ambulance despatcher, was at his desk, and the ambulance chauffeur was asleep in an adjoining room when the ambulance was heard leaving the garage. Elliott ran to the door, to see it speeding southward on Convent Avenue.

"The police were notified and a general alarm was broad-cast. . . . It was twenty minutes afterwards that O'Connor captured the truant machine. How it had gotten from the garage and gone so far south in so short a time were still mysteries last night." 1 1

Bad Fog Causes Accidents Galore—But Not a Life Lost IN the spring of 1928, New York harbor was paralyzed for nearly two days by one of the worst fogs in years. For forty hours the blanket of fog was so thick that navigators were unable to see a ship's length ahead. Shipping was either tied up or conducted only with the utmost risk. Despite all pre-cautions, many accidents occurred, including some bad mis-haps to ocean liners, which collided or ran aground. Property losses were heavy, aggregating several million dollars.

Yet, curiously enough, with all these accidents, not a single person was killed or even seriously injured. From the human standpoint, therefore, this fog of such prolonged severity made a record for good luck.12

Bag of Radium Lost for Day—Yet No One Injured NOTHING is more insidiously dangerous than radium—as many tragedies of recent years have sadly proved. Here is the story of how a hand-bag containing a quantity of radium worth a small fortune was lost, and passed from hand to hand; yet the bag was never opened, was never examined by inexpert persons, and was finally returned intact to its rightful owner, without having done the least injury to any one:

"Radium valued at $20,000 rode through the streets of New York in a taxicab, was kicked about under a restaurant table in East 27th Street, and was at last returned to its owner before any damage was done.

"Dr. Joseph J. Eller, a skin specialist, and his two assist-ants, left the radium in a taxicab Tuesday afternoon when they reached the Post Graduate Hospital, Second Avenue and 21 st Street. Each thought the other had picked up the satchel containing the radium, and the taxi got away before they could recover it. They reported their loss to the police.

"Some time later, according to the police report on the

case, the taxi driver seems to have picked up another fare. The driver apparently knew nothing of the satchel in his cab. The second fare, it is surmised, picked up the satchel when he left the cab and entered the restaurant on East 27th Street. There he was joined by others, and they dined, igno-rant of the fortune in radium reposing on the floor, under the table.

"For almost two hours the diners lingered, and then departed. They, too, forgot the satchel. Near midnight, a waiter spied it, far back against the wall, where it had been kicked, but still under the table. He turned it over to the manager, who decided the man who had lost it would surely return, so did not bother to investigate the contents. He placed it beneath the cashier's desk, and there it reposed throughout the night. Next morning, the proprietor, reading the broadcast in the papers, took the bag to the nearest police station.

"The potential dangers of such a quantity of radium were explained by a physician at the Post Graduate Hospital, who stated to a reporter that if only one of the needles containing the radium lost by Dr. Eller had been placed in a man's pocket and carried for a few hours, it would produce a radium ulcer, which if not cleanly cut out would result in cancer."

STRANGE CURIOSITIES ABOUT L U C K

At Last: The Man Who Bit a Dog! "DISCOVERED! The man who bit a dog. His name is Francis M. Eckhart, and he lives in Denver, Colorado. Newspaper men (and women) the world over have been on the lookout for him ever since the day, many years ago, when Charles A. Dana, famous editor, sermonizing on news values, said, in effect:

" 'If a dog bites a man, it's not news. But if a man bites a dog—Ah, then you have a story!'

"So here's the story: "Mr. Eckhart and his friend, Miss Dorothy Hamm, 19

years old, were out walking one evening recently when they encountered a big, vicious-looking police dog. The dog dropped in behind them as they strolled along the sidewalk, sniffing at the heels of one and then the other.

"Miss Hamm, frightened, and thinking to scare the dog off, waved an arm at him. Instantly, the dog sprang at her, fastening its teeth in her forearm. She screamed and sought to beat the dog off with her free hand, but without avail. Eckhart, after vainly looking about for a club or some other weapon, attacked the dog with feet and fists. That didn't accomplish any good, either.

" 'So I just leaned over and sank my teeth into the brute's ear,' Eckhart said, recounting the incident. 'And now I know how to tame a police dog. That big brute let loose of Dorothy's arm and ran down the street as if there were a whole flock of tin cans tied to his tail.'

"Neither Eckhart nor Miss Hamm realized that Eckhart was (figuratively) biting himself a niche in journalism's 'Who's Who' when he seized the dog's ear in his teeth. To tell the truth, it doesn't seem to make much difference to either of them, now that they do know it. But for newspaper reporters—the long quest is over. They have discovered the man who bit the dog!"

The Venus de Milo's Lost Arms Turn Up—By Chance "THE mystery of the missing arms of the Venus de Milo has at last been solved. The arms are not missing at all. They have lain under a glass cover in the crypts of the Louvre Museum for nearly a century. Recently, they were brought out and measured by Jules Flandrin, the authority on classical

sculpture, who found that they fitted the Venus perfectly. . . . "How the missing arms of Venus have been overlooked

so long by experts is a mystery were it not for the fact that the caves and crypts of the Louvre are stacked with unknown and uncatalogued art treasures for which there is no place in the museum galleries.

"Only a month ago two prominent Greek archaeologists organized an expedition to drag the harbor of Milo in the hope of discovering the arms.

"Examination of the fragments of the arms shows that they were knocked off deliberately in comparatively recent times. This bears out the account of the discovery of the Venus in the year 1820 by a young French ensign, Dumont d'Urville, and its subsequent shipment to France.

"Early in that same year a Greek peasant was removing some timber from his land when the ground suddenly gave way, disclosing a deep hole. To his astonishment, the peasant beheld in the depths of the earth a shadowy white figure. Excavations were begun with the aid of neighbors, and the famous statue was soon brought to light. Apparently it had lain hidden there for at least 2000 years, thus escaping the pillaging of Roman Emperors, who removed all the treasures of conquered Hellas they could lay their hands on, to adorn Imperial Rome.

"M. d'Urville, who had made a landing in the neighbor-hood, chanced to hear of the discovery and determined to buy the statue for France. He asked the peasant how much he wanted for it. The man would accept nothing less than 1200 francs—$240 at the rate current at that time. Unable to raise this comparatively trifling sum, d'Urville got in touch with the French Ambassador to Turkey, who sent his secre-tary with the money.

"Meanwhile, an Armenian priest on the island, realizing the value of the find, offered the peasant a larger sum, which

was accepted. The French diplomat appeared just as the lower half of the statue had been stowed away on a Greek ship. The upper half, with the arms intact, still lay on the beach. The Frenchman handed the peasant his original price and proceeded to claim the statue.

"The Armenian priest and his Greek followers, however, disputed the diplomat's right, and a fight between the French and Greek sailors followed. In the struggle the Greeks, seeing that they would ultimately lose, ran over to the statue and smashed the arms off. The Frenchmen thereupon not only routed their opponents, but boarded the ship on which the lower half of the Venus was stored and carried it off to their own man-of-war, which sailed away for France.

"The statue was set up in the Louvre with the under-standing that the arms should be restored at some future date. However, in the course of time, the arms were entirely forgotten, and several expeditions were sent out to scour the beach of Milo and drag the harbor for the missing links, while they were really in Paris all the time."

"Executed" Man Survives the Firing-Squad ANYBODY lined up against a blank wall and facing a firing-squad a few paces off, should in the ordinary course of events be considered as good as dead. Yet here is one man who recently went through the ordeal—and will not be much the worse for his experience:

"The newspaper Grafico, of Mexico City, has published a despatch asserting that the rebel officer, Lieut.-Colonel Juan Aviles, who was shot by a firing-squad on orders of rebel leaders, had been found alive, although five bullets had pene-trated his body and the tiro de grace pistol shot had been fired behind his ear.

"Accused of being a Government spy, Aviles was duly 'executed' and left for dead. A peasant who happened along

found him alive, took him away from the execution ground, and nursed him. Aviles is now in a hospital at Juarez, and it is there said that his only permanent injury will be the loss of his hearing—the tiro de grace revolver bullet having affected the ears."

Two Fishy Luck-Stories F I S H do not usually carry money or jewelry about their per-sons. But the Associated Press brings us the following items, which certainly spelled good luck for the individuals who caught those strange members of the finny tribe:

Edgewater Park, Miss., May 12, 1929.—An average-size Spanish mackerel sells for about fifty cents in most local fish marts. Frank Gilbert, chef in a local hotel, caught one in the gulf here that was worth ten times that much. It wasn't a very large one, either, but Gilbert's mackerel had a five-dollar Federal Reserve note lodged in its gills.

