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10
Ed iti o n
Statistics for the
Behavioral Sciences
© Deborah Batt
Frederick J Gravetter
The College at Brockport, State University of New York
Larry B. WaLLnau
The College at Brockport, State University of New York
Australia ● Brazil ● Mexico ● Singapore ● United Kingdom ● United States

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Print Number: 01 Print Year: 2015
B RiEF Co n tEn t S
CHAPtER 1 Introduction to Statistics 1
CHAPtER 2 Frequency Distributions 33
CHAPtER 3 Central Tendency 67
CHAPtER 4 Variability 99
CHAPtER 5 z-Scores: Location of Scores and Standardized Distributions 131
CHAPtER 6 Probability 159
CHAPtER 7 Probability and Samples: The Distribution of Sample Means 193
CHAPtER 8 Introduction to Hypothesis Testing 223
CHAPtER 9 Introduction to the t Statistic 267
CHAPtER 10 The t Test for Two Independent Samples 299
CHAPtER 11 The t Test for Two Related Samples 335
CHAPtER 12 Introduction to Analysis of Variance 365
CHAPtER 13 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance 413
CHAPtER 14 Two-Factor Analysis of Variance (Independent Measures) 447
CHAPtER 15 Correlation 485
CHAPtER 16 Introduction to Regression 529
CHAPtER 17 The Chi-Square Statistic: Tests for Goodness of Fit and Independence 559
CHAPtER 18 The Binomial Test 603
iii
Co n tEn t S
CHAPtER 1 Introduction to Statistics 1

PREVIEW 2
1.1 Statistics, Science, and Observations 2
1.2 Data Structures, Research Methods, and Statistics 10
1.3 Variables and Measurement 18
1.4 Statistical Notation 25
Summary 29
Focus on Problem Solving 30
Demonstration 1.1 30
Problems 31
CHAPtER 2 Frequency Distributions 33

PREVIEW 34
2.1 Frequency Distributions and Frequency Distribution Tables 35
2.2 Grouped Frequency Distribution Tables 38
2.3 Frequency Distribution Graphs 42
2.4 Percentiles, Percentile Ranks, and Interpolation 49
2.5 Stem and Leaf Displays 56
Summary 58
Problems 62
v
vi CONTENTS
CHAPtER 3 Central Tendency 67

PREVIEW 68
3.1 Overview 68
3.2 The Mean 70
3.3 The Median 79
3.4 The Mode 83
3.5 Selecting a Measure of Central Tendency 86
3.6 Central Tendency and the Shape of the Distribution 92
Summary 94
Problems 96
CHAPtER 4 Variability 99
PREVIEW 100
4.1 Introduction to Variability 101
4.2 Defining Standard Deviation and Variance 103
4.3 Measuring Variance and Standard Deviation for a Population 108
4.4 Measuring Standard Deviation and Variance for a Sample 111
4.5 Sample Variance as an Unbiased Statistic 117
4.6 More about Variance and Standard Deviation 119
Summary 125
Problems 128
z-Scores: Location of Scores

CHAPtER 5 and Standardized Distributions 131
PREVIEW 132
5.1 Introduction to z-Scores 133
5.2 z-Scores and Locations in a Distribution 135
5.3 Other Relationships Between z, X, 𝛍, and 𝛔 138
CONTENTS vii
5.4 Using z-Scores to Standardize a Distribution 141

5.5 Other Standardized Distributions Based on z-Scores 145
5.6 Computing z-Scores for Samples 148
5.7 Looking Ahead to Inferential Statistics 150
Summary 153
Problems 156
CHAPtER 6 Probability 159

PREVIEW 160
6.1 Introduction to Probability 160
6.2 Probability and the Normal Distribution 165
6.3 Probabilities and Proportions for Scores
from a Normal Distribution 172
6.4 Probability and the Binomial Distribution 179
Summary 186
Problems 189
Probability and Samples: The Distribution

