on a raw and snowy evening toward the latter part of january, 1817, a gentleman, walking along the strand, turned into the street in which doctor lagarde lived, and knocked at the physician’s door.
he was admitted by an elderly male servant to a waiting-room on the first floor. the light of one little lamp, placed on a bracket fixed to the wall, was so obscured by a dark green shade as to make it difficult, if not impossible, for visitors meeting by accident to recognize each other. the metal money-box fixed to the table was just visible. in the flickering light of a small fire, the stranger perceived the figures of three men seated, apart and silent, who were the only occupants of the room beside himself.
so far as objects were to be seen, there was nothing to attract attention in the waiting-room. the furniture was plain and neat, and nothing more. the elderly servant handed a card, with a number inscribed on it, to the new visitor, said in a whisper, “your number will be called, sir, in your turn,” and disappeared. for some minutes nothing disturbed the deep silence but the faint ticking of a clock. after a while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman appeared, whose interview with doctor lagarde had terminated. his opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic word—“humbug!” no contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the money-box on his way out.
the next number (being number fifteen) was called by the elderly servant, and the first incident occurred in the strange series of events destined to happen in the doctor’s house that night.
one after another the three men who had been waiting rose, examined their cards under the light of the lamp, and sat down again surprised and disappointed.
the servant advanced to investigate the matter. the numbers possessed by the three visitors, instead of being fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, proved to be sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. turning to the stranger who had arrived the last, the servant said:
“have i made a mistake, sir? have i given you number fifteen instead of number eighteen?”
the gentleman produced his numbered card.
a mistake had certainly been made, but not the mistake that the servant supposed. the card held by the latest visitor turned out to be the card previously held by the dissatisfied stranger who had just left the room—number fourteen! as to the card numbered fifteen, it was only discovered the next morning lying in a corner, dropped on the floor!
acting on his first impulse, the servant hurried out, calling to the original holder of fourteen to come back and bear his testimony to that fact. the street-door had been opened for him by the landlady of the house. she was a pretty woman—and the gentleman had fortunately lingered to talk to her. he was induced, at the intercession of the landlady, to ascend the stairs again.
on returning to the waiting-room, he addressed a characteristic question to the assembled visitors. “more humbug?” asked the gentleman who liked to talk to a pretty woman.
the servant—completely puzzled by his own stupidity—attempted to make his apologies.
“pray forgive me, gentlemen,” he said. “i am afraid i have confused the cards i distribute with the cards returned to me. i think i had better consult my master.”
left by themselves, the visitors began to speak jestingly of the strange situation in which they were placed. the original holder of number fourteen described his experience of the doctor in his own pithy way. “i applied to the fellow to tell my fortune. he first went to sleep over it, and then he said he could tell me nothing. i asked why. ‘i don’t know,’ says he. ‘ i do,’ says i—‘humbug!’ i’ll bet you the long odds, gentlemen, that you find it humbug, too.”
before the wager could be accepted or declined, the door of the inner room was opened again. the tall, spare, black figure of a new personage appeared on the threshold, relieved darkly against the light in the room behind him. he addressed the visitors in these words:
“gentlemen, i must beg your indulgence. the accident—as we now suppose it to be—which has given to the last comer the number already held by a gentleman who has unsuccessfully consulted me, may have a meaning which we can none of us at present see. if the three visitors who have been so good as to wait will allow the present holder of number fourteen to consult me out of his turn—and if the earlier visitor who left me dissatisfied with his consultation will consent to stay here a little longer—something may happen which will justify a trifling sacrifice of your own convenience. is ten minutes’ patience too much to ask of you?”
the three visitors who had waited longest consulted among themselves, and (having nothing better to do with their time) decided on accepting the doctor’s proposal. the visitor who believed it all to be “humbug” coolly took a gold coin out of his pocket, tossed it into the air, caught it in his closed hand, and walked up to the shaded lamp on the bracket.
“heads, stay,” he said, “tails, go.” he opened his hand, and looked at the coin. “heads! very good. go on with your hocus-pocus, doctor—i’ll wait.”
“you believe in chance,” said the doctor, quietly observing him. “that is not my experience of life.”
he paused to let the stranger who now held number fourteen pass him into the inner room—then followed, closing the door behind him.