North Sydney, N. S., June 6, 1929.—A canny fisherman has just refused an offer for $75 for a bracelet imported, duty free, at Point Aconi as part of the personal adornment of a codfish. The bracelet, set with twelve alleged diamonds, was worn inside the cod, which despite its bejeweled state showed lamentable lack of sophistication and was caught by Homer LeBlanc of Alder Point. Jewelers have estimated the bracelet's value at from nothing up to $6000. Mr. LeBlanc is hoping that the more optimistic estimates are right, in which case he says he intends to buy a large schooner and expand his fishing activities.

Nieces Shake Dice for Uncle's Diamond Ring REDWOOD C I T Y , CAL. , May 18, 1929.—There have been will contests before, but so far as is known here, none like this one.

Under the terms of the will of Thomas A. Kelley, his

two nieces will shake dice for a $2700 diamond ring. The will fails to stipulate the game—whether craps, razzle-dazzle, or what.

The participants in the coming contest will be Miss Hazel Sterling and Miss Iris MacPherson, of Chicago, 111.

SOME AMAZING COINCIDENCES

How Unbelievable Good Luck Got a Man His Passport THE late Charles William Schumann of New York, a jeweler, applied for a passport in Washington shortly after the late war. The office clerk told him it was necessary for him to produce his birth certificate. Mr. Schumann answered that he could not do so, as he was born while his parents were in a small mining camp at Grass Valley, Nevada County, California, during the gold rush period.

"They didn't keep a record of those they shot; much less those who were born," remarked Mr. Schumann ruefully. "It looks as though I was up against it. What can I do?"

Now it so happened that in that particular office, in charge of the Vise division, was Colonel J. Stanley Moore. The Colonel, from his desk, chanced to hear scraps of the conversa-tion. He caught the name Schumann in connection with the Grass Valley mining camp, and promptly pricked up his ears. Mr. Schumann went on to relate that there were only a few inhabitants in that settlement in which his parents found themselves at the time of his birth; that he knew none of them; and could get no confirmation of his story.

At this moment, Colonel Moore stepped forward and said: "I can vouch for this gentleman, for I have frequently heard my father tell of the excitement caused on the arrival of young Schumann." And on the strength of this, the pass-port was issued.

Not only was Colonel Moore the only man living who could vouch for the truth of Schumann's statement as to his birth; he was also the very man to issue the requested pass-port in due form.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Senor Pezet THE former Peruvian Ambassador to Washington, already quoted in a previous chapter, relates the following extraor-dinary coincidence which happened to him in his younger days:

After the Chileans had occupied the city of Lima in their war with Peru, young Pezet was implicated in a patriotic plot against the invaders, and a price was set on his head. He was in hiding, looking for a chance to flee the country. A Portuguese brigantine, the Maria-Virginia, was in Callao harbor about to sail for Australia with a cargo of Peruvian sugar. They needed a supercargo who spoke English, and through some friends, Pezet (who was born in England and half-English in blood) got the job, assuming an English name and posing as an Englishman.

Before leaving, he went to see Sir Spencer St. John, the British Minister in Lima, who was very friendly toward him and his family, and asked if Sir Spencer could not give him some letters of introduction to persons in Australia who might befriend him when he got there. The Britisher answered re-gretfully: "It's too bad I know only one man in all that part of the world, and he certainly would do you no good. He holds some sort of civil service position; I think he's a judge and some sort of governor of some islands somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean off the New Zealand coast. But as that is over 1,000 miles from where you are going, it's hardly worth while giving you a letter to him."

"What's his name?" queried Pezet. "After all, you never know your luck."

"Joseph Reyner," replied Sir Spencer. "I went to school with him in Liverpool."

That night Pezet embarked on the Portuguese brigan-tine. All the way across the Pacific they were buffeted by tremendous seas, encountering a series of violent storms al-ternating with calms, which delayed them interminably. The sugar in the hold fermented and gave off poisonous alcoholic fumes that drugged the crew. It was necessary to open the hatches. One by one, almost every man on board was taken seriously ill, until there were hardly men enough left to navigate the ship. One of the masts was torn away, the galley was smashed to pieces, and in a final gale the Maria-Virginia shipped a lot of water through the open hatchways. She was in danger of foundering, and more than 1,000 miles off her course. Provisions and water were running low, as they had been 117 days at sea. They were in a tight fix!

At the height of their predicament they sighted a group of islands and with difficulty made their way into a small inlet where, owing to the heavy seas, it was impossible to anchor. All night long they drifted, in constant danger of shipwreck. At dawn the storm abated, and presently a life boat from the islands reached them. The crew were rowed ashore, almost all of them in a serious physical condition.

Young Pezet and the Portuguese captain were taken to the house of the leading citizen of the islands; and in the course of the first conversation Pezet discovered that his host was none other than Joseph Reyner, Sir Spencer's only friend in the Antipodes! As a result, everything was done for him and some months later he was able to reach New Zealand in a tug sent out for him. As for the unfortunate Maria-Virginia, she had completely gone to pieces.

How Chance Took a Hand with Mencken and Nathan THE editorial partnership of H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan is an outstanding feature of American literary life. The queer coincidences which brought this partnership about are here told by Nathan, who explicitly points out the chance founding of their close association.

"I believe," declares Nathan, "that everything in life is a matter of luck; that everything is a matter of chance.

"From the time I was eight years old, I wanted to be-come a writer. I early admired an uncle who wrote. I also had theatrical tendencies. So far, we have a natural pro-gression.

"But it was by chance that I ran into an old college friend who had been editor of the college magazine for which I wrote and who now was editing a magazine of his own. He asked me to write for him. This started me in magazine writing.

"It was entirely by accident that Mr. Mencken and I met. He was writing for The Smart Set. So was I. By chance, we both went to the office the same time one day, met, and formed the attachment which has continued through our work.

"Returning from Europe one year, a man came up to me for the mere reason that I was wearing the same kind of coat he had on. He thought it singular, and wanted to remark to me about it. When this man arrived in New York, he bought out The Smart Set. He needed an editor. The only editor in his acquaintance was the one with the coat he had just met on shipboard. He asked me to edit his magazine. And he had met me solely because I happened to have on the same kind of overcoat as himself!

"I said I would do it if Mr. Mencken and I could do the work together. That's how we came to work together,

and this eventually led to our editing The American Mer-cury."

The Queer Coincidence Which Gave Hetty Green Her Fortune

FOR this anecdote we are indebted to Admiral Bradley A. Fiske. Some years ago, the Admiral was dining at the Metro-politan Club in Washington with the late Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. The discussion turned on the influence of luck and chance upon human affairs. At length, Senator Lodge asked: "Have you heard the story of how Hetty Green came into her great fortune?" The Admiral said he had not. "Well," continued the Senator, "that is a story on your side, it is a story of luck, if ever there was one." And he told the tale about as follows:

"It seems that there was some question as to the authen-ticity of the signature on the will which was contested by other relatives of the deceased. Curiously enough, the conten-tion by the opposing side was, not that the signature differed from the actual signature of the deceased benefactor, but that on the contrary it was too similar to be true. Counsel for the contestants argued that a person can never sign his signa-ture exactly alike each time he writes his name.

"Experts of all kinds were called in by both sides; among others, the late Professor Pierce, distinguished mathematician of Harvard University. Mrs. Green's attorneys maintained that it was not impossible for a person to duplicate his own signature even to the minutest degree, but failed to introduce evidence supporting the theory. Professor Pierce made some elaborate calculations and finally decided that, with the signa-ture in question, there would be i chance in 13,000,000 that a person would sign his name exactly alike twice. Documents of all sorts were brought forth from archives, libraries, and private sources to support the Professor's opinion.

"At length, by a mere chance, Mrs. Green's attorneys came across two letters of one of our dead Presidents on which the signatures, laid one upon the other, were so pre-cisely alike that there was no discernible deviation. This stroke of luck decided the case in favor of Hetty Green and made her one of the richest women of her time."

The Luck of a Chance Phrase Repeated after Twenty Years ON the afternoon of August 17, 1919, Patrolman Francis Caddell of the First Precinct was on duty at the information booth at the Manhattan end of Brooklyn Bridge. A big limou-sine drew up, and one of the party, apparently the owner, asked for directions to Coney Island. As the officer replied, a look of recognition passed between the two men, but neither could place the other. The information given, the car started off as the officer called out cheerily: "Good-by and lots of luck!"

The owner abruptly ordered the car to be stopped and walked back to the officer. He asked Caddell if he had ever been on duty in the Bowery. The officer replied that he had been some fifteen or twenty years ago. In a flash, it dawned on the two men where they had met before. In 1902, Caddell had come across a down-and-outer in the old Bowery, whose clothes were in rags, who was hungry, and who had not a red cent. The case had appealed to the patrolman so much that, on learning the man's story, he bought him some clothes, and gave him money, and advised him to go back to his home in California. "Good-by and lots of luck!" he had said cheer-ily, as he waved the boy farewell.

The boy had gone back to California, had made a fortune in the canning business, and was now touring the country on a well-earned rest. In recognition of the officer's helping hand, he offered him a position as head of one of his canning factories; a position which was accepted by his old benefactor.

