The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  Bascomb’s heartbeat quickened a trifle, and then he knew that Sprock already had a report on the claims. He hadn’t ignored the prediction, after all!

  Smiling, Bascomb took the offered chair. “I think we both have the same thing in mind,” he said.

  “All right, talk!” The vice-president commanded.

  “I wasn’t honest with you when I was here the other day,” said Bascomb with deliberation. “I told you I had predicted these claims on the basis of a new mathematical formula I had developed. That wasn’t true.”

  “Then why did you tell me such a cock and bull story!” Sprock roared.

  “Because I felt you wouldn’t be likely to believe the genuine truth. Now that I have the proof I can tell you. I predicted those claims simply because of the ability—in and of myself, without the help of any formula of any kind—to do so. Such an ability is sometimes called intuition.”

  “Bascomb, I warned you the last time you were in here—”

  “These policy holders have the same kind of ability, that’s why they were able to predict their own immediate need of insurance.”

  Sprock’s face clouded even further; his fist clenched the papers to a wad. “You can’t possibly believe I’m going to accept a fool story like that!”

  Bascomb waited. He held out the claim papers. “These must be explained,” he said.

  Sprock’s silence seemed interminable; he was so immobile he seemed scarcely alive. Only the faint movement of his thin chest and the rapid shifting of his cold blue eyes to Bascomb’s face and back to the papers betrayed animation.

  Finally, he spoke again. “Go on,” he said. “I believe you; I have to believe you.”

  “There’ll be thousands of these,” said Bascomb. “You are thinking it means the end, if enough people find themselves able to do what these few have done. That’s not necessarily true. I—and others like me—can work from this end, detecting such applications.

  “But it means that we must have a new policy; this is what I came to see you about. We’ll have to issue a policy whose benefits are based on the term which it has run. We’ll issue them only to people like these.” He patted the pile of claims. “That will show them the system works both ways and will discourage their attempts to bring a run on us; after that, we’ll need a new kind of program.” In detail, he explained his proposal for a savings and loan system, which would serve the needs of intuitionists and keep the company solvent.

  When he was through, Sprock’s expression remained unchanged. “I will take your recommendations under advisement,” he said. “I’ll have to discuss these short claims with our Board. But later, you and I will have much more talking to do about this new-found ability. I think there needs to be considerable explanation about its sudden appearance in epidemic form!”

  “Any time that is convenient, sir,” said Bascomb, rising. “I can tell you whatever you wish to know about it.”

  He was a trifle disappointed that Sprock did not demand further explanation at the moment but this was overshadowed by his elation at Sprock’s unwilling, yet definite acceptance of the reality of intuition. The first great step had been taken.

  Later in the day he took a second, smaller step. He called Hadley in and with a confidential air that thrilled the junior statistician he explained about intuition. Hadley took it with difficulty; he was well on the way to solidification in his statistical mold. But when Bascomb offered personally to teach him the methods of intuition, he expressed effusive thanks.

  These were beginnings; but a bold program of expansion was necessary now to take advantage of Magruder’s difficulty, and his own possession of the basic data on intuition.

  From Magruder’s secretary—who was now out of a job and didn’t care much about the Professor’s affairs in the first place—he obtained a list of those registered for the course of lectures. He prepared a letter explaining that he was in a position to explain Magruder’s difficulty with the law and replace the hocus-pocus of his lectures with an honest exposition of the principles of man’s intuitional powers and how to attain them.

  He prepared a second letter which went to a large, select group of personal friends, business associates, and clients of New England. In this he outlined the occurrence of anomalies in human wisdom and insight and explained briefly the role of intuition in men’s affairs. He invited them to attend a series of discourses and instruction on how to improve their personal intuitive abilities.

  He changed the location from Magruder’s meeting place in order to eliminate as much as possible all association with the Professor’s quackery and nonsense. He was going to give out the data in a strictly scientific, straight-from-the-shoulder manner that would be bound to appeal to people of intellect and logical thinking. People who could understand the tremendous responsibility toward society, which was involved in obtaining use of the intuitive faculties of the mind. With such a class of people initially in possession of full intuition there would be no risk of the panic and ruin that Magruder’s program was deliberately designed to induce.

  He felt good about the whole thing; it was intuitively correct. Sarah agreed that it was. Her only worry was in regard to Magruder. “We ought to do something to help,” she said. “After all, he’s the one responsible for bringing these principles to light. We owe him for that. And those newspaper articles are getting people so inflamed against him that he’s liable to get a sentence of twenty years in jail, for things he didn’t have the remotest chance of doing.”

  Bascomb himself was still uncertain about the position of Magruder. It warned him, too; particularly since there was no intuitive insight either of them could get regarding him. .

  “After this thing gets rolling,” he promised. “I’ll have a talk with him and see if something can’t be done. I’ll see Cummings, the D.A., too. I used to sit next to him at Club.”

  Bascomb was quite aware that he was going to distribute pills just as Magruder had done, which was the immediate cause of Magruder’s arrest. But he knew there was no risk to himself in this. In the Professor’s case it had been just an excuse to lay hands on him; with a straightforward approach there would be no such complication.

