The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  “Look, darling—”

  “Don’t you just feel the power in what Dr. Magruder says? Don’t you just know he’s right?”

  Bascomb gave up and carried the exercise books and boxes of colored pills to the car, as they broke away from the crowd leaving the assembly room.

  Following Sarah’s admonition, he took a red and a green pill before going to bed.

  These claims anomalies did not constitute the first items of interest which young Hadley had brought to Bascomb’s attention. Because he hoped to rise high and fast in the firm, Hadley had made an exhaustive study of his associates and superiors. It would have surprised Bascomb to know how full the file was which Hadley kept securely hidden at home, and which described the Bascomb eccentricities and foibles as Hadley saw them.

  So in accord with the policy he’d adopted toward Bascomb, Hadley approached the following morning about ten o’clock—when,'the morning rush of mail was out of the way—with a news clipping in his hand. “Something curious here,” he said; “I wondered if you might have seen it in the paper this morning.”

  He laid it on the desk and Bascomb frowned at it wordlessly. His cold reception of it gave Hadley a start of fear that he might have misjudged Bascomb’s interest in the anomalous, after all.

  “At least we can’t blame Magruder for that, anyway,” Bascomb growled unpleasantly.

  “Who, sir?” said Brooks politely.

  “Magruder. Oh, hell—I’d forgotten you didn’t know anything about him. Forget it. Thanks for the clipping.”

  He turned away to his work, but Hadley stood hesitantly by the desk still. “Did you—were you able to make anything out of the claims anomalies I mentioned the other day?”

  “No, nothing!” Bascomb snapped irritably. Hadley fled.

  Bascomb forgot the clipping until he turned back to that side of the desk again fifteen minutes later; his eyes caught it and he read it through once more.

  There was a four inch item about a small town in Minnesota that had finally determined what to do about the TV menace to its children and its culture. On a bright spring Saturday afternoon the citizens had carried their sets down to the town square. There, amid picnic surroundings of fried chicken and peach cobbler, they’d had contests of sorts for various ages—the contests consisting of hurling rocks through twenty-one inch picture tubes from various distances.

  Then they’d piled all the sets together and set fire to them. It was reported that there had subsequently been a run on the local library, and that discussion forums and chamber music groups had sprung up all over town.

  Bascomb grinned wryly to himself. That was taking the bull—literally!—by the horns and tossing it. He hoped it indicated a trend.

  But his statistician’s mind veered back to the essential element in the story, the one which had prompted Hadley to cut it out: the anomaly. When umpteen hundreds of thousands of other communities throughout the land darkened their living rooms at sunset to bask in the hypnotic glow of buncombe until bedtime, why had the single town of Myersville reared up on its hind legs and demonstrated independence of national mores?

  Bascomb didn’t know, and he was quite sure he would never find out. His hands too full of Dr. Magruder even to think of tracking down such a remote incident as that in Myersville. But, he repeated fervently to himself, he hoped it was indicative of a trend.

  He had reached a standstill in his attempts to analyze the insurance claim anomalies scientifically, according to the principles of statistics; he had to have more data. And while it seemed ridiculous to wait upon Dr. Magruder for that, yet Bascomb had just about decided there was nothing else to do. He knew there could be no connection, but there seemed nowhere else to look for data.

  He knocked off a little early for lunch. He had an appointment with an old college friend, Mark Sloane, who had suggested for weeks that they get together when he was in town. He phoned during the morning to announce this was the day.

  Bascomb had been close friends with Sloane at one time, and it was nice to see him again—although Sloane had gone into advertising and was now president of his own up and coming firm. That meant they talked of advertising when they got together for lunch.

  Sloane greeted Bascomb affably, but there was something lacking, which Bascomb detected at once. They selected a table and Bascomb eyed his friend critically while the menu was being brought.

  “You look as if you had a rough trip this time,” he said.

  “If you only knew!” Sloane fanned the air in mock desperation. “I’m going to tell you about it—maybe you can help me, too. Seems like a statistician could diagnose the corpse better than anyone else, at that.”

  He launched into his troubles after their orders were brought. “We spent two solid months building up this campaign,” he said; “we’d planned to try it in a half dozen Pacific Coast towns and then spread it nationally. We put everything we had into it—all we’d learned in fifteen years of pushing breakfast cereals and cement blocks. And it busted, went completely flat. People walked past the stacks of Singing Suds in the supermarkets as if they’d never hear the name.

  “It’s all over the trade. In America, anybody can sell soap, but Sloane and Franklin couldn’t push Singing Suds. Unless we do something quick to show it isn’t a habit, the soap company isn’t the.only one who’ll go on the rocks.

  “It’s got us scared, Charles; I don’t mind admitting it. We did everything just right, and it was a bust. Do you think you could do anything to help us find out why?”

  Bascomb leaned back thoughtfully. He had never sympathized particularly with Sloane’s endeavors, but he understood what it meant to a man to take a heavy business setback like this.

  “I can’t do it personally, Mark, but I think somebody in my field could probably do you some good. There are several good men on the West Coast; I’ll give you the names of two or three if you like.”