Radio Coincidences Happen to Father and Son OVERHEARING two men talking about the idea of opening a big radio station in Brooklyn was the luck factor that brought Eric H. Palmer into activity as a pioneer in writing about broadcasting and then into executive positions with the radio industry. Palmer, now Vice-President of the Allied Broad-casting Companies, Inc., had been a public official; and it was the aspect of municipal development rather than the scientific trend or the entertainment possibilities of radio which prompted his first interest in broadcasting.

"Had I not accidentally overheard that conversation," states Mr. Palmer, "I would never have dreamed of adopting radio as my field of service; because at that time I had no technical knowledge of wireless nor any special comprehen-sion of its potentialities."

Eric H. Palmer, Jr., tells us: "The first piece of real luck in my young life was when a letter written by my father fell into the hands of a man who understands what, in journal-ism, are known as 'human interest stories.' My father had written to the Federal Radio Commission asking them to sus-pend my amateur license because I had become such a 'bug' on radio that I would stay awake till six or seven o'clock in the morning, missing not only school but what may seem strange for any one of my age—my meals.

"I do not believe that anything would have come out of this letter if Orestes H. Caldwell, then a member of the Radio Commission, had not been the first one to read it. An editor of experience, he at once realized the dramatic value of that letter. It was given out to the press, and next day I was being interviewed and photographed by every news-paper in New York City. In consequence, hundreds of boys became anxious to learn about radio. As for myself, the upshot of all this publicity, plus the fact that I was forced to give up

radio for what seemed to me an eternity, made me more interested in radio than before!"

SOME NOTEWORTHY ASPECTS OF L U C K

L U C K has played some part in the life of every one who ever lived. Let us observe some of the different aspects luck takes, illustrated by the lives of particular individuals, many of them famous characters in history. Nothing is more striking than the capricious fashion in which luck bestows her favors or her frowns; scattering them, now here, now there. Her moods vary endlessly; her methods are planless, so far as we mortals can discern. Yet this very mystery invests her actions with perennial charm.

Proverbially Lucky Persons NOBODY is ever "consistently" lucky. That would be a con-tradiction of terms, since luck is never consistent and no one can tell when his luck is going to change.

Nevertheless, some persons have so much more good than bad luck in their lives that they come to be regarded by their fellows as "always lucky,"—and they may even come to regard themselves as chosen favorites of fortune.

We can easily see how this attitude of mind comes about. If a person enjoys good luck most of the time, he will tend to overlook the small percentage of ill-luck which comes his way, and will finally see his whole existence through rose-colored spectacles. And this is even truer of onlookers than of the man himself. So his luck presently becomes proverbial, and good fortune is firmly associated with his name.

Such a man was "Lucky" Baldwin, probably the most picturesque figure of California's early days. His luck became a by-word which still lingers, though he has long since passed away. Lucky Baldwin to-day looms, a legendary figure, typi-

fying the flamboyant era of the "Forty-Niners"—the age when life on "The Coast" was a melodrama of great fortunes won and flung away with lavish hand and a high heart; the era of the argonauts, the builders, and the gamblers with life and gold.

From the legend, let us turn to the reality: In 1853, a little party of gold-seekers with a meager out-

fit of horses and wagons started for California from the vil-lage of Racine, Wisconsin. In command of this adventurous party was a young man who took with him his wife and infant daughter. His name was E. J. Baldwin, and events proved that he chose wisely in shaking from his restless feet the dust of a tamer civilization.

While trekking through the Utah mountains, the pio-neers were attacked by Indians, who were beaten off after a six-hour fight in which young Baldwin killed their chief. After six months of hardship, the party reached California. Baldwin had reached the promised land; yet at first luck did not come his way. He tried his hand at placer-mining, but for some time he remained a mere red-shirted argonaut, with more downs than ups of fortune.

Then occurred the discovery of the great Comstock Lode. Thither Baldwin drifted, and presently became aware that his natural bent was gambling with mines that other men had opened. Amid a whirlwind of speculation, he fought his way upward with such success that in a few months, "Lucky" Baldwin stood forth as the man who had cleaned up a cool $7,500,000 in the gigantic deals in the stock of the Ophir Mines.

Baldwin now established himself in "Frisco." This was natural, for San Francisco was the Mecca of California's lucky sons of fortune. As a stock and mining speculator, Lucky Baldwin shone resplendent. He built hotels, and thea-ters, and business blocks galore, even while he was amazing

hard-boiled San Francisco by madly freakish extravagances. Meanwhile, purely as a hobby, Lucky Baldwin had built

himself a ranch near what was then the sleepy little village of Los Angeles. He grew to love the place; and since he did everything on a grand scale, he took pleasure in enlarging his holdings, picking up big tracts of (then) almost valueless land for a mere song. Soon his modest ranch grew into a 60,000-acre estate, made into a beauty spot at vast expense. There Baldwin lovingly reared the famous race-horses which carried his colors to victory on many a noted track.

As the years passed, Baldwin was not so fortunate in his mining speculations as he had been in his early days. Reverses came, and more than once it was rumored that his fortune had been swept away. Even his ranch was at times heavily mortgaged; but always he clung to the estate which was at once his pet and his pride.

And at length, what had been a mere hobby turned out to be a bigger "bonanza" for Lucky Baldwin than any of the mines he had gambled in "on 'change." For Los Angeles ceased to be the sleepy, half-Mexican hamlet of early days. It became, first a town, then a city, then a metropolis. Real estate "booms" were in the air;—and Lucky Baldwin's 60,000-acre ranch, situated at Los Angeles' very doors, lay squarely in the path of the city's development. That was Lucky Baldwin's crowning stroke of good fortune. When he died, his ranch was valued at from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000.

Proverbially Unlucky Persons NOBODY has all bad luck. Such a person would be practically inconceivable. At least, he would not last long; for if ever an infant were born beneath so malign a star, it would al-most certainly perish before it was out of its swaddling-clothes. Even Job and Jonah must have had a lucky "break," now and then!

Yet some individuals do seem to be afflicted by such a preponderance of ill-fortune that their bad luck becomes proverbial. Such an one surely was Marie Antoinette, France's unhappy queen at the time of the French Revolution.

Offhand, nobody would have been apt to pick baby Marie Antoinette as destined to dire misfortune. The daughter of Maria Theresa, the great Empress of Austria, Marie Antoinette grew up, a healthy, normal child. Beautiful and talented, the young princess seemed to have all the attributes for a happy life, and her brilliant marriage to the Dauphin Louis, heir to the throne of France, appeared to assure her future.

Yet—the superstitious might draw an evil augury from the fact that Marie Antoinette was born the very day of the great Lisbon earthquake, one of the most frightful disas-ters of history, which cost 50,000 lives.

And the sinister omens which had marked her birth re-appeared on her wedding-day. The City of Paris celebrated the event by giving a grand exhibition of fireworks in the Place de la Concorde. Some of the fireworks exploded; the vast crowd became panic-stricken; and more than 1,200 people were crushed to death in the wild scramble which ensued. And this on the very spot where, twenty-three years later, Marie Antoinette was guillotined!

It is interesting to note that this fireworks catastrophe was felt by Marie Antoinette herself and by many others at the time to be an evil omen. Indeed, from then on, things never went well for her. This young, beautiful, and charming woman was badly received by the old King Louis XV and never got on well with him. By various mischances, she made powerful enemies at Court. From the Court, her un-popularity spread to the people. All the faults of incapable ministers; even famines and business depressions, were laid to Marie Antoinette, scurrilously dubbed: "VAutrichiennel" A flock of scandalous pamphlets, anonymously published, at-

tacked her reputation. The notorious affair of the Diamond Necklace served as pretext for new calumnies—though Marie Antoinette appears to have been innocent. And so her un-lucky star led her on, through a maze of troubles, to the dungeon and the scaffold.

Does Luck Run in Families? CERTAIN famous families, at one time or another, have ac-quired the reputation of being blessed by good luck, or cursed by bad luck, over a period of several generations.

A notably lucky family was that of the Metelli, in An-cient Rome. Generation after generation, it furnished the Republic a large number of eminent personages whose good fortune was striking and persistent. Even the women of this fortunate stock seemed to bring luck to the families into which they married. Cicero comments on all this in one of his essays.

By contrast—-look at the tragic history of the House of Stuart! Even before they attained the throne of England, the Stuart rulers of Scotland had hectic careers, punctuated by defeats, conspiracies, and assassinations. The woes of Mary, Queen of Scots, constitute one of the most pathetic hard-luck stories of history. Her son, James (who became King James I of England), was born a nervous wreck from pre-natal shock, received when his mother saw her lover mur-dered by brutal conspirators before her very eyes.