  9

  Charles and Sarah Bascomb were elated by the sight of the first night crowd filling up the hall. Logic had told them they were getting a place much too big. But it was just right.

  The crowd was divided about equally between Bas-comb’s friends and business people, and the group from Magruder’s course. Bascomb was continually surprised by his own lack of apprehension concerning the reactions of both groups. It would be difficult to wean Magruder’s people away from corporeal vibrations; and he knew the business people would not take kindly to the idea that statistics was a feeble tool to be used only in the absence of a more profound and positive intuition. Yet he felt completely secure in what he was about to do.

  The feeling persisted, even when Hap Johnson walked in and took a seat at the rear of the hall. Bascomb admitted to himself he was shaken when he looked out and saw the reporter’s entrance. He hadn’t invited Hap, and had no idea how he had got wind of the meeting. But it didn’t matter, he thought; nothing that the Courier might print could possibly alter the intuitive assurance he felt.

  He stepped out between the curtains on the platform. He was aware of the stares of surprise, curiosity, challenge, and occasional contempt. He smiled confidently and held up a hand to quiet the perfunctory applause.

  “It was probably no small surprise to those of you who know me,” he said, “to read my invitation to this gathering. I am gratified that so many of you took the trouble to accept and be here tonight.

  “What I have to say will sound strange to all of you. Some of you will be thoroughly outraged—even as I was when I first encountered this information. I hope no one will be so outraged or disbelieving that he will consider it beneath his dignity to test the validity of these facts for himself—also as I have done.”

  Gingerly, then, as if edgi
ng carefully into cold, deep water, Bascomb spoke of the historical evidence for the existence of intuition as it might be familiar to his audience. He modified Magruder’s exposition considerably, omitting the Professor’s far-fetched theories that went back to the dawn of civilization. He reminded his listeners of instances which they could believe, in which intuition had proven superior to all other forms of knowledge as a basis for action.

  They listened, but he could see they weren’t liking it. Magruder’s group was obviously contemptuous of so prosaic a term as intuition; they wanted strong meat— corporeal vibrations. The business people were disgusted; Bascomb could read in their faces the thoughts he himself had had, not so long ago.

  Somehow he wasn’t getting it over; he was trying to be reasonable and scientific, but his listeners were cold to his exposition.

  “How much would it be worth to know,” he said, “which one out of many possible lines of action was most likely to succeed? How much would it be worth to know which man out of a group could best do a job—or which product out of many thousands was not up to specified quality? You who are executives, personnel managers, quality control experts—what would it be worth to you to have infallible insight in your profession instead of mere assurance that your error will not be greater than a stated amount?

  “Statistics can never give you anything more than this assurance. Intuition, properly applied, can give you positive knowledge.”

  In his backward-looking moments he never quite understood why he dared the argument he brought up next. Certainly, his planned discourse didn’t call for it; but the apathy of the group made him a little desperate, he thought afterward.

  “Think of the significance in our judicial processes,” he said. “We never know in many instances whether a man is actually guilty of a crime or not. We take a ballot and vote him guilty or innocent, and our concept of justice and our lust for vengeance are satisfied.

  “We have seen in recent days how this functions in our own city. We have voted a man guilty of the worst possible crime. There were good, sound, logical reasons for such a vote. He was a poor, unlettered devil who aroused no one’s sympathy, so who could regret if an error were made? Besides, he was the janitor in the apartment house where the victim lived, and she was found stuffed in the furnace to which only he was supposed to have access.

  “But I know that Zad Clementi is innocent of this crime!”

  For sheer emotional reaction, he might as well have set off a charge of dynamite in their midst. There was no physical response, but he felt the hostile flare in their minds like a bright, silent flame.

  There was not a man or woman in the audience who didn’t believe Zad Clementi was a justly condemned murderer.

  Bascomb recognized his error the moment he closed his mouth, and he was appalled. Whatever had caused him to bring up such an argument? He was acting like a fool, letting their apathy rattle him; where was his intuitive assurance regarding his course of action?

  It was there, silent, reassuring, commending him for having done well.

  And for the first time since it came, he began to doubt.

  He was not doing well; he had made a blunder that had alienated his listeners beyond all repair.

  But he tried to make repairs. For another full hour he tried valiantly to convey something of his own sense of faith in the intuitive powers of Man. With that faith so severely shaken, however, he had no ability to persuade others.

  When some of those in the back rows began getting up to leave, he knew his chance was gone.

  Not all of them were ready to walk out on him, however. Some wanted to talk it over, and insisted on the scheduled question and answer period. They didn’t want to know about the methods of gaining intuitive understanding; they wanted to tell him what they thought about the things he’d already said.

  It grew boisterous and vicious; he left the platform in defeat.

  As if he had forgotten where he lived, or didn’t want to go there, he drove through town and along its outskirts and suburbs in a mazelike pattern. Beside him, Sarah remained silent, waiting for him to be the first to speak.

  He did, finally. He said bitterly, “How do you suppose I ever got suckered into a thing like that? I must have been crazy the past few weeks—completely off my nutl Intuition—!”