CHAPtER 7 of Sample Means 193
PREVIEW 194
7.1 Samples, Populations, and the Distribution
of Sample Means 194
7.2 The Distribution of Sample Means for any Population
and any Sample Size 199
7.3 Probability and the Distribution of Sample Means 206
7.4 More about Standard Error 210
viii CONTENTS
Summary 219
Problems 221
CHAPtER 8 Introduction to Hypothesis Testing 223

PREVIEW 224
8.1 The Logic of Hypothesis Testing 225
8.2 Uncertainty and Errors in Hypothesis Testing 236
8.3 More about Hypothesis Tests 240
8.4 Directional (One-Tailed) Hypothesis Tests 245
8.5 Concerns about Hypothesis Testing: Measuring Effect Size 250
8.6 Statistical Power 254
Summary 260
Problems 263
CHAPtER 9 Introduction to the t Statistic 267

PREVIEW 268
9.1 The t Statistic: An Alternative to z 268
9.2 Hypothesis Tests with the t Statistic 274
9.3 Measuring Effect Size for the t Statistic 279
9.4 Directional Hypotheses and One-Tailed Tests 288
Summary 291
Problems 295
CONTENTS ix
CHAPtER 10 The t Test for Two Independent Samples 299

PREVIEW 300
10.1 Introduction to the Independent-Measures Design 300
10.2 The Null Hypothesis and the Independent-Measures t Statistic 302
10.3 Hypothesis Tests with the Independent-Measures t Statistic 310
10.4 Effect Size and Confidence Intervals for the
Independent-Measures t 316
10.5 The Role of Sample Variance and Sample Size in the
Independent-Measures t Test 322
Summary 325
Problems 329
CHAPtER 11 The t Test for Two Related Samples 335

PREVIEW 336
11.1 Introduction to Repeated-Measures Designs 336
11.2 The t Statistic for a Repeated-Measures Research Design 339
11.3 Hypothesis Tests for the Repeated-Measures Design 343
11.4 Effect Size and Confidence Intervals for the Repeated-Measures t 347
11.5 Comparing Repeated- and Independent-Measures Designs 352
Summary 355
Problems 360
CHAPtER 12 Introduction to Analysis of Variance 365

PREVIEW 366
12.1 Introduction (An Overview of Analysis of Variance) 366
12.2 The Logic of Analysis of Variance 372
12.3 ANOVA Notation and Formulas 375
x CONTENTS
12.4 Examples of Hypothesis Testing and Effect Size with ANOVA 383
12.5 Post Hoc Tests 393
12.6 More about ANOVA 397
Summary 403
Problems 408
CHAPtER 13 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance 413

PREVIEW 414
13.1 Overview of the Repeated-Measures ANOVA 415
13.2 Hypothesis Testing and Effect Size with the
Repeated-Measures ANOVA 420
13.3 More about the Repeated-Measures Design 429
Summary 436
Problems 441
Two-Factor Analysis of Variance

CHAPtER 14 (Independent Measures) 447
PREVIEW 448
14.1 An Overview of the Two-Factor, Independent-Measures, ANOVA: Main
Effects and Interactions 448
14.2 An Example of the Two-Factor ANOVA and Effect Size 458
14.3 More about the Two-Factor ANOVA 467
Summary 473
Problems 479
CONTENTS xi
CHAPtER 15 Correlation 485

PREVIEW 486
15.1 Introduction 487
15.2 The Pearson Correlation 489
15.3 Using and Interpreting the Pearson Correlation 495
15.4 Hypothesis Tests with the Pearson Correlation 506
15.5 Alternatives to the Pearson Correlation 510
Summary 520
Problems 524
CHAPtER 16 Introduction to Regression 529

PREVIEW 530
16.1 Introduction to Linear Equations and Regression 530
16.2 The Standard Error of Estimate and Analysis of Regression:
The Significance of the Regression Equation 538
16.3 Introduction to Multiple Regression with Two Predictor Variables 544
Summary 552
Linear and Multiple Regression 554
Problems 556
The Chi-Square Statistic: Tests for Goodness