James's son, Charles I, was constantly in hot water with the English Parliament; was beaten in a civil war; and, like his grandmother Mary, lost his head on the scaffold. His eldest son, Charles II, spent his youth in exile, and reigned as a cynical debauchee. His brother, James II, was a gloomy bigot, who was kicked out of England by his enraged sub-jects after only three years on the throne. He spent his last

days, as he had his youth, in exile, a pensioner of the French King.

For two generations more, the unlucky House of Stuart vainly sought to regain the lost Crown of England; until the last male Stuart died, a disappointed man, prematurely broken by drink and dissipation.

Lucky at Cards—Unluc\y in Love! T H A T is a phrase which describes the well-known fact that many persons are notably lucky in some ways—and unlucky in other aspects of their existence.

This is strikingly illustrated by two of the characters which we cited in the first chapter of the present volume.

Take the case of Napoleon Bonaparte: we have seen how many lucky "breaks" he got in his early career, and we all know his marvelous series of military triumphs until fortune turned against him from the Moscow campaign to Waterloo.

Yet Napoleon, so marvelously fortunate on the battle-field, did not get much happiness out of his private life. His first marriage to Josephine was full of domestic jars and ended in divorce; while his second marriage, to the Arch-duchess Marie Louise of Austria, was a cold-blooded political union which was never warmed with affection or sympathetic understanding.

Furthermore, the Bonapartes all had the fiery tempers traditionally associated with Corsican blood. So Napoleon and his numerous brothers and sisters indulged in frequent family rows so violent as to be almost reminiscent of the notorious Kilkenny Cats.

Again, take the case of "Lord" Timothy Dexter: That amazing favorite of fortune in business matters likewise had his domestic troubles. Dexter's wife brought him scant per-sonal happiness. As the years passed, the pair became so thoroughly estranged that Dexter, with his usual quaint

humor, declared himself a widower; and though his wife continued to live under the same roof, he always referred to her as "The Ghost"!

As for his two children, they were keen disappointments. His son turned out to be a worthless drunkard. His daughter, of feeble intelligence, married a scamp with an eye to her father's money, who so maltreated her that she soon came back to her father's house, bereft of the few wits she had possessed, and ended her days little better than an imbecile.

Lastly, Dexter was the butt of all the bad boys of New-buryport, who constantly played pranks upon him, driving "His Lordship" into furious rages by their mischievous depre-dations upon the ornate grounds and grotesque statuary of "The Palace."

To cite an example from our own days: the celebrated novelist, Gertrude Atherton, informs us: "I have had good luck in minor matters, but was unquestionably born under an unlucky star as far as the major things are concerned. What I have achieved has been the result of persistence and determination against some malignant unseen and incalculable force."

Extraordinary Variations or "Runs" of Luck T H I S is another well-known phase of luck crystallized in proverbs such as: "It never rains but it pours"; "Fortune rarely comes singly"; or "Ill-luck never comes alone." Every gambler will assure you that luck runs in streaks—and there is a wealth of evidence to back that assertion. Here are a few sample instances of this nature:

London, Sept. 14, 1928.—An order in bankruptcy has been issued against Steve Donohue, one of the most famous jockeys in the history of English racing. He has had a record run of misfortune, for this year he rode 108 consecutive losers. Yet in the past, Donohue won the Derby three times running,

and in thirteen years, from 1910 to 1923, he rode winners of stakes valued at $1,265,000, and in some years earned more than $100,000 in flat racing alone.

"A. H. Damino, of 50 Broad Street, New York City, has just bought a seat on the New York Produce Exchange after a series of unusual setbacks. Arriving here some years ago from Paris with $15,000, he engaged in foreign exchange—especially in German marks. Through an unexpected turn in the ex-change situation, he lost his capital. He had just succeeded in recouping himself when a forged check again threw him back to zero. Again he rose above disaster sufficiently to be able to buy $100,000 worth of Liberty Bonds—which proved to be stolen! Again flat, he set out anew, and is now a successful broker." 25

H. A. W. Tabor (widely known to a past generation as "Silver Dollar" Tabor and "The Homespun Nabob") was a shopkeeper in Leadville, Colorado, in 1878. One day, two mining prospectors entered his store and asked for a "grub-stake." Tabor, who was an easy-going fellow, answered casu-ally: "Take what you want and don't bother me." The two men chose such clothes and provisions as they needed, and departed. Soon afterwards, they discovered a rich silver mine. In a few months, Tabor had made $1,300,000 out of a grub-stake of $60.

Then Tabor bought the Matchless Mine for $117,000, and in two years took out $5,000,000 worth of ore. For one month he served as Senator, filling out the term of Senator Henry M. Teller.

Yet this same Tabor, after having extracted from the earth no less than $15,000,000, presently lost or squandered his whole fortune, and at last had to go to digging ditches to earn his daily bread.

"At the age of seventeen, C. Harold Smith (to-day a multimillionaire and widely known as the 'Carbon King')

was about to commit suicide by jumping into the Hudson River. He had come here from England, with a fine educa-tion; yet he could not find his place in life, and had deter-mined to 'end it all.'

"He was climbing down the side of the pier and was just about to drop into the water, when a woman's voice spoke from out of the dark.

"'What are you doing?' she called. "Taken unawares, the boy climbed back and approached

the woman timidly. " 'That is what I'll do, some day,' said the woman. " 'Do what?' asked the boy. "'Make a hole in the water!' was the woman's harsh

reply. "But neither one of them did. Instead, the woman took

the boy to her lodgings and gave him her bed for the night; and in the morning she divided with him what money she had. With five dollars in his pocket, he felt able to face life again, and soon had a job.

"Chance kept playing a leading role throughout his early struggles. At one time, when he was an awning salesman, he was adjusting an awning on a Fifth Avenue mansion. He happened to see the young son of the house reading Cicero— and evidently with a struggle. Smith asked if he might help. The boy said, 'Yes,' and when they had quickly covered the day's lesson, Smith was thanked by the mother, who gave the learned awning salesman a good order.

"Little by little, success came; always, it seemed, by some unexpected chance. To-day, Mr. Smith is the President of Binney & Smith, with offices and subsidiaries throughout the world, and is one of the world's richest men. Mr. Smith recently announced through the Evening World that he would give away $10,000,000 for the benefit of mankind."

Luck Pursues Its Man—Despite His Dodgings! "A MAN does not seek his luck; luck seeks its man," says an old Turkish proverb.

Louis Mann, the celebrated actor, testifies to the truth of that saying by the following episode from his own pro-fessional career:

"During the war I was playing on the road when my wife, Clara Lipman, brought to my attention the idea for a play that Samuel Shipman had conceived and for which he wanted my approval, as he intended that I should star in it when completed.

"However, the idea did not meet with my approval. In fact, it struck me as utterly preposterous; for the leading role was a German-American, and in those days public feeling had been roused by anti-German propaganda to such a pitch of hysteria that to me it seemed ridiculous even to consider such an idea.

"I telephoned Shipman and told him his play did not interest me in the slightest. He replied that he could so moti-vate the leading part as to make the audience sympathetic; but his insistence merely irritated me, and I ended our tele-phone conversation almost in a rage.

"A little later, I returned to New York. One day Samuel Shipman and Sam Bernard were sitting at a table in the old Knickerbocker Hotel, while Shipman was waiting for a cer-tain manager who had shown some interest in his play. He was telling Bernard the plot, and how he had vainly tried to persuade me to star in it, when Sam Bernard, who was struck with the idea, suggested that he write in a part for him too.

"Just then A1 Woods entered and came over to their table. Shipman explained he was waiting for a theatrical manager to whom he hoped to sell his manuscript, and that the manager in question was late. When Woods heard a

sketch of the idea, he suggested that they wait a while longer, and that if the man had not appeared by a certain time he would buy the play without reading the complete manuscript, as he was certain he could persuade me to create the leading role. The manager never did come, and the three started to walk over to Mr. Woods' office in the Eltinge Theater.

"That very day I had returned a manuscript sent to me for my consideration by Mr. Woods. I had just left his office, when walking along Forty-Second Street, somebody took hold of my arm. It was none other than Al Woods, on his way back to his office with Shipman and Bernard. Before he had a chance to say a word, I burst out: 'I know what you want of me, but I won't do it!—I won't do it!'

"But Woods was as stubborn as myself. He calmly took his big cigar out of his mouth and replied in his characteristic manner: 'Come on over to the office, darling, and let's talk it over, sweetheart!'

"So along I reluctantly went; and after an hour of per-suasion, I finally gave in and signed on the dotted line for my appearance in Friendly Enemies—(for it was none other than that play) as co-star with Sam Bernard.

"Here I had been battling furiously against luck, and I most certainly consider it strange how I came to play the role of Carl Pfeiffer in this play; for not only did it prove one of the most successful plays ever done on Broadway, but I was happier in my own part than in perhaps any other of my career."

