The Non-Statistical Man (2 page)

She turned, as if she hadn’t seen him, and attended to the noisy sputtering frying of his favorite—liver with onions. She squealed with simulated surprise and pleasure as his arms came about her waist, and he kissed her on the back of the neck.

Then she pretended to notice the bulging briefcase for the first time. “Big business tonight? I thought maybe we could go out to a show at the Centre—?”

Bascomb smiled, shrugged a little, and tossed the briefcase carelessly to a chair across the room. “Nothing very important; just a little problem that came up today—but it can wait. We’ll see the show if you want to. What’s on?”

Sarah shook her head. “Nothing in particular; it’s not that important. I want you to spend the evening on your problem. That
is
important. And I want you to tell me all about it.”

They settled the problem, as Sarah knew they would, by staying home. And after dinner, she sat very quietly and attentively while Charles tried to explain why it was
upsetting to come across such a run of events as had turned up. Try as she would, however, Sarah could not quite grasp the significance of it, or the reason for astonishment.

“You say it might be expected to happen once in a few hundred centuries,” she insisted, “so I should think you’d be glad the time is
now,
when you are able to witness it.”

Bascomb smiled with tolerance; there was no use trying to make her understand. “It’s just that a fellow doesn’t expect to be around for the event,” he said. “We talk about it, and use it in our figuring; but we just don’t expect to see it.”

“That’s what makes it all the more exciting!” Sarah’s eyes were alight in a way she hoped would make Charles think she understood what he was talking about.

Then her expression grew more somber. “And I think it’s something terribly important, too,” she said. “I feel that it’s something which could mean a great deal to our future, Charles. I
know
it. Tell me as soon as you find out what it really means.”

Bascomb muttered a growl of exasperation in the bottom of his throat. This was the kind of thing that came close to driving him to distraction—Sarah’s “feelings” that something-or-other was going to happen, or was especially meaningful.

It gave him the shudders when she started talking that way—because the most damnable part was that she was often right. He had started keeping check on it, out of pure self-defense, a long time ago. Her batting average gave him a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“There’s nothing significant for us in this crazy thing,” he said irritably. “It’s just a bunch of policies that came up for claim all at once—when our statistical methods gave us no reason to expect it. That’s absolutely all; it’s ridiculous, darling, to try to read anything more in it.”

“You’ll tell me, won’t you?” Sarah Bascomb said.

Charles accomplished nothing toward a solution of the problem that night. At the end of four hours work, it seemed just as inexplicable as it had when Hadley first mentioned it.

He slept badly, his line of disturbed thought alternating between the problem itself and Sarah’s irrational inter
pretation of its significance. In the morning he arose and
told himself that it was idiotic to allow a small, routine problem of this kind to get so out of hand.

Only it wasn’t small, and it wasn’t routine by any means.

As he sipped his coffee across the breakfast table from Sarah, and with the three youngsters beginning to stir noisily overhead, he said cautiously, “I’ve been thinking that it might almost be worthwhile to have a personal interview with these policyholders, and see if anything can be deduced from firsthand contact with them. Of course, it’s silly to hope for anything definite, but I
think
maybe I’ll do it.”

He held his coffee cup poised while he waited for her answer. And now
he
was the idiot, he thought—as if her opinion could be of any possible significance!

Nevertheless, Bascomb waited, head cocked to catch the slightest inflection of her voice.

“I think that’s the most sensible thing you’ve done about the whole problem,” she said. “After all, who could tell you more about why they bought the policies when they did—and how they came to make claims—than the people themselves?”

That cinched it, and Charles Bascomb fumed at himself for asking the question of Sarah. After all, he’d intended doing just this, anyway, hadn’t he? What difference did her uninformed opinion make to him? But then, her comment
was
a good one; who, indeed, could tell more about the purchase of these policies than the people who’d done the buying?

He called the office and told his assistant, Jarvis, what he was doing and gave
him
instructions for carrying on.