  “I wish you would,” said Sloane morosely. “The worst part of it is not merely people’s ignoring our campaign completely, but the fact that they bought wholesale lots of a completely unknown product called Dud’s Suds. We tried to figure if the name had anything to do with it, but we couldn’t pin it down.”

  “Dud’s Suds, we found out, is put up locally and hasn’t spent a nickel for advertising in years. It used to be in the little comer groceries; within the past few weeks, has pushed into the supermarkets—past nice packages like Singing Suds—. It’s put up in a repulsive blue, cubical box that any package man would tell you wouldn’t sell in a million years. That’s what has us more scared than anything else—the fact that we couldn’t buck poor competition like that. We must have done something terribly wrong!”

  “Call these men,” Bascomb suggested, passing over a slip of paper with a couple of names and addresses on it. “They both have small polling organizations, as well as statistical services. Let them give it a try.

  “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about since you first mentioned this: which is the better of the two soaps—Singing Suds or Dud’s Suds?”

  Sloane moved his hands disaparagingly. “The other people’s soap is better—but what’s that got to do with it?”

  There had been other times in his life when Charles Bascomb felt this way, and he didn’t like it at all. It was a vague, undefinable feeling that things were snowballing on him and he was powerless to do anything about it.

  The worst part was in not knowing just what was snowballing. He had freely in mind the irritations of the past few days: the short policy claims; the gnawing little news-clipping Hadley showed him, the story of Sloane’s ad campaign that had bungled. But there was something beyond these things—yet somehow connected with each one of them—and he didn’t know what it was. From a national standpoint, there was no possible connection between these events; yet something nagging faintly in his mind suggested there was.

  He grew snappier around the office, and Sarah read the signs and kept quiet around the house. She knew somet
hing was bothering Charles, and it was something big.

  In this mood he went with Sarah to the second of Dr. Magruder’s lectures on Saturday night. More intently than before, he listened to the quack doctor. And more than ever, he was convinced that there was something basically wrong in the show Magruder was putting on. The nub of it was that Magruder just didn’t have what it took to be this kind of spieler. At his age, if he’d been in the racket a long time, he’d have had a smooth, flowing delivery and a patter that would sell com plasters to a fish.

  Instead, Magruder clomped along—almost painfully at times—in his rasping voice. He paused frequently, as if uncertain just how to proceed with the group before him. He was not at all at home in what he was doing. He acted more like a ready-to-be-retired college professor.

  College professor.

  A small trickle of cold started on the back of Bascomb’s neck and moved slowly up to the base of his skull. There was no doubt about it. There was only one place Magruder could have learned a delivery like that: on a college lecture platform.

  He sat back during the rest of the discourse, alternately congratulating himself on his astuteness in seeing through Magruder’s deception and berating himself for being so impulsive. No self-respecting professor would ever stoop to such jargon.

  At the end of the period, there was a question and answer session. Well-dressed matrons held up their hands without a qualm and asked items like: “If one’s corporeal vibrations are out of phase with the ethereal stream, can they be brought back merely through use of exercise Four—or must the medication be relied on also to accomplish this effect?” "

  Magruder seemed pleased, as if the ladies were really getting his message.

  Then, after a dozen of these, Bascomb stood up. “I’d like to ask,” he said slowly, “how the reorganization of one’s corporeal vibrations affects his need of life insurance —or of any other kind, for that matter.”

  There was a small titter from somewhere behind him, as if such prosaic matters were beneath consideration in the same breath with corporeal vibrations. But from Magruder there was a sudden, dead stillness. Then he removed his spectacles, wiped them carefully, and peered down at Bascomb as if wanting to fix him indelibly in mind.

  “Your question is a little advanced for our present discussion,” Magruder finally answered in precise tones; “but for your information I may say that insurance is an excellent form of purchase when one has need of it Otherwise, it is a waste of funds.”

  Bascomb nodded profoundly in agreement. “Yes, I would say that it is,” he said. “I have another question: would you say that one with properly-phased corporeal vibrations would be likely to spend much time watching television?”

  Again Magruder did a faint double-take and peered at Bascomb. “Your question is almost irrelevant,” he said, “But not entirely. As with most instruments of mass communication, television finds man in the astonishing position of having vast resources for exchange of intelligence, but no intelligence to exchange. Until this situation is corrected I would say the answer to your inquiry is no.”

  “One more,” said Bascomb. “Would you say that such a person would be unyielding to the ordinary advertising appeal?”

  “The same answer as to your previous question,” said Magruder, “and for essentially the same reason. Now, if we may continue—”

  On Monday, without telling anyone—including Sarah —of his intentions, Bascomb hired a firm of private investigators. Within twenty-four hours he had the information he sought. Magruder was indeed a fake; he was actually Emeritus Professor Magruder of Bay City College, a small institution in southern California. He had been head of the psychology department there and had retired two years ago at the age of sixty-five.