CHAPtER 17 of Fit and Independence 559
PREVIEW 560
17.1 Introduction to Chi-Square: The Test for Goodness of Fit 561
17.2 An Example of the Chi-Square Test for Goodness of Fit 567
17.3 The Chi-Square Test for Independence 573
17.4 Effect Size and Assumptions for the Chi-Square Tests 582
17.5 Special Applications of the Chi-Square Tests 587
xii CONTENTS
Summary 591
Problems 597
CHAPtER 18 The Binomial Test 603

PREVIEW 604
18.1 Introduction to the Binomial Test 604
18.2 An Example of the Binomial Test 608
18.3 More about the Binomial Test: Relationship with Chi-Square
and the Sign Test 612
Summary 617
Problems 620
A PPE N D IX E S
A Basic Mathematics Review 625
A.1 Symbols and Notation 627
A.2 Proportions: Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages 629
A.3 Negative Numbers 635
A.4 Basic Algebra: Solving Equations 637
A.5 Exponents and Square Roots 640
B Statistical Tables 647
C Solutions for Odd-Numbered Problems in the Text 663
D General Instructions for Using SPSS 683
E Hypothesis Tests for Ordinal Data: Mann-Whitney,
Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis, and Friedman Tests 687
Statistics Organizer: Finding the Right Statistics for Your Data 701
References 717
Name Index 723
Subject Index 725
PREFACE
M any students in the behavioral sciences view the required statistics course as an
intimidating obstacle that has been placed in the middle of an otherwise interest-
ing curriculum. They want to learn about human behavior—not about math and science.
As a result, the statistics course is seen as irrelevant to their education and career goals.
However, as long as the behavioral sciences are founded in science, knowledge of statistics
will be necessary. Statistical procedures provide researchers with objective and systematic
methods for describing and interpreting their research results. Scientific research is the
system that we use to gather information, and statistics are the tools that we use to distill
the information into sensible and justified conclusions. The goal of this book is not only
to teach the methods of statistics, but also to convey the basic principles of objectivity and
logic that are essential for science and valuable for decision making in everyday life.
Those of you who are familiar with previous editions of Statistics for the Behavioral
Sciences will notice that some changes have been made. These changes are summarized
in the section entitled “To the Instructor.” In revising this text, our students have been
foremost in our minds. Over the years, they have provided honest and useful feedback.
Their hard work and perseverance has made our writing and teaching most rewarding. We
sincerely thank them. Students who are using this edition should please read the section of
the preface entitled “To the Student.”
The book chapters are organized in the sequence that we use for our own statistics
courses. We begin with descriptive statistics, and then examine a variety of statistical pro-
cedures focused on sample means and variance before moving on to correlational methods
and nonparametric statistics. Information about modifying this sequence is presented in the
To The Instructor section for individuals who prefer a different organization. Each chapter
contains numerous examples, many based on actual research studies, learning checks, a
summary and list of key terms, and a set of 20–30 problems.
Ancillaries
Ancillaries for this edition include the following.
■■ MindTap® Psychology: MindTap® Psychology for Gravetter/Wallnau’s Statistics
for The Behavioral Sciences, 10th Edition is the digital learning solution that helps
instructors engage and transform today’s students into critical thinkers. Through paths
of dynamic assignments and applications that you can personalize, real-time course
analytics, and an accessible reader, MindTap helps you turn cookie cutter into cutting
edge, apathy into engagement, and memorizers into higher-level thinkers.
As an instructor using MindTap you have at your fingertips the right content and
unique set of tools curated specifically for your course, such as video tutorials that
walk students through various concepts and interactive problem tutorials that provide