Of the seven towns, Victorburg was closest to Land-bridge, so Charles Bascomb started for there, feeling unfamiliar in heading the car onto the open highway instead of driving to the station. He congratulated himself that these cases had turned up close to the Home Office, instead of halfway across the United States; at the same time, Bascomb told himself once more he was a complete idiot for giving the whole thing this much attention.

He reached Victorburg by ten o’clock, and drove at
once to the first address on his list. It was a quiet, tree
shaded street that added to the peacefulness of the April morning. He pulled up in front of a neat, white frame house.

Mrs. Davidson; she was the claimant on one of the death cases—Mr. Davidson had died of coronary trouble just three weeks ago. Bascomb wondered if he shouldn’t have gone first to one of the lesser claimants. But it was too late, now. A woman working in the garden at the side of the house had seen him; she was looking up. He got out of the car with his briefcase in his hand.

He tipped his hat as he came up. “Mrs. Davidson? I’m a representative of the New England Mutual Cooperative.”

The woman’s face showed instant dismay. “Oh, dear— I hope there’s nothing wrong now. Your payment came through so quickly, and I was able to pay—”

“No, no—there’s nothing wrong,” Mr. Bascomb said hastily. “Just a routine check we always make to determine if the policyholder has been entirely satisfied with our service.”

“Oh, yesl It’s been more than satisfactory,” exclaimed Mrs. Davidson. “Your payment came through so promptly, and I don’t know what we would have done without it. John went so suddenly, you know. It seems like a miracle that we thought of taking out insurance on him just before it happened. He’d always been so violently opposed to insurance all his life, you know—never would consider it until just now, when it was so badly needed. We didn’t know it was going to be needed, of course.”

“Of course,” said Bascomb. “Our medical examiner passed Mr. Davidson as being in good health at the time of application; otherwise, the policy could not have been issued.

“We share your feelings of gratitude that you were fortunate enough to have the policy in force at the time of Mr. Davidson’s illness. And so you feel you are satisfied with the service our company has given you?”

“Indeed I do!”

“It seems strange there was no earlier indication of your husband’s condition. Hadn’t he ever noticed it before?”

“Never. He was always so strong and healthy; that’s why he despised insurance salesmen so—said they always made him feel as if he were going to die next week.”

“But he
did
finally change his mind. That is the thing I
am most interested in, Mrs. Davidson. You see, we realize we have a service of positive value to offer people; but sometimes, as in the case of your husband, we simply have no means of making them understand it. So naturally, we are most interested to know what finally breaks down a great prejudice against us. You would be doing us a great favor if you could help us in presenting better appeals to other people.” V ,.

“I see what you mean, but I don’t know how I could help you. It just seemed like the thing to do; both John and I felt that way about the same time. It just seemed to be the thing to do.”

Mr. Bascomb felt a trifle numb for a moment. There seemed to be a coldness in the air he hadn’t noticed before. It was as if Sarah were there, standing in front of him.

“You just
felt
like taking out some insurance?” he said faintly.

Mrs. Davidson nodded. “I don’t suppose that’s much help, is it? But it’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. Surely you know how those things are, though? You get a hunch something ought to be done, without knowing why. That’s the way it was with us. I know it seems silly to most people, but I believe in hunches—don’t you, Mr. Bascomb?”

Bascomb felt that he had to get away quickly. He nodded and picked up the briefcase from the grass where he’d dropped it. “Yes, I do.” he said, backing toward the street. “Hunches are invaluable—especially in matters of this kind!”

He drove partway around the block, and stopped to consider. He was irritated with himself for his reaction to Mrs. Davidson’s talk. What had he expected? A profound selfanalysis as to just why she, as a customer of New England, had chosen that particular policy? Or, rather, why her husband had? _ .

He’d probably get even more of the same kind; it’s what you had to take when dealing with individuals. That was why statistics had to be invented—because people were so unstable and irrational, taken one at a time.