  “You don’t believe it’s real any more?” asked Sarah quietly.

  “As real as it’s always been—a chance hunch now and then. With just as much chance of being wrong as right!”

  “What about the policies?”

  “What about them? I’ll find that statistical formula I bragged about to Sprock and explain them! The ones that won’t fit—well, the old idea of a hunch is as good as any explanation. I’ll buy it. But what a fool Magruder made out of me, with his Yogi tricks and slick performance! I’ll bet he isn’t even Magruder—”

  “What about Myersville?”

  “Who knows—it has nothing to do with this.”

  “And Sloan and his soap failure?”

  “He’s probably got his trouble ironed out by now.” “And you felt it so strongly yourself—that it was real and this was the way to go.”

  Bascomb’s lips compressed tightly before he answered. “I’ve seen the same thing in backwoods religious meetings, too.”

  “I still feel somehow that tonight was not a loss,” said Sarah.

  “It wasn’t,” Bascomb answered grimly. “It put me back on the track. What if I’d quit New England first? But there’s still Sprock.” He grimaced painfully. “Tomorrow I have to see Sprock and do the Most Humble Grand Salaam.”

  He never got the chance; he suspected he wouldn’t when he saw the paper before breakfast the following morning. The international news was light, and his own picture was on the front page, neatly framed by Magruder’s on one side and Zad Clementi’s on the other.

  The caption declared: “Mathematician Computes Clementi Innocence.”

  The story described him as a disciple of Magruder, taking over the Professor’s work while the latter languished in jail, unable to provide bail on charges of medical practise without license. It told in great detail and with considerable accuracy the things Bascomb had said about intuition and the possibility of gaining skill in its use.

  The story was written by Hap Johnson.

  Near the end, Hap said. “All this reminds your reporter about the old story of the tired bailiff who was asked to go out for about the nine hundredth time to get the belaboring jurors something to eat. He’s the one, you remember, who came back with eleven meals and a bale of hay.

  “Well, we can all be thankful that a certain insurance statistician wasn’t on the Clementi jury. We’ve had clean-cut justice done on this case, a thing our courts and the citizens of Landbridge can be proud of. But we’ll tell you: if anyone still cares to make a gift of a bale of hay at this particular date, your reporter will see that it’s properly delivered.”

  It sent a stunning wave of hurt through Bascomb as he read it. Hap Johnson had been his friend. This bitterness was something he did not understand; he gave up trying.'

  On his desk, when he reached the office, there was a note for him to appear in the office of vice-president Sprock. Bascomb caught furtive glances of those beyond the glass walls of his office as he read it. Obviously they’d seen the morning papers.

  Hadley hadn’t, apparently, for he came in brightly, almost on Bascomb’s heels. “Here’s the last of the policies you asked about, Mr. Bascomb,” he said. Bheuner's Hardware Store. It burned to the ground last night.”

  That must have been in the second section, which Bascomb hadn’t read. He stood staring, long after Hadley had left, at the two papers on his desk: the order from Sprock, and the claim from Bheuner. The hardware man hadn’t lost any time, he thought.

  But it would do no good to call it to Sprock’s attention now; his case was lost, as far as New England was concerned. He left the claim paper on his desk and walked slowly down the hall.

 
The Vice-President was surprisingly direct and to the point. He outlined briefly the history of the insurance business, particularly that of New England. He dwelt at moderate length on the sacredness of the obligations incurred by the Company in behalf of the Policyholders. He went most heavily into the personal qualifications required of the ones chosen to stand vigil over that enduring trust.

  But the thing of greatest significance was his parting shot: “I shall see to it personally, Bascomb, that no firm in this field ever considers your name on its roster without knowing the true facts of your fantastic attempts to besmirch the entire insurance institution in America! Intuition! Good-day, Mr. Bascomb.”

  He returned along the hall to his own office. Blackballed; he had no doubts that Sprock would and could do it.

  He had thirty days coming if he wanted it, but he declined. He told Sprock he’d finish up at once, if that was all right; it was. He turned over his current studies to Wardlaw, Assistant Statistician. He cleaned out his desk and said a stiff goodbye to the office associates who didn’t suddenly have to go down the hall for a break as they saw he was about ready.

  That was it. He and New England were through. As he turned his back on the building he was aware that this fact had not sunk thoroughly into all his cells. A certain part of him had no doubt that he would be coming this way again in the morning. It would be a bitter struggle when that certain part attained full awareness.

  Sarah was not surprised. They had discussed it at breakfast, and she had told him it was going to happen. He had believed her, but hoped for some miracle to prove her wrong—to prove all her intuitive hunches wrong for the rest of their lives.

  It wouldn’t be bad, however, he told her; he’d start looking in the morning. He might have to go farther away, but there wouldn’t be much trouble for a man of his experience. He didn’t tell her of Sprock’s threat.

  He did little the next day except write some letters asking for interviews. He went to a public stenographer in town to do this, and came home early—at the height of thirteen-year-old Mark’s wails of rage and discomfort.