His eyes flashed and his voice vibrated with such anger that I jumped six inches out of my seat.
"Not at all--not at all," I stammered. "Only it occurred to me--er--that he might have--er--b-bought them ready-made."
"Your knowledge of human nature must be singularly slight," replied the other icily, "if you imagine that a man without sufficient courage to be fitted by a tailor would be brave enough to wear ready-made clothes."
"It seems to me, Sir," said Dean, coming to the rescue, "that your two instances prove little, if anything. They may be mere coincidence."
The stranger leaned forward, frowned heavily and wagged his forefinger at Dean, who wilted visibly.
"The Society for the Investigation of Natal Day Influences upon Character," he said, "does not seek to build up a theory upon isolated and arbitrarily selected examples. We deal with the subject scientifically. To continue with this date, February 29th. After several cases similar to those I have recounted had come to our notice, we made out a list of two hundred and fifty men born on this day. To each of them we sent a representative to ask for a subscription to the Society. Though they had never heard of it before, _every one of those two hundred and fifty was easily intimidated into subscribing._
"Now let us consider another date--March 3rd. Several striking instances had led us to suspect that a person born on March 3rd comes into the world with an ineradicable passion for gambling. I will give you just one of these. A gentleman one day imagined he was seriously ill and called in a doctor. The latter laughed at his fears and offered to bet him that he would live to be seventy. The temptation was too great. The gambler closed with the offer, and on the eve of his seventieth birthday drowned himself."
At this point Empson sniggered audibly. The speaker turned his head and fixed his terrifying glance upon the delinquent. Poor Empson grew very red, and endeavoured to cover his lapse by coughing noisily. The other waited patiently till he had finished.
"Perhaps you wish to say something, Sir," he remarked coldly.
The President made a gesture which indicated that Empson was beneath contempt and renewed his discourse.