Bascomb wished that he could forget the whole thing right now. But he couldn’t; his encounter with Mrs. Davidson had only convinced him that there must be an absolutely sound statistical explanation for the run of short
is
policy claims. He started the car and drove to the next address on his list, three blocks away.

Things were better here; the customer was a young physician who had just opened up a small, neighborhood clinic. He had made a liability claim when a patient stumbled on a hose lying across the walk.

“I always feel it necessary to be protected this way,” he said amiably to Bascomb’s question. His name was Dr. Rufus Sherridan. “It’s the only sensible way to look at it.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Bascomb; “it’s the thing we’ve been trying for years to drum into the heads of the public. Be protected. Juries act as if they’re crazy nowadays when they hand out somebody else’s money in a damage suit.”

“As to my making a substantial claim within three weeks of paying my first premium—well, that’s why we have insurance companies, isn’t it?” said Dr. Sherridan, smiling. “I was never able to understand the figures and statistics of how you work these things out, but the idea is to spread the risk of such unfortunate coincidences, is it not?”

“That’s it exactly,” said Mr. Bascomb. “Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Doctor.” He extended a hand. “I hope you will always find our service as satisfactory as it was this time.”

“I’m sure I shall; thank you for calling,” said Dr. Sherridan.

Bascomb had hoped to contact all twenty seven cases in Victorburg in one day; by five o’clock, however, he had reached only number eighteen. Most of them had been somewhere between Mrs. Davidson and Dr. Sherridan, and Bascomb was exhausted. He longed for his desk and his figures, the world where he knew what was going on.

Number eighteen turned out to be the worst of all, a considerable number of notches below Mrs. Davidson. She was willing to
talk
for one thing; it took Bascomb almost twenty minutes to get to his critical question.

“Why did we decide at this particular time to buy a policy with your company?” Her name was Mrs. Harpersvirg, and she had a habit of putting her arms akimbo and fixing
him
with narrowed eyes, head cocked sharply to one side.

“We knew we were going to need it, Mr. Bascomb, That’s why we bought a policy. Oh, I know you’ll say a
it
person can’t know those things, and it’s true for most people. But once you learn how to realize what’s the right and proper action to take under any circumstance, it’s just like getting a breath of really fresh air for the first time in your life.”

Bascomb leaned back on his heels as she edged toward him. “You have come to such an understanding, Mrs. Harpersvirg?” he asked tentatively.

“You bet! And all I can say is, it’s wonderful! You don’t have to grovel around with your nose in the mud, wondering where you’re going and what’s going to happen next and what you ought to do about it. You can
do
something about it. Of course, I didn’t believe it when Dr. Magruder said it would be that way; but the way this insurance policy paid off convinced me once and for all. I’m glad you called, Mr. Bascomb. I’ve got to rush now. You can tell your company we’re very happy with their service!”

She banged away and left Mr. Bascomb standing there struggling with his final question: who was Dr. Magruder?

But it was obviously of no importance—probably he was some semi-quack family practitioner in the neighborhood. Bascomb turned and almost fled toward the sanctuary of his car; Mrs. Harpersvirg was the final straw in a day that would exhaust the best of men.

And then, somewhere along the seventy-five mile drive back home, it hit Bascomb like a rabbit punch in a dark alley. The common factor.

In statistics you look for the common factor in order to lump otherwise dissimilar items in a single category. And the common factor here was that each of the policyholders he’d interviewed claimed to have bought in with New England on the basis of a hunch—intuition. From Mrs. Harpersvirg on up to Dr. Sherridan—well, maybe the Doctor could be excepted, but certainly none of the others could.

No high pressure sales talk had sold them; they weren’t attracted by more than cursory interest in the company’s fancy literature and advertising. They had bought simply because they’d felt it the thing to do; almost every one of them had used nearly those exact words.

Intuition—a random factor that ordinarily made no impression on statistical analysis.

These people were making it work!

Bascomb slowed the car at the impact of the thought. He finally pulled off to the side of the road to check his interview notes. The damning words were repeated in every possible variation, but they were there: