Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-12
JOBSON'S BAD LUCK

A few weeks ago, when the Jobsons were
figuring on their time of departure on the
summer leave, Mr.. Jobson noticed that Mrs.
Jobson was making careful efforts to have
the day fall neither on Friday nor Satur-
day. This gave him an opening
BY the way" he observed in a tone that
Mrs. Jobsen knew foreboded an argument.
Il perceive your usual desire to thwart me
in every possible way in this conversation.
1t Will best suit me to start off for the
beach on either Friday or Saturday-for a
few little reasons Of my own which 1 don't
feel 1t necessary to express just now. But
you are standing in the way of either one
of those days with all the secret perversity
of which you are capable. You"
Well, owned Mrs. JobSon, with finger
to her lip, Il must say that 1 don't like
either Friday or Saturday as days upon
which to start on journeys. Friday, you
know. Is a proverbially unlucky day, and
Saturday is another one, although that's
not so well known The old saying, you
know. is, Saturday fit, short sit which
means that when one starts on Saturday
one will have such bad luck that one won't
stay very long, and
Madam" put in Mr.. Jobson, sepulchral-
ly. IF find 1t occasionally necessary to
employ the language of the street, your
conduct Is my justification. You just natu-
rally make me tired. You have got more
idiotic more imbecile, more paretic super
stitions slowed away in your frame than
any one hundred and fourteen women L
ever saw in my life"
oh Mrs. Jobson started to say, "but
they're not SUCH
''Oh, but yes they are" interrupted Mr..
Jobson. You bet they are. They're on
tap every minute of the day and night, and
you know it. Here it was only yesterday,
when started to go out from our bed room
upstairs and l momentariy placed my UNI
brella on the bed to arrange my necktie,
that you screamed like madwoman of
the Straits Settlements and grabbed the
umbrella as if it was in danger of setting
the bed clothing afire, and after about
three-quarters of an hour, when you had
cooled down, you told me that to place an
umbrella on a bed is the worst luck i'm the
world, and that one might just as well set
tie up his affairs and make his will as to do
such a terrible thing, and
oh" said Mrs. Jobson, II didn't make
1t quite so strong as that. did I?''
Stronger insisted Mr. Jobson. And
every time we start out to make call, or
go to the theatre or any place else, and
you forget your gloves, or your calling
cards, or something and have to return for
EN-, you stubbornly plump yourself into a
chair and sit there for about three hours,
on the theory, as you express it, that it's
bad luck to come back
Why said Mrs. Jobson. 81 only sit
down on a chair such occasions and
count fifteen and"
"Three hours. I said!" broke in Mr. Job
son, land when we've been out on the
street, walking, or bound somewhere in a
hurry, and funeral procession has come
along, you've forced me to make a detour
of about seventeen miles because you said
1t was bad luck to cross a funeral
"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't quite so much as
that only like to wait until the funeral
| riages!' said Mrs. Jobson.
Seventeen miles is the distance of the
detours l named! repeated Mr.. Jobson,
sternly. And. may l never if, the other
evening. when 1 was accidentally in the
dining room, you didn't see the servant girl
drop a dish rag. and exclaim, Bad news.
Terrible news is bound to come when a
dish rag falls to the floor" and I thought
at the time that it was sad thing for a
sensible man to have woman bearing his
name stuffed so full of nonsense
well, we'll" said Mrs Jobson. when
Ida dropped that dish rag, all 1 said was
Dear me; somebody We don't care to see is
coming to visit us" -
Then Mr.. Jobson went upstairs and liz
| all of the gas on the hot night to manifest
his diSpleaSure.
On the Fourth of July Mr. Jobson was
puttering around the house, changing the
pictures from nail to nail, rearrangng the
furniture that Mrs Jobson had artistically
arranged only the day before. and making
all the various kinds of household nuis-
ance of himself that all men necessarily
make who set about doing household
chores.
In standing on chair in the sitting room
to remove a large plate-glass mantel mirror
to nail that he had picked out in the par
lor he Slipped and the mantel mirror fell to
the hearth with a crash. The glass was
broken into flinders.
When Mrs. Jobson came running I'D from
the basement she found Mr.. Jobson's face
as white as chalk, while great beads of the
perspiration of fear stood out on his fore
head.
Well" he gasped. hoarsely this set
ties it for sure certain. 1 wouldn't have
had this thing happen for a hundred mil
lion dollars. 1t means seven years bad
luck to smash looking glass just as GER
tain as Monday comes after Sunday. 1
| never knew 1t to fail-could mention thou
sands of instances among my own friends
where it came out that way-seven years
of devilish, fiendish. hopeless, bad luck and
here 1 am in for it," and Mr. Jobson
mopped his brow and looked stupefied with
despair. Inside of half an hour he was so
i'll over contempla ting the bad luck in front
of him that he had to go upstairs and lie
down. There he had a chance to think, and
when he came down stairs he summoned
Mrs. Jobson.
Madam" he said. 81 thought l told you
a while back that l wanted no more super
| Stition in this house? What do YOU mean
then. by going up in the air in this silly
way and talking about the seven years of
bad luck that are bound to follow the
| breaking of that mantel glass?"