students opportunities to practice what they have learned, all in an interface designed
to improve workflow and save time when planning lessons and course structure. The
control to build and personalize your course is all yours, focusing on the most relevant
xiii
xiv PREFACE
material while also lowering costs for your students. Stay connected and informed in
your course through real time student tracking that provides the opportunity to adjust
the course as needed based on analytics of interactivity in the course.
■■ Online Instructor’s Manual: The manual includes learning objectives, key terms,
a detailed chapter outline, a chapter summary, lesson plans, discussion topics, student
activities, “What If” scenarios, media tools, a sample syllabus and an expanded test
bank. The learning objectives are correlated with the discussion topics, student
activities, and media tools.
■■ Online PowerPoints: Helping you make your lectures more engaging while effec-
tively reaching your visually oriented students, these handy Microsoft PowerPoint®
slides outline the chapters of the main text in a classroom-ready presentation. The
PowerPoint® slides are updated to reflect the content and organization of the new
edition of the text.
■■ Cengage Learning Testing, powered by Cognero®: Cengage Learning Testing,
Powered by Cognero®, is a flexible online system that allows you to author, edit,
and manage test bank content. You can create multiple test versions in an instant and
deliver tests from your LMS in your classroom.
Acknowledgments
It takes a lot of good, hard-working people to produce a book. Our friends at Cengage
have made enormous contributions to this textbook. We thank: Jon-David Hague, Product
Director; Timothy Matray, Product Team Director; Jasmin Tokatlian, Content Develop-
ment Manager; Kimiya Hojjat, Product Assistant; and Vernon Boes, Art Director. Special
thanks go to Stefanie Chase, our Content Developer and to Lynn Lustberg who led us
through production at MPS.
Reviewers play a very important role in the development of a manuscript. Accordingly,
we offer our appreciation to the following colleagues for their assistance: Patricia Case,
University of Toledo; Kevin David, Northeastern State University; Adia Garrett, Univer-
sity of Maryland, Baltimore County; Carrie E. Hall, Miami University; Deletha Hardin,
University of Tampa; Angela Heads, Prairie View A&M University; Roberto Heredia,
Texas A&M International University; Alisha Janowski, University of Central Florida;
Matthew Mulvaney, The College at Brockport (SUNY); Nicholas Von Glahn, California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and Ronald Yockey, Fresno State University.
To the Instructor
Those of you familiar with the previous edition of Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences will
notice a number of changes in the 10th edition. Throughout this book, research examples
have been updated, real world examples have been added, and the end-of-chapter problems
have been extensively revised. Major revisions for this edition include the following:
1. Each section of every chapter begins with a list of Learning Objectives for that
specific section.
2. Each section ends with a Learning Check consisting of multiple-choice questions
with at least one question for each Learning Objective.
PREFACE xv
3. The former Chapter 19, Choosing the Right Statistics, has been eliminated and
an abridged version is now an Appendix replacing the Statistics Organizer, which
appeared in earlier editions.
Other examples of specific and noteworthy revisions include the following.
Chapter 1 The section on data structures and research methods parallels the new
Appendix, Choosing the Right Statistics.
Chapter 2 The chapter opens with a new Preview to introduce the concept and purpose
of frequency distributions.
Chapter 3 Minor editing clarifies and simplifies the discussion the median.
Chapter 4 The chapter opens with a new Preview to introduce the topic of Central
Tendency. The sections on standard deviation and variance have been edited to increase
emphasis on concepts rather than calculations.
Chapter 5 The section discussion relationships between z, X, μ, and σ has been