  B as comb took the information over the phone and promised to send a check to the investigating firm for their services. He hung up, without being aware of having done so, and continued to stare at the facts he had written down. A nightmare parade seemed to be assembling in the far depths of his mind and was already beginning its march along the channels of his cortex.

  "Both John and I felt this was the time to take out a policy—you never know when you might need it.”

  But they knew!

  "There's something in this that could mean a great deal to our future, Charles." That was Sarah. Did she have any inkling of how much it could mean?

  "It was reported that Donny Tompkins won the twelve year olds’ slingshot event by putting a rock through a twenty-one inch screen from a distance of one hundred and ten yards.”

  "It has us scared, Charles. The other people’s soap is better, but what has that got to do with it?”

  How many more? How many more—in a country as big as the United States? He’d only come across a whisper of the anomaly. What would he find if he really looked— He put on his hat and went out to get a taxi for Magruder’s hotel.

  4

  The professor greeted Charles Bascomb at the door with an extended hand. With the other he dropped a cigaret into an overflowing ash tray. “I’m glad you finally came,” Magruder said. “I waited all day yesterday for you; I had begun to fear I was anticipating too much.”

  “It took me that long to run down the dope on you,” said Bascomb. He passed into the moderately untidy room with its thick cloud of stale smoke. He opened a window and looked out.

  Finally, he turned. “I know who you are, but that’s about all. I know you are doing something to the business of my insurance company, but I don’t know how. You weren’t surprised by my questions about television and advertising, so I must assume you know what I was referring to. I get cold along the back of my neck and down my spine when I think of what I don’t know about you.

  “I don’t believe any of it, of course; it’s too fantastic to believe. But here I am. And you were waiting for me. Now it’s your turn to talk, Professor.”

  Magruder smiled and settled back in a chair opposite Bascomb. “You are a blunt man, for a statistician,” he said. “I find the uncertainties of their profession ordinarily extends to their common speech.”

  Bascomb eyed him without answering. Magruder seemed to be musing now on something seen through the windows—but this was the tenth floor, and there was only sky beyond.

  He didn’t change the focus of his eyes as he said, “Insurance is actually a most reprehensible business, isn’t it, Mr. Bascomb?”

  Bascomb decided against rising to the bait.

  “Making money from people’s certainty of death or misfortune—a ghoulish business. But then, since your own profession assists this traffic in misery, I suppose it is difficult for you to see it. May I ask, Mr. Bascomb, how many of the capsules you have taken and how many hours of the exercises you have performed?”

  Bascomb stirred with vigor for the first time. “That nonsense! Come on, Professor, let’s have the genuine story of what you are trying to do. I’m not one of those fat old matrons in your audiences, remember.”

  “But that is the genuine story,” said Magruder. “Because I have somewhat disguised it with a bit of mummery, do you suppose the whole thing is trickery?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Everything I’ve heard so far in your lectures is nonsense—and of course the feeble vitamin pills you dish out are of no importance.” “And that is where you are wrong,” said Magruder. “I must ask you to answer my question if you will, please.” “Oh, I’ve been taking your damned pills!” Bascomb answered irritably. “I have to, to keep peace in the house; you’ve got my wife thoroughly buffaloed with your double talk. I’ve been doing the exercises, too. She insists on it every evening.”

  “Good. Then perhaps you can understand something of what I have to say—although it may be a trifle early for full comprehension.

  “Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a world, Mr. B as comb, where insurance companies were not needed?”

  “Certainly not; it’s ridiculous to even contemplate. Insurance business provides a
sound, social need in spreading the risks of modem living. To destroy the insurance business would once again make the individual the prey of all the unforeseen and uncontrollable forces of nature and our complex civilization, from which he is now protected.”

  Magruder looked out the window again, as if he had almost forgotten his visitor. Then he said at last, “Doesn’t it seem curious to you that modem man, with all his tremendous technological accomplishments, should still be in such great need of protection from these forces?”

  “No,” said Bascomb; “biology teaches us that man was forced to develop auxiliary protections because of his inherent physical weakness. That’s what’s made him great; out of weakness has come his strength.”

  “And what basis is there for such a preposterous assumption?” Magruder showed angry excitement for the first time. “How could Man have reached the top of the evolutionary ladder if he dropped his natural, physical protective devices, one by one, as he developed? Can you think of a hypothesis more absurd than this one? Wouldn’t he, rather, have accumulated survival instruments instead of dropping them?”

  “He did,” said Bascomb, “his brain—which enables him to devise any means of protection and development that he needs.”

  “And that’s an improvement, I suppose! A device to manufacture out of cmde metal and glass the instruments possessed for fifty to a hundred million years by other species. The swift knows with unerring accuracy die way to go to avoid an oncoming storm, and its temporarily-abandoned young go into hibernation when it comes. But human beings still don’t know which way to duck a hurricane; and the ones caught in it die.

  “For fifty million years bats have navigated by sonar. An eel-like fish of the Nile uses true electromagnetic radar. But Man is just now getting around to clumsy mechanical duplicates of these devices. Birds and animals use the polarization of daylight to determine direction and time. Man still hasn’t got a really practical device for duplicating this feat.