It's Good Luck to Recognize Bad Luck! SUCH is the viewpoint amusingly expressed by Dr. Christian Brinton, the distinguished author and art critic; who, when interviewed by us on the subject of luck, replied:

"The greatest piece of luck that has ever come to me was, I think, the discovery that I could never attain anything

by sheer luck. I came to this conclusion after many sad ex-periences in matching Owen Johnson for drinks at the Play-ers' Club. (This was before that demon 'Prohibition' had raised its head above the Constitution!) Never once did I escape paying for them.

"Another thing which caused me to lose faith in gaining anything by chance was the fact that whenever I had to resort to the subway for transportation, I invariably had to wait for a train. I couldn't even gain time through any lucky chance. When I had reached the underground platform, I wouldn't see a train pulling out, or even have a door slammed in my face. There just wouldn't be any train in sight. I would wait and wait and wait, and finally decide on a quick sprint up-stairs in search of a taxi;—and just as I had reached the street level, I would hear the rumbling of a train below. So I firmly believe that the greatest luck of my life was my decision never, never to trust to luck."

—And a Few People Don't Believe in Luck at All ONE of the most interesting results of the questionnaire* which we sent out as part of the research work for the writing of this book was the small number of persons who, in their replies or in subsequent interviews, flatly denied the existence of luck.

The attitude of this disbelieving minority is typified by the reply of Oscar, the famous maestro of the Waldorf, who when interviewed wrinkled his brow and exclaimed with a disdainful wave of the hand:

"There is no such thing as luck—unless luck means to be able to work hard. Hard work has been my luck!"

Two or three persons who at first categorically denied the existence of the luck-element, did admit, on being inter-* The complete data will be found calculated in the Foreword at the begin-ning of the book.

viewed, that chance had played some part in their lives. For instance: Mrs. Margaret Sanger, the distinguished birth-con-trol advocate, stated in her interview that, while she does not believe in luck, and while her career has been the result of deliberate choice, some element of chance has entered into the equation.

She found herself too young to be admitted to Cornell; and for that reason did not become, as she had intended, a physician. She says that her present work would not have been possible if she had entered the medical ranks, for the pressure of conservatism would have been too great to permit the development of her work.

Another fortuitous factor which influenced her profes-sional career was the fact that she happened to be one of eleven children, and knew from infancy the disadvantages of very large families.

LUCK-STORIES ABOUT CRIME AND CRIMINALS

A Stolen Pair of Pants Make a Crook Go Straight JACK BLACK, author of the book about crime and criminals entitled You Can't Win, tells us this amazing story of luck that once befell an escaped convict:

Nearly half a century ago, a "lifer" escaped from a Mid-dle Western prison and made his way into Texas. He had no money and was almost starved, not having eaten for days. He was walking on a railroad track, when a train came along. The train had to slow down, owing to a signal set against it; though it did not come to a full stop. In those days Pullman cars did not have double windows as they do now, and as it was very hot, all the windows were open. As the train slowly passed the fugitive criminal, standing be-side the track, he noted the leg of a pair of trousers blown

out of one of the car-windows by the breeze. Instinctively, the convict reached up and grabbed the trousers. Just then the signal went clear, and the train, speeding up, was lost in the night.

On examining the trousers, the convict found a fat wallet containing $3,000. He considered this an act of Providence; so, donning the trousers, he made his way into Mexico. In a Mexican town below the border, he stopped at an inn whose proprietor complained of poor business and bad times. Our escaped convict decided to use part of his roll to buy the inn; it being his intention, if business continued poor, to frisk the guests from time to time—certain of his ability to do so successfully, and convinced that no suspicion would ever fall upon the management!

However, shortly afterwards, a railroad was put through the town, and the inn became a great success. So, by force of circumstances, the escaped convict became an honest hotel proprietor. He prospered mightily and lived an honest life until he died, a leading citizen of the town, some thirty years later.29

A Famous Detective Saved by Lucky "Breaks" M R . GEORGE S . DOUGHERTY, famous international detective, former Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Detective Divi-sion, Police Department of the City of New York, and now a partner in the Dougherty Detective Bureau, has favored us with these thrilling episodes from his professional career:

"Luck! What all people hope for, and few have. As for myself, I can honestly say that I have been lucky: in love; in every manner of speculation; and, last but not least, in escap-ing serious injury or death in my career as a detective covering a period of over forty years. All my life I have trusted in that mysterious something called luck;—and nearly always I have won.

"As to luck in my chosen profession: for years I was a so-called field man before being chosen as Chief of Criminal Investigations throughout the world for Pinkerton's, and be-fore becoming Deputy Commissioner and Chief of the De-tective Division of the City of New York. A certain amount of skill undoubtedly had much to do with my promotion, but luck also entered in. Selected for the latter post on account of my past record, I was never affiliated with any political organization. Therefore I considered myself lucky to be asked to serve; lucky to be acceptable; and lucky to make good.

"One of my luckiest breaks was my arrest of the Missouri Kid and Black Frank, Western bandits who robbed a bank in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and murdered a Pinker-ton detective. These events all took place during 1903 and 1904. Those two desperate outlaws were the originals of the younger generation of bandits, and before killing the detective they committed many a daring crime throughout the West. To have murdered a Pinkerton was defiance of 'The Eye'— for that was what the Underworld termed the Pinkertons because of their motto: 'We never sleep,' indicated by the wide-open eye in their advertisements. As chief of their criminal investigation department, I was called in by Bob and Billy Pinkerton and was admonished that the world was not large enough for those culprits to hide in; that they must be apprehended at all costs.

"So I became the Nemesis of those two killers. Tracing and locating them is a long tale. Arresting them after they had been located was quite another story. We found that they were in hiding in a sporting house over a saloon in Hartford, Connecticut, accompanied by two other thugs. Garrett Farrell, present Chief of Police of Hartford; John Butler, Chief of Detectives; some other plain clothes men, and myself were covering the premises from a 'plant' we had arranged.

"Had we been able to get them in the open, it would

have been safer. But, as they would not come out, we had to go in after them. I assigned each detective to his man. Far-rell and Butler were to get Black Frank; I was to get the Missouri Kid—a big six-foot young rube; two other detectives were to apprehend the strange thugs. It was on a Sunday morning about eleven. Frank and the strangers came out, but the Missouri Kid was not with them. So I went up after the Kid.

"As I entered the large front parlor of the dive, the Missouri Kid, facing me from the back parlor, drew his big .45-caliber revolver from his holster and pulled the trigger. But (here's where my luck comes in) the revolver jammed. I myself was ready to fire at the Kid, but I didn't. Instead, I leaped at him, and the two of us were at it like demons. In our tussle for the revolvers, both of them got away from us. We knocked down a stove, and broke a sofa and some chairs. A 'handy man' connected with the dive entered the room and beat me with a club as the Kid and I were in each other's grip on the floor, but at last I managed to get my arm around the Kid's neck and knocked him out with a couple of good punches. When he came to, he said to me with a broad Western drawl: 'I don't know who you be, brother, but whoever you be, you'd ought to be shoved ahead a couple of notches for the gittin' of me!'

"Buck Davis, one of the night prowlers who broke into the home of George Blodgett, attorney for the General Electric Company, and murdered Mr. Blodgett, tried to shoot me near the railroad depot in Troy, N. Y., the morning that I arrested him. He drew a revolver and was about to fire when I sprang at him, wrested the weapon from him, and made him a prisoner. He was an old-time, hardened criminal. Escaping from jail after his arrest, he was captured at Lynch-burg, Va., where he committed suicide in his cell. His capture was but another lucky instance in my career.

"The smartest thief I ever knew was Thomas J. Wain-wright. Using a dozen or more aliases, ex-convict and pro-fessional criminal, he also tried to shoot me when I arrested him in New York City on April 2, 1906. He had stolen over $600,000 in jewels, paintings, objets d'art, etc., from a Minne-apolis millionaire, and was the only thief I ever saw (except, of course, in cases of 'inside jobs') who robbed a safe-deposit box. Entirely upon my own efforts, I located him in New York City. It is a long thrilling story: suffice it to say that I approached him on West 58th Street to make the arrest, when he tried to draw a gun on me. It stuck in the holster, however, and I got it away from him before he was able to do me any damage. He is now serving a life sentence in the State Prison at Charlestown, Mass., for shooting a druggist in a stick-up robbery. Still another lucky escape!

"After everybody had overlooked it, I found, mainly by luck, the chloroform bottle which resulted in the arrest and conviction of Paul Geidel, a bellboy at the Hotel Iro-quois in New York City, who murdered William Jackson in his room there. Geidel, a clean-cut type of country lad, over-anxious to support a widowed mother, confessed to the crime, and is now serving a long sentence in Sing-Sing.

"These are but a few of the lucky breaks I have had in my life; I have always been lucky."