expanded and includes a new demonstration example.
Chapter 6 The chapter opens with a new Preview to introduce the topic of Probability.
The section, Looking Ahead to Inferential Statistics, has been substantially shortened and
simplified.
Chapter 7 The former Box explaining difference between standard deviation and
standard error was deleted and the content incorporated into Section 7.4 with editing to
emphasize that the standard error is the primary new element introduced in the chapter.
The final section, Looking Ahead to Inferential Statistics, was simplified and shortened to
be consistent with the changes in Chapter 6.
Chapter 8 A redundant example was deleted which shortened and streamlined the
remaining material so that most of the chapter is focused on the same research example.
Chapter 9 The chapter opens with a new Preview to introduce the t statistic and explain
why a new test statistic is needed. The section introducing Confidence Intervals was edited
to clarify the origin of the confidence interval equation and to emphasize that the interval
is constructed at the sample mean.
Chapter 10 The chapter opens with a new Preview introducing the independent-mea-
sures t statistic. The section presenting the estimated standard error of (M1 – M2) has been
simplified and shortened.
Chapter 11 The chapter opens with a new Preview introducing the repeated-measures t
statistic. The section discussing hypothesis testing has been separated from the section on
effect size and confidence intervals to be consistent with the other two chapters on t tests.
The section comparing independent- and repeated-measures designs has been expanded.
Chapter 12 The chapter opens with a new Preview introducing ANOVA and explaining
why a new hypothesis testing procedure is necessary. Sections in the chapter have been
reorganized to allow flow directly from hypothesis tests and effect size to post tests.
xvi PREFACE
Chapter 13 Substantially expanded the section discussing factors that influence the
outcome of a repeated-measures hypothesis test and associated measures of effect size.
Chapter 14 The chapter opens with a new Preview presenting a two-factor research
example and introducing the associated ANOVA. Sections have been reorganized so that
simple main effects and the idea of using a second factor to reduce variance from indi-
vidual differences are now presented as extra material related to the two-factor ANOVA.
Chapter 15 The chapter opens with a new Preview presenting a correlational research
study and the concept of a correlation. A new section introduces the t statistic for evaluat-
ing the significance of a correlation and the section on partial correlations has been simpli-
fied and shortened.
Chapter 16 The chapter opens with a new Preview introducing the concept of regression and
its purpose. A new section demonstrates the equivalence of testing the significance of a correla-
tion and testing the significance of a regression equation with one predictor variable. The sec-
tion on residuals for the multiple-regression equation has been edited to simplify and shorten.
Chapter 17 A new chapter Preview presents an experimental study with data consisting
of frequencies, which are not compatible with computing means and variances. Chi-square
tests are introduced as a solution to this problem. A new section introduces Cohen’s w as
a means of measuring effect size for both chi-square tests.
Chapter 18 Substantial editing clarifies the section explaining how the real limits for
each score can influence the conclusion from a binomial test.
The former Chapter 19 covering the task of matching statistical methods to specific
types of data has been substantially shortened and converted into an Appendix.
■■Matching the Text to Your Syllabus

