The Non-Statistical Man by Raymond F. Jones Page A

audience who didn’t believe Zad Clementi was a justly condemned murderer.
    Bascomb recognized his error the moment he closed his mouth, and he was appalled. Whatever had caused him to bring up such an argument? He was acting like a fool, letting their apathy rattle him; where was his intuitive assurance regarding his course of action?
    It was there, silent, reassuring, commending him for having done well.
    And for the first time since it came, he began to doubt.
    He was not doing well; he had made a blunder that had alienated his listeners beyond all repair.
    But he tried to make repairs. For another full hour he tried valiantly to convey something of his own sense of faith in the intuitive powers of Man. With that faith so severely shaken, however, he had no ability to persuade others.
    When some of those in the back rows began getting up to leave, he knew his chance was gone.
    Not all of them were ready to walk out on him, however. Some wanted to talk it over, and insisted on the scheduled question and answer period. They didn’t want to know about the methods of gaining intuitive understanding; they wanted to tell him what they thought about the things he’d already said.
    It grew boisterous and vicious; he left the platform in defeat.
    As if he had forgotten where he lived, or didn’t want to go there, he drove through town and along its outskirts and suburbs in a mazelike pattern. Beside him, Sarah remained silent, waiting for him to be the first to speak.
    He did, finally. He said bitterly, “How do you suppose I ever got suckered into a thing like that? I must have been crazy the past few weeks—completely off my nutl Intuition—!”
    “You don’t believe it’s real any more?” asked Sarah quietly.
    “As real as it’s always been—a chance hunch now and then. With just as much chance of being wrong as right!”
    “What about the policies?”
    “What about them? I’ll find that statistical formula I bragged about to Sprock and explain them! The ones that won’t fit—well, the old idea of a hunch is as good as any explanation. I’ll buy it. But what a fool Magruder made out of me, with his Yogi tricks and slick performance! I’ll bet he isn’t even Magruder—”
    “What about Myersville?”
    “Who knows—it has nothing to do with this.”
    “And Sloan and his soap failure?”
    “He’s probably got his trouble ironed out by now.” “And you felt it so strongly yourself—that it was real and this was the way to go.”
    Bascomb’s lips compressed tightly before he answered. “I’ve seen the same thing in backwoods religious meetings, too.”
    “I still feel somehow that tonight was not a loss,” said Sarah.
    “It wasn’t,” Bascomb answered grimly. “It put me back on the track. What if I’d quit New England first? But there’s still Sprock.” He grimaced painfully. “Tomorrow I have to see Sprock and do the Most Humble Grand Salaam.”
    He never got the chance; he suspected he wouldn’t when he saw the paper before breakfast the following morning. The international news was light, and his own picture was on the front page, neatly framed by Magruder’s on one side and Zad Clementi’s on the other.
    The caption declared: “Mathematician Computes Clementi Innocence.”
    The story described him as a disciple of Magruder, taking over the Professor’s work while the latter languished in jail, unable to provide bail on charges of medical practise without license. It told in great detail and with considerable accuracy the things Bascomb had said about intuition and the possibility of gaining skill in its use.
    The story was written by Hap Johnson.
    Near the end, Hap said. “All this reminds your reporter about the old story of the tired bailiff who was asked to go out for about the nine hundredth time to get the belaboring jurors something to eat. He’s the one, you remember, who came back with eleven meals and a bale of hay.
    “Well, we can all be thankful that a certain