An Amateur Detective Saved by Even Luckier "Breads" IN his recent book, Cub, Chalmers Lowell Pancoast, National Advertising Manager of the New York Times, describes two exciting luck-incidents that happened to him as a young "cub" reporter (and amateur detective) in the following manner:

"One cold night I had been sent down to Belin by the city editor of the Albuquerque Citizen, where the Santa Fe Railway was building a 'cut-off' on the main line, to get a story of the murder of a gambler. In that graders' camp,

cutting scrapes and murders were common among the camp followers.

"I had picked up the story and was trudging along the tracks in the dark toward Belin, where I was to wait for a freight train to take me back to Albuquerque.

"At one long dirt-fill, I noticed a bonfire down in a gully. It was a cold night and I was chilled through, so I decided to stop and get warm. As I approached, a young Mexican jumped to his feet and stood waiting for me to speak. This lone hombre appeared suspicious of me.

"'Bueno amigo!—Mucho frio!' I sang out cheerily. I knew just enough Mexican to get by with a greeting and a few wise-cracks.

"He laughed and motioned me to the fire. We didn't talk much—only to the extent of my limited knowledge of his lingo. He was cooking a Mulligan Stew, or 'slum' as the hoboes call it. It certainly smelled most tempting. He of-fered me some in an old tin can. . . . We ate in silence,— he watching me suspiciously out of his cold, beady eyes. In fact, he made me feel most uncomfortable by his close scrutiny of my every action. He didn't ask me any questions, and I had nothing to say to him. To me, he was just one of a thousand peons from Old Mexico.

"Finally I heard the freight train whistle down the track, and, giving him a hurried 'Adios,' I rushed away. I had al-most forgotten the incident, until—"

Mr. Pancoast goes on to relate how he was sent to Santa Fe, to witness and report the hanging of a desperate criminal, known to have killed at least three men. He saw the man hang. He went to his death with a smile on his face. And— that man was the Mexican peon with whom he had broken bread at a lonesome hobo camp—the man who had mur-dered the gambler.

One wonders what would have happened to the young

reporter, had he been able to converse more fluently in Mexican, and had given away the fact that he had been sent out to cover the murder for his newspaper?

In another chapter of his book, Mr. Pancoast writes: "Once I almost met an escaped bank robber. We missed each other by a narrow margin. And it was lucky for me that I missed him.

"In the town where I was a reporter, there was a jeweler whose clerk always slept in the back room with the big safe. The clerk quit his job, so the jeweler offered me the room free if I would sleep there and watch the place. I was almost ready to accept his offer to save room rent, but decided it wasn't a good place to study late at night or hold poker parties with the boys.

"A few weeks later, this store was robbed. The safe had been dynamited and a large quantity of jewelry stolen. If I had been sleeping in that room, the chances are I would have met a murderer face to face;—and the chances are that my little pearl-handle .22 and brass badge would not have done much good to a certain ambitious cub reporter.

"When I had refused the job of being a night watchman in the jewelry store, I located in a small furnished room ia a cheap boarding-house. Across the hall from me roomed a fellow who spent all his evenings alone.

"One night, just as I was turning in late, he came over to borrow the makings of a cigarette. He saw my 'Reward Circulars' stuck on the walls and wanted to know about my detective work. He seemed to get a lot of amusement out of my enthusiasm about being an amateur detective. He even read parts of the book of instructions from a detective agency and wanted to buy my badge. But that badge could not have been bought for love or money.

"The next morning I saw him going out early with a satchel. I watched him merely out of curiosity, and when

he soon returned without the bag, I thought he had gone to a Chinese laundry and forgot all about the incident till later.

"For several evenings when I happened to be in my room studying, the mysterious lodger would come over and chat with me. He always got a good laugh out of my experiences in detective work. At that time I could not account for his hilarious outbreaks and the fun he was having with me." . . .

But Mr. Pancoast soon found out why; for a few days later he learned from his landlady that the friendly boarder in the room opposite was none other than Harry Monroe, an escaped convict and notorious safe-cracker. With an eye to the news, the young reporter promptly went to the jail and interviewed the prisoner.

When Monroe learned from the young reporter that the room in which the safe was placed had been offered to him as sleeping quarters, he shook his head as though to dislodge some horrid thought, and said gravely: "Kid, the luck was all with you that you were not there. If I had done the job, the chances are I would have had to bump you off. And I would have felt bad about that, now that I know you."

A Close Call with Burglars MRS. D. H . DAVISON, affectionately known as "Mother" Davi-son by thousands of soldiers and sailors in the World War, tells us this exciting incident which happened to her not long since:

"About a year ago I narrowly escaped death in my home in New York. I was fast asleep at four in the morning, when suddenly I awoke and saw out of the corner of my eye a swarthy looking man standing near my dressing table by the window. The light from the street lamp outside shone on his face—a typical criminal's. I saw him put a blackjack on the table. A short, stocky man stood by my bedside, a revolver in his hand.

"They took their time ransacking bureau drawers, spilling

everything on the floor in a heap of disorder, and without making any effort to suppress the noise they were making. Everything I possessed in the way of jewelry, and all the war medals and pins given me by army and navy posts for my war-work, were in the loot.

"Those men would not have hesitated to kill if they had been disturbed in their work. That my husband, who is an exceptionally light sleeper, but who had been particularly tired on going to bed early that morning; and that my son, whose bedroom adjoined mine, were not aroused, I consider not only my own good luck but theirs as well.

"One of the thieves was subsequently caught by an alert detective, who happened to recognize my brother's watch— the only part of the loot recovered. However, I consider my-self exceptionally lucky to have had duplicates of all the medals stolen presented to me by the various organizations; and instead of the pearl necklace that was lost, a far more valuable one was given me by subscription among the boys in the army whom I mothered."

A Janitor Sees a Wad of Gum— and Foils Diamond Thieves!

M R . CHARLES W I L L I A M SCHUMANN, of Schumann & Sons, New York jewelers, tells the following curious story of a frustrated theft in the firm's former shop at Broadway and 22nd Street:

"A man and woman came in one day and asked to see diamond rings. A trayful was brought out of the case and the couple spent some time examining the rings, among which was one worth $3000. They apparently found nothing to their satisfaction and were about to go, when I noticed that the $3000 ring was missing. A search was immediately made of the top of the counter and the floor, with no result.

"I thereupon called my father and explained the situa-

tion. Meanwhile, the couple, who had been detained, showed more and more indignation; but still the ring was not to be found. Convinced that a theft was being attempted, my father summoned a policeman and a matron, and both the man and woman were thoroughly searched. Still no ring was forth-coming. By this time the customers were in a towering rage, and threatened big damage suits; which, since no ring was found on either of them, would under normal circumstances have gone against the firm.

"That night, while sweeping the floor, the janitor hap-pened to drop his broom near the spot where the customers had stood. On bending down to pick it up, his eye caught the glint of a diamond on the underside of the showcase, where it had been stuck with a piece of chewing gum. He turned it over to us, and we called in a detective to watch for the persons who would presumably come in to get it from its hiding place next day.

"Sure enough, next day a man and a woman (not the couple who had been there the day before) came in and asked to look at diamond rings. During their inspection, the woman reached down and detached the ring. The couple was promptly taken into custody; the ring saved, and the damage suits averted."

A Telephone Tips Over—and Snares a Bold Yegg "ARTHUR M. TRAYNOR, a bargeman, of Hoboken, was held without bail for the Grand Jury in Tombs Court yesterday following his attempt to rob the jewelry store of Thomas Lenz on the 14th floor of the building at No. 132 Nassau Street.

"He was captured when Robert D. Diack, hearing Lenz's cries for help over the telephone, pushed the emergency button which gives the signal for the closing of all exits to the build-ing and stopping the elevators, thereby cutting off all the

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holdup man's possible avenues of escape. His capture was attended by considerable excitement on Nassau Street. A crowd of people jammed the block when those coming to work in the building were confronted by the mystery of the locked doors.

"Lenz had just arrived and was engaged in unlocking the safe and the showcase in the office when Traynor, who had followed him in, tapped him on the shoulder, according to police.

" ' I want a watch, and I want a good one,' he snapped. "'You had better get outside,' replied Lenz, 'I have al-

ready sounded the alarm. It won't be good for you if you are found in here.'

"'You're a liar!' shouted Traynor, the police version goes, and hit the jeweler on the head with a blackjack which he had held concealed in his pocket.

"Lenz fell back, dazed, and the two men grappled on the floor. Lenz managed to grab the telephone off its stand. He cannot remember clearly what happened after that.

"Downstairs, Superintendent Diack picked up the re-ceiver in response to the switch-board flash. Unusual noises immediately flowed from it. 'Help! Murder! Holdup!' he heard, 'Police! Fourteenth floor!' and then—'Shut up, damn you! Do you want to be killed?'

"Mr. Diack did not wait for further details. He pushed the button controlling the system installed for just such emergencies; the outer doors of the building clanged shut, and the elevators stopped where they were. With his assistant, he started up the fourteen flights of stairs. They found Lenz on the floor, half conscious, bleeding from the wound in his head, and still muttering: 'Police! Holdup!'