The book chapters are organized in the sequence that we use for our own statistics courses.
However, different instructors may prefer different organizations and probably will choose
to omit or deemphasize specific topics. We have tried to make separate chapters, and even
sections of chapters, completely self-contained, so they can be deleted or reorganized to fit
the syllabus for nearly any instructor. Some common examples are as follows.
■■ It is common for instructors to choose between emphasizing analysis of variance
(Chapters 12, 13, and 14) or emphasizing correlation/regression (Chapters 15 and 16).
It is rare for a one-semester course to complete coverage of both topics.
■■ Although we choose to complete all the hypothesis tests for means and mean
differences before introducing correlation (Chapter 15), many instructors prefer to
place correlation much earlier in the sequence of course topics. To accommodate
this, Sections 15.1, 15.2, and 15.3 present the calculation and interpretation of
the Pearson correlation and can be introduced immediately following Chapter 4
(variability). Other sections of Chapter 15 refer to hypothesis testing and should be
delayed until the process of hypothesis testing (Chapter 8) has been introduced.
■■ It is also possible for instructors to present the chi-square tests (Chapter 17) much
earlier in the sequence of course topics. Chapter 17, which presents hypothesis tests
for proportions, can be presented immediately after Chapter 8, which introduces the
process of hypothesis testing. If this is done, we also recommend that the Pearson
correlation (Sections 15.1, 15.2, and 15.3) be presented early to provide a foundation
for the chi-square test for independence.
PREFACE xvii
To the Student
A primary goal of this book is to make the task of learning statistics as easy and painless
as possible. Among other things, you will notice that the book provides you with a number
of opportunities to practice the techniques you will be learning in the form of Learning
Checks, Examples, Demonstrations, and end-of-chapter problems. We encourage you to
take advantage of these opportunities. Read the text rather than just memorizing the for-
mulas. We have taken care to present each statistical procedure in a conceptual context that
explains why the procedure was developed and when it should be used. If you read this
material and gain an understanding of the basic concepts underlying a statistical formula,
you will find that learning the formula and how to use it will be much easier. In the “Study
Hints,” that follow, we provide advice that we give our own students. Ask your instructor
for advice as well; we are sure that other instructors will have ideas of their own.
Over the years, the students in our classes and other students using our book have given
us valuable feedback. If you have any suggestions or comments about this book, you can
write to either Professor Emeritus Frederick Gravetter or Professor Emeritus Larry Wallnau
at the Department of Psychology, SUNY College at Brockport, 350 New Campus Drive,
Brockport, New York 14420. You can also contact Professor Emeritus Gravetter directly at
[email protected].
■■Study Hints
You may find some of these tips helpful, as our own students have reported.
■■ The key to success in a statistics course is to keep up with the material. Each new
topic builds on previous topics. If you have learned the previous material, then the
new topic is just one small step forward. Without the proper background, however,
the new topic can be a complete mystery. If you find that you are falling behind, get
help immediately.
■■ You will learn (and remember) much more if you study for short periods several
times per week rather than try to condense all of your studying into one long session.
For example, it is far more effective to study half an hour every night than to have
a single 3½-hour study session once a week. We cannot even work on writing this
book without frequent rest breaks.
■■ Do some work before class. Keep a little ahead of the instructor by reading the appro-
priate sections before they are presented in class. Although you may not fully under-
stand what you read, you will have a general idea of the topic, which will make the
lecture easier to follow. Also, you can identify material that is particularly confusing
and then be sure the topic is clarified in class.
■■ Pay attention and think during class. Although this advice seems obvious, often it is
not practiced. Many students spend so much time trying to write down every example
presented or every word spoken by the instructor that they do not actually understand
and process what is being said. Check with your instructor—there may not be a need
to copy every example presented in class, especially if there are many examples like
it in the text. Sometimes, we tell our students to put their pens and pencils down for a
moment and just listen.
■■ Test yourself regularly. Do not wait until the end of the chapter or the end of the
week to check your knowledge. After each lecture, work some of the end-of-chapter
problems and do the Learning Checks. Review the Demonstration Problems, and
be sure you can define the Key Terms. If you are having trouble, get your questions
answered immediately—reread the section, go to your instructor, or ask questions in
class. By doing so, you will be able to move ahead to new material.
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his trial for burglary and murder. Mr. George was quite a notable
cracksman in his day, which was one pretty remote from ours in
everything but the conservatism of the law. He was ‘housebreaker’ in
the indictment; he was arrested by the Tombland patrol; and he was
carried to court in a ‘chair,’ attended by a party of the City Guard.
“George, says the story, was an elegant figure of a man, and not
at all regardless of the modes. Dark blue coat with brass buttons,
fancy vest, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, hair full
dressed and a brooch in his bosom—that was how he appeared
before his judges.
“The facts were simple enough. On a night of November, a shot
and a screech had been heard in Mr. Browbody’s house in Unthank,
a ward of the city; an entrance had been made through a window,
opportunely open, by the Watch as opportunely handy, and the
housebreaker had been discovered, a warm pistol in his hand,
standing over the body of old Nicholas, who lay dead on the floor
with his head blown in.
“The burglar was found standing, I say, like as in a stupor; the
room was old Browbody’s study; the door from it into the passage
was open, and outside was discovered the body of a girl, Miss Ellen,
lying, as it were, in a dead faint. There you have the situation dashed
in broad; and pretty complete, you’ll agree, for circumstantial
evidence.”
“Wait, my friend,” began Brindley, putting up a fat pompous hand.
“Circumstantial, I think you said?”
“Yes, I said it,” answered the Deputy Clerk coolly; “and if you’ll
listen, you’ll understand—perhaps. I said the girl was in a faint, as it
were, for, as a matter of fact, she never came out of it for seven
months.”
He leant back, thumbing the ashes into his pipe, and took no heed
while the murmurs of incredulity buzzed and died down.
“Not for seven months,” he repeated, then. “They called it a
cataleptic trance, induced by fright and shock upon witnessing the
deed; and they postponed the trial, waiting for this material witness
to recover. But when at last the doctors certified that they could put
no period to a condition which might, after all, end fatally without real
consciousness ever returning, they decided to try Mr. Hussey; and
he was tried and condemned to be hanged.”
“What! he made no defence?” said a junior contemptuously.
“Well, sir, can you suggest one?” asked the other civilly.
“Suicide, of course.”
“With the pistol there in the burglar’s own hand?”
“Well, he made none, you say.”
“No, I don’t say it. He declared it was ridiculous attempting a
defence, while he lacked his one essential witness to confirm it. He
protested only that the lady would vindicate him if she could speak.”
“O, of course!”
“Yes, of course; and of course you say it. But he spoke the truth,
sir, for all that, as you’ll see.
“He was lodged in Norwich Jail, biding the finish. But, before the
hangman could get him—that time, at least—he managed to break
out, damaging a warder by the way. The dogs of the law were let
loose, naturally; but, while they were in full cry, Mr. Hussey, if you’ll
believe me, walks into a local attorney’s office with Miss Ellen on his
arm.”
Brindley turned in his chair, and gave a little condescending laugh.
“Incredible, ain’t it?” said the Deputy Clerk. “But listen, now, to the
affidavits of the pair, and judge for yourselves. We’ll take Miss Ellen’s
first, plain as I can make it:—
“ ‘I confess,’ says she, ‘to a romantic attachment to this same
picturesque magsman, Mr. Hussey. He came my way—never mind
how—and I fell in love with him. He made an assignation to visit me
in my guardian’s house, and I saw that a window was left open for
him to enter by. My guardian had latterly been in a very odd,
depressed state. I think he was troubled about business matters. On
the night of the assignation, by the irony of fate, his madness came
to a head. He was of such methodical habits by nature, and so
unerringly punctual in his hour for going to bed, that I had not
hesitated to appoint my beau to meet me in his study, which was
both remotest from his bedroom, and very accessible from without.
But, to my confusion and terror, I heard him on this night, instead of
retiring as usual, start pacing to and fro in the parlour underneath. I
listened, helpless and aghast, expecting every moment to hear him
enter his study and discover my lover, who must surely by now be
awaiting me there. And at length I did hear him actually cross the
passage to it with hurried steps. Half demented, dreading anything
and everything, I rushed down the stairs, and reached his room door
just in time to see him put a pistol to his head and fire. With the flash
and report, I fell as if dead, and remember nothing more till the voice
of my beloved seemed to call upon me to rise from the tomb—when I
opened my eyes, and saw Hussey standing above me.’
“Now for Mr. Hussey’s statement:—
“ ‘I had an assignation with a young lady,’ says he, ‘on the night of
so-and-so. A window was to be left open for me in Unthank. I had no
