'Do not you remember, Child', says she, 'that the Pidgeon-House fell
the very Afternoon that our careless Wench spilt the Salt upon the
Table?'

'Yes', says he, 'my Dear, and the next Post brought us an Account of
the Battel of Almanza'. [1]

The Reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this
Mischief. I dispatched my Dinner as soon as I could, with my usual
Taciturnity; when, to my utter Confusion, the Lady seeing me [quitting
[2]] my Knife and Fork, and laying them across one another upon my
Plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of
that Figure, and place them side by side. What the Absurdity was which I
had committed I did not know, but I suppose there was some traditionary
Superstition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the Lady of the
House, I disposed of my Knife and Fork in two parallel Lines, which is
the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, though I do not
know any Reason for it.

It is not difficult for a Man to see that a Person has conceived an
Aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the Lady's Looks,
that she regarded me as a very odd kind of Fellow, with an unfortunate
Aspect: For which Reason I took my leave immediately after Dinner, and
withdrew to my own Lodgings. Upon my Return home, I fell into a profound
Contemplation on the Evils that attend these superstitious Follies of
Mankind; how they subject us to imaginary Afflictions, and additional
Sorrows, that do not properly come within our Lot. As if the natural
Calamities of Life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most
indifferent Circumstances into Misfortunes, and suffer as much from
trifling Accidents, as from real Evils. I have known the shooting of a