Read Online The Non-Statistical Man by Raymond F. Jones - Free Book Online Page B

the intervention of any process of thought,” he read. In very recent times he would have made an extremely bad pun on that definition.
    "Quick perception of truth, without conscious attention or reasoning—truth obtained by internal apprehension, without the aid of perception or the reasoning powers.”
    That last one was closest to it, he thought, but even so, it was extremely deceptive—written by a man who hadn’t the faintest concept of intuition. For there could be no obtaining of truth without perception; of that, Bascomb was quite sure. There had to be contact. He didn’t know how he could explain his contact with the matter of the six policies which he knew would shortly have claims on them, but somehow there was contact.
    He closed the book. The definitions had been written by a statistician, not an intuitionist, he thought wryly; and that was no help at all.
    He took his hat and walked out of the office, leaving word with Miss Pilgrim, his secretary, that he’d be back after lunch.
    He had no definite goal in mind. He wanted merely to get away, to try to get some self-evaluation of the thing that had happened. He half expected the experience to dim as he got out into the clear spring air and faced the reality of the city with all its movement and noise and color. But there was no change at all.
    He stopped at a street comer, waiting for the green light. He drew himself up to full height and sniffed deeply of the air, which was only moderately loaded with carbon monoxide at this time of morning. Why had he let a thing like this shake him so? People had hunches all the time; it was quite an ordinary thing, after all, when you stopped to think about it. He had no reason to feel apologetic, because he’d finally had one for the first time in his life.
    But it wasn’t any good. He knew he’d have lived out his full fourscore and ten without ever experiencing a genuine hunch, if it hadn’t been for Magruder. All his life he’d laughed at hunches, and at the people who depended upon them for important decisions in their lives. Now, with one of his own, he felt like an unlucky prospector who’d sour-graped himself into believing there was no ore—only to come upon the biggest strike of all.
    He stopped again in the middle of the block, and stepped back against the store fronts, a sudden new burden upon him. His face paled.
    It was his habit to watch the crowds on the streets. Sometimes he counted a hundred of those going past in the opposite direction and estimated with a shallow regret that twenty five of them would feel the death-grip of cancer. As many more would give way to failing hearts.
    There would be diabetes, infections, and accidents in decreasing proportions.
    This always made him a little sad. Now, for the first time, he recognized how much he’d exulted in this private knowledge, and how superior he’d regarded himself because of it. It had been a power over his fellows—as if he, personally, were responsible for their fate.
    With horror, he recognized something new. The passers-by were no longer an amorphous, faceless stream; they had become a procession of individuals.
    That woman in the red coat standing by the baby carriage—
    As if in a nightmare, he found himself moving across the sidewalk toward her. “That tumor—” he said in a mild, hesitant voice; “it’s so small now, it could probably be removed before metastasis—”
    She stared at him in a moment of fright, then reassured herself by a glance at the passers-by. “I don’t know you,” she said with cold contempt, not at all alarmed.
    Bascomb realized in dim horror what he had done. He touched his hatbrim and glanced nervously about. “I beg your pardon,” he said, backing away. “You will see your doctor, though, won’t you—?”
    His withdrawal gave her added courage. “I oughta call a cop! In broad daylight, too. And a woman with a six-months old baby—can ya beat that?”
    His heart was pounding heavily as