"The assailant had fled, leaving untouched the $50,000 in jewels in the office. They started a systematic search of the building. Traynor was finally discovered in the milling, ex-

cited crowd on the main floor, and arrested. His face was scratched and his clothing disheveled. He admitted the at-tempt at robbery.

"'You got me right,' he said, 'It wasn't so easy as I thought. I was dead broke and thought I could get away with it ."

A Trio of Humorous Crime-Episodes CRIME is seldom funny. Yet, now and then, when chance enters into the proceedings, even the toughest yeggs may act like slap-stick comedians—much to their own astonishment.

Here, surely, is one denizen of the underworld who in-dulged in strangely unprofessional antics:

Providence, R. I., May 18, 1929.—A bathtub in the pantry upset a burglar's plans at the home of Mrs. Esther Brotman. When the intruder climbed through a window and landed heavily in the strangely located tub, he made so much noise that Mrs. Brotman was awakened and put him to flight.35

Here is how another crook was fooled by luck: A burglar entered the hallway of a palatial home, and

found himself face-to-face with himself—in a mirror! With only the faint reflection of the glass in semi-dark-

ness, he instinctively lifted his arm, which clutched his gun, as if in defense. Then, seeing the "other man" do exactly the same thing, he fired two quick shots.

That roused the occupants of the house, and the invader quickly took to his heels, leaving behind his own corpse—in so many bits of shattered glass!36

Here is another freak episode which, however unfortu-nate for the victim, we can afford to regard in a tragi-comic light:

"How the dress rehearsal of a holdup was so realistically staged that one of the 'cast' was shot and killed, was told by police yesterday following the arrest of three negroes charged

with participation in some twenty-five holdups in Harlem and the Bronx.

"The three men were held without bail on charges of robbery. The matter of the killing will be referred to the Grand Jury by Detective Vito Christiano.

"Christiano said he learned that the three, with James Williams, 17-year-old member of the alleged gang, were prac-ticing their holdup tactics in a basement at No. 82 West 132nd Street, when a revolver was accidentally discharged and Williams was killed."

LUCK-TALES OF ADVENTURE

A Thrilling War-Story WE have already been favored by two noteworthy luck-episodes in the life of the distinguished Peruvian diplomat, Federico Alfonso Pezet. Here is another episode, of a most thrilling kind, dating from his youthful days; one which Senor Pezet himself considers the luckiest experience in his entire career:

It happened during the Chilean-Peruvian War of 1879-1883. Senor Pezet (then a young man in his early twenties) was an officer in the Peruvian artillery. He was on his way from Iquique, the Peruvian nitrate port, to the interior of the province of Tarapaca, to join his unit. He was making the trip with his Colonel and a small number of soldiers on a train composed of flat-cars carrying powder and other ex-plosives. The train was winding its way through the coastal mountain-ranges—a barren, rocky, precipitous country. On the left of the single-track road, the rocks rose towering to a height of several thousand feet. On the right, a precipice fell sharply away to the valley below.

The grizzled Colonel and young Lieutenant Pezet were

sitting on a box of powder. Jokingly, they exchanged ideas as to which side of the train would be the least uncomfortable to fall out of in case of an accident. The Colonel said that, despite the precipice, he preferred to fall on the outside;—he would take his chances of grabbing an occasional tree or pro-jecting rock, to which he might cling. The space between the track and the wall of rock on the left was too close for his liking.

Lieutenant Pezet, on the contrary, said he did not like the looks of that precipice at all, but would prefer the inside. He was thinner than the Colonel, and thought he could squeeze in. This casual banter went on for some time, while the day waned and the sudden tropic night fell.

Then, in the rapidly gathering dusk, they became simul-taneously aware of sparks, and then flames, licking up from the oil-box of one of the wheels of the rearward car. Moved by a common impulse, they both sprang to detach the burn-ing, powder-laden car from the remainder of the train; and so, by isolating it, limit the danger of the explosion which would inevitably follow.

They succeeded in detaching the doomed car, and were just stepping onto the swaying truck in front of it, when the train lurched violently around a very sharp bend. Caught unawares, they were both thrown off the train—but in the reverse order from what they had wished; i. e.,—the Colonel to the left, and Lieutenant Pezet over the precipice!

Young Pezet sailed about twenty feet through the air, and providentially landed in the branches of a scraggly tree which clung to the edge of a i,ooo-foot drop. An instant later, the valley was lit by a terrific explosion as, with a deafening roar, the detached flat-car blew up.

Scratched and bruised, but not seriously hurt, Lieutenant Pezet scrambled up to the track and rejoined his companions. The Colonel was missing. After a lengthy search his mangled

body was found crushed against the rock-wall on the left of the rails.88

Some Lucky "Breaks" of Two "World-Hoboes" FIRST comes the story of Tammany Young, one of the best-known celebrities of Broadway. Tammany Young (that's his real name, by the way!) is a distinguished Irish roughneck, gate-crasher, globe-trotter, actor, and what-not. Such is the vivid personality who tells us:

"Some years ago, I landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, on my way to China with a troupe of movie and stock players. Because I got a bun on, I couldn't find the pier when the boat was about to sail, and the company departed without me. The next sailing was three weeks later, and I had only $50 in American money, plus a set of dice; so I conceived the idea of showing the Britishers, Australians, Boers, and a few native half-castes a few tricks.

"For some days I had a successful run, and found myself $400 ahead of the game,—when suddenly one of the Boers ran into a grand streak of luck and cleaned me out completely.

"Flat-broke, even hope seemed distant, stranded as I was in a strange country—but I have never been a quitter, so I went along as best I could for a couple of weeks. If I was lucky, I ate; as for a bed, the sky was my blanket and I couldn't worry about sheets.

"One night, when I had been fortunate enough to afford the cheap luxury of a 'flop house,' I came out in the morning hungry, 'spitting cotton' and without even a cigarette to puff on. When I turned the first corner, my eyes riveted them-selves on a tall fellow rolling a cigarette. I rubbed my eyes to make sure he was real, and when I saw him put the string of a bag of Bull Durham in his mouth, pulling it tight and stuffing the bag back into his pocket, I knew I had met a fellow-American. I went over to him and said: 'Hey, Bo!

Can I borrow the makin's?' He answered: 'Good God! Say that again!' and broke into a stream of real old U. S. lingo.

"I told him my troubles, and he called me a sucker and said: 'That's what you get for bein' an actor.' He was the traveling representative of a well-known American machin-ery firm. He gave me a job as his assistant, and—'I learned about bridges from him.' I stuck with him for six months, until my feet and heart began to itch for the pavement of Broadway.

"When on a trip to Nagasaki, Japan, I told him of my homesickness. He gave me enough money for a ticket to New York, via San Francisco; but I was lucky enough to get a job as a steward on one of the big liners, and came back home with a pocketful of dough.

"That's the one time a 'Bull' proved lucky for me!"Two years ago, Raymond Hauger, a New York lad barely

out of his teens, decided to see the world. He had no money; but he set forth just the same, trusting to his wits—and to good fortune.

The result was a "Hobo Odyssey" during which he cov-ered 36,000 miles, meandered all the way around the globe, acquired a rich stock of adventures, and recently returned to New York—to find himself a personage much in the public eye.

When we asked young Hauger what he thought about our particular subject, he answered promptly: "Lady Luck is a goddess whose precious robes are woven with strange threads of coincidence!" And he went on:

"During my recent trip around the world, luck saved my life once, and fed my greedy stomach innumerable times. The first time I met the Goddess of Luck was in the form of an extremely pretty Japanese girl. It was in Yokohama. I had just enough money to keep me alive for two days more. As I was wandering dejectedly through the streets, I saw a

young Japanese girl who had sprained her ankle while cross-ing a mud-puddle. She lay there, unable to move. I picked her up in my arms and carried her to a rickshaw. My reward was a free trip across the country from Yokohama to Kobe and an opportunity to reach Shanghai by junk. The girl's father was a well-to-do shipowner, you see.

"The second time Lady Luck intervened notably in my affairs was upon my arrival in Shanghai. I had gone sight-seeing in the native quarter and had lost myself in its dark, intricate streets, when I suddenly perceived an alley. I re-solved to hazard through it and investigate the reasons which prompted some unknown Chinese to hang a smoky lamp above his doorway.

"I never learned his reasons, for I had hardly taken ten steps into that alley when a group of coolies suddenly ap-peared out of the dark and rushed towards me, brandishing ugly-looking bamboo sticks above their heads. I tried to jump aside and get my back to the wall, when a gigantic flame (yes, a flame; not the usual variety of stars!) flashed before my eyes, followed by the sickening sensation that my skull had been battered in. Then all went black.

"Yes, I know that you are about to protest and say that this episode was far from being lucky. But wait a bit. When I regained consciousness, I found that I had been robbed of everything except my trousers. I got on my feet, swaying dizzily, and had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. After a moment, I took a step forward;—why, I do not know. It was not intuition, because I am the least intuitive person in the world. I just took a step forward, for no reason at all. And—just then a huge earthen jar fell from the darkness above, and smashed itself on the ground, grazing the back of my neck in its fall. If that big pot had ever hit my head from the height it fell, it would have surely finished me, then and there.

"So I cannot complain. Luck has been very considerate with me. I always keep a place for luck. There is always a little of it in everything. Philosophers say that to do that is to walk directly away from wisdom; but then, you know, I am still young. . .

A Yell in Time VINCENT SARDI, genial proprietor of Sardi's, New York's fa-mous rendezvous for theatrical and literary folk, says: "Yes, I believe in luck. I have been lucky ever since I was born. When I was eleven, my father, who was an attorney in Turin, Italy, found me a most difficult child to handle. To take the unruliness out of me, he decided to send me to sea; having found this a good cure for a similar ailment which troubled him when he was young.

"As cabin-boy on a sailing vessel, I was making my first trip on the Mediterranean. I stared open-eyed at all the beauty and the wonders that I saw. One night, off the strait of Messina, I was standing at the ship's rail gazing at the mar-velous spectacle of glowing lava pouring out of the crater of Stromboli, when one of the ship's crew suddenly went insane.

"The fellow came rushing up on deck, saw me standing at the rail, grabbed me by the neck, and threw me across the railing. Somehow, I caught hold of a rope with one hand, and with the other clung to the madman's clothing. At the same instant I uttered a piercing scream for help.

"Some of the crew, forward, heard my cry. One of the men swiftly grasped a rope with which he lassoed the maniac, and then came to my rescue. Had it not been for this man's presence of mind, I probably would not be alive to-day; for my strength was fast ebbing and I could not have held on much longer.

"How I ever managed to utter the prodigious yell that

brought aid from the other end of the ship has puzzled me ever since; for I was so frightened that I nearly choked with fear. I can only call it luck, for I do not know how I ever did it. In fact, the crew told me that they never heard a yell like it in all their lives."

A Lucky Escape from a Dangerous Maniac A PROMINENT business executive, Mr. F. W. Pitzer, contributes this thrilling experience:

"About fifteen years ago, when I was employment man-ager for my organization, I came in contact with many queer types seeking positions. I had an individual office on the eighth floor of our building, where applicants would call for jobs.

"One summer's day, I decided to remain later than our regular closing hour, for the purpose of compiling some employment figures. At about six o'clock there entered my office a big burly individual nearly six feet tall and weighing over two hundred pounds. He asked whether I was in need of a porter. I told him I was not. He had a peculiar look in his eye, and I feared I was in for an exciting time.

"He stood before me for a few moments, and then re-marked that he heard we were in need of porters, and in-sisted on being employed. I again assured him that we did not need any more help in that department. He only glared at me savagely, and I became very uneasy. Then he said calmly that if I did not employ him, he would throw me out of the window!

"The lower half of my office window, as a matter of fact, was already open. Obviously, I had to think quickly. I knew he would not allow me to reach for the telephone. Being alone in the office, it was useless for me to shout for help. There was only one door leading out of my office, and the madman stood between that only exit and myself.

"I forced a smile, and remarked that he was a typical Samson. 'Were you a wrestler in your younger days?' I asked, trying to sway him from his purpose. He would not be swayed: 'It's none of your damn business what I was,' he replied.

"I then took a wild chance. Settling back in my chair, I ventured nonchalantly: 'To throw me out of that lower window isn't such a great feat; but to pull down that win-dow and throw me out of the upper half would require real strength, which I don't think you possess.'

"For a minute he stood as if petrified. I already had been! Then he hurried over to the window, grumbling: 'Huh, is that so; well, I can do that.'

"Hardly had his hands touched the sash for the purpose of pulling down the windows, when I leaped from my desk, dashed out of the door, and tore downstairs six steps at a time. I brought the engineer of the building and a guard back to my office, only to find it empty. Then I feared my insane caller had committed suicide. I again threw up the windows, and peered over the ledge with trepidation, shuddering at what I should see far below.

"But, instead of a shattered human form, I saw my light top-coat (which I always kept hanging in my office) lying on the pavement before the entrance to our building. The man, I reasoned, finding himself outwitted, had in desperation and anger thrown my coat out of the window, in lieu of myself.

"It was my good luck not to be in that top-coat."

A Strange Night on Guard M R . ARVID PAULSON, the well-known actor and author, through whose efforts so much of the material of this book was gath-ered, contributes this eery story of war-time adventure, out of his own personal experience:

"Perhaps one of the luckiest incidents of my life was

L U C K T H E U N I V E R S A L E L E M E N T 1 7 5

my arrest of a man. When I say 'lucky,' I mean lucky for me; for the man was insane—as a matter of fact, desperately in-sane. And the luckiest thing of it all was that I did not realize it at the time, or I might have attempted a different strategy to the one I used,—and with fatal results.

"It was during the war. I was at Camp Wadsworth, near Spartanburg, S. C., on duty as a private with the 27th Divi-sion. One night I was ordered to do guard duty at the rail-road station in that town. Between the hours of one and two in the morning a woman of the Travellers' Aid Society, on duty at the station to care for visiting relatives of the men in the Division, came rushing up to me, asking whether I had seen a queerly acting man in a private's uniform. I told her I had not. She then informed me that a woman on her way to the station to take the early morning train North had just escaped being attacked by this weird-looking individual. I promised to keep my eyes open for him.

"A few minutes later, two men came dashing across the tracks towards me. They excitedly blurted out similar ques-tions, and explained that the mysterious unknown had come up from behind them; that they had heard his footsteps; and that when they turned, he dashed by them. As he passed, they had clearly seen the glitter of steel in his hand. We waited for a while, hoping the fellow might show up; but as we saw no sign of him, I advised the men to retire to their sleeper which was on the opposite tracks, waiting to be attached to the New York express, due later on.

"I escorted them to their Pullman. Just as we arrived at their sleeper, one of the men (once a famous Yale football star) took me by the arm, cautioning me to look toward the freight-house situated at the far end of the station. I looked, saw vaguely the outline of a crouching form, and ran to intercept it; but when I reached the spot, the man had disappeared.

"Taking a short cut through the station, I glimpsed his shadow against a row of advertising signs facing the station, some distance away. The man was running towards a drug-store situated on the corner of a street leading to the heart of the city. I followed him, revolver in hand.

"According to orders instituted only the previous day, as the result of an accident, we sentries were not allowed to carry a loaded weapon until after extensive revolver practice which I had not had time to obtain. But after returning all the am-munition assigned to me, I had by chance found a single cartridge in one of my pockets. Being on guard duty on a dark, wintry night in war-time is not an especially inspiring occupa-tion, and I considered it my luck to have come across that cartridge. A loaded gun always tends to give one greater confi-dence, even if one has no prospect or thought of using it. What happened that night certainly proved it to me.

"For, as I turned the drug-store corner I suddenly came upon the man, hiding in a narrow passageway that separated the drug-store from an adjoining house. I ordered him to come out. He took a step forward; while I, still some paces off, was about to come close and search him. At that instant, the man flung a knife with a shiny six-inch blade. It went whining past me, missing my ear by an inch, and landed in the street.

"Cautiously backing to pick up the knife, I kept the man covered with my revolver. I would not say it was too steadily aimed, for this sort of excitement was new to me. And then, the thought of that one, lone cartridge, and the realization that if I fired I should in any event have to explain its presence before a court-martial. And if I fired—and missed! That might be still worse, for this man certainly was a queer one. My first idea was that he was full of dope. I had never seen a drunken man behave like him.

"I decided to go back to the stage,—to be an actor again. Summoning all my presence of mind, I sternly ordered him to stand at attention and then commanded him to march in front of me, in the direction of the city jail, where our pris-oners were kept overnight. We had hardly started when I saw his left hand fumbling in his pocket. I halted him, and saw in his hand a large steel bolt—the kind used in joining rails. At my peremptory order, he threw it on the ground.

"We set out again. I was careful to keep him three or four paces in front, lest he suddenly turn on me. I soon found this was a wise precaution. The jail was a good twelve minutes' walk from the railroad station, and when we ap-proached the center of the town, he suddenly wheeled and made as if to set upon me. I was about to fire, when luckily the man again responded to my stage-voice. Finally, we reached the jail, and I handed over my prisoner.

"No sooner was he lodged in a cell than he went into a terrific frenzy, tearing the iron bed to pieces and nearly mak-ing his escape by bending one of the iron bars at the cell-window. In the morning, when he was taken away to an asylum, I was told it required no less than seven men to hold him as he was carried to the ambulance, so tremendous was his strength. Had this maniac ever gotten to grips with me, I should have been as a child in his hands."