intent whatever to commit a felony. I came to appointment, and had
only one moment entered when I heard rapid footsteps outside, and
a man, with a desperate look on him, hurried into the room, snatched
a pistol from a drawer, put it to his head, and, before I could stop
him, fired. I swear that, so far from killing him, I tried to prevent him
killing himself. I jumped, even as he fell, and tore the pistol from his
hand. Simultaneous with his deed, I heard a scream outside. Still
holding the weapon, I went to the door, and saw the form of her I had
come to visit lying in that trance from which she has but now
recovered. As I stood stupefied, the Watch entered and took me.
From that time I knew that, lacking her evidence, it was hopeless to
attempt to clear myself. After sentence I broke prison, rushed
straight to her house, found her lying there, and called out upon her
to wake and help me. She answered at once, stirring and coming out
of her trance. I know no more than that she did; and there is the
whole truth.’ ”
The Deputy Clerk stopped. No one spoke.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t ask you to pronounce upon
those affidavits. In the upshot the law accepted them, admitting a
miscarriage of justice. What I ask your verdict on is this: Could the
law, after quashing its own conviction, hold the man responsible for
any act committed by him during, and as the direct result of, that
wrongful imprisonment?”
This started the ball, and for minutes it was tossed back and forth.
Presently the tumult subsided, and Brindley spoke authoritatively for
the rest—
“Certainly it could, and for any violence committed in the act.
Provocation may extenuate, but it don’t justify. Prison-breaking, per
se, is an offence against the law; so’s being found without any visible
means of subsistence, though your pocket may just have been
picked of its last penny. Any concessions in these respects would
benefit the rogue without helping the community. I won’t say that if
he hadn’t, by assaulting the warder, put himself out of court——”
“That was where he wanted to put himself,” interrupted the Deputy
Clerk. It was certain that he was deplorably flippant.
Brindley waved the impertinence by.
“The offence was an offence in outlawry,” he said.
“But how could it be,” protested the Clerk, “since, by the law’s own
admission, he was wrongfully convicted? If he hadn’t been, he
couldn’t have hurt the warder. If you strike me first, mayn’t I hit you
back? I tell you, the law acknowledged that it was in the wrong.”
“Not at all. It acknowledged that the man was in the right.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“O, my friend! I see you haven’t got the rudiments. Hussey was a
prisoner; a criminal is a prisoner; ergo, Hussey was a criminal.”
“But he was a prisoner in error!”
“And the law might very properly pardon him that; but not his
violence in asserting it.”
The Deputy Clerk shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.
“Well, it was all the same in the end,” said he; “for it hanged him
for pointing out its error to it, and so spoiled a very pretty romance.
The lady accompanied him to the scaffold, and afterwards died mad.
Sic itur ad astra. I will cap your syllogism, sir. An ass has long ears;
the law has long ears; ergo, the law is an ass.”
“Young man,” said Brindley, with more good humour than I
expected, “you have missed your vocation. Take my advice, and go
to writing for the comic papers.”
“What!” cried the Deputy Clerk. “Haven’t I been a law reporter all
my life!”
THE FIVE INSIDES
I’ll example you with thievery.—“Timon of Athens.”
The dear old lady was ninety, and it was always Christmas in the
sweet winter of her face. With the pink in her cheeks and the white of
her hair, she came straight from the eighteenth century in which she
was born. They were not more at odds with nature than are the hips
and the traveller’s joy in a withered hedge; and if at one time they
paid to art, why it was a charitable gift to a poor dependent—nothing
more, I’ll swear.
People are fond of testing links with the past. This sound old
chatelaine had played trick-track, and dined at four o’clock. She had
eaten battalia pie with “Lear” sauce, and had drunk orgeat in Bond
Street. She had seen Blücher, the tough old “Vorwärts,” brought to
bay in Hyde Park by a flying column of Amazons, and surrendering
himself to an onslaught of kisses. She had seen Mr. Consul
Brummell arrested by bailiffs in the streets of Caen, on a debt of so
many hundreds of francs for so many bottles of vernis de Guiton,
which was nothing less than an adorable boot-polish. She had heard
the demon horns of newspaper boys shrill out the Little Corporal’s
escape from Elba. She had sipped Roman punch, maybe;—I trust
she had never taken snuff. She had—but why multiply instances?
Born in 1790, she had taken just her little share in, and drawn her full
interest of, the history, social and political, of all those years,
fourscore and ten, which filled the interval between then and now.
Once upon a time she had entered a hackney-coach; and, lo!
before her journey was done, it was a railway coach, moving ever
swifter and swifter, and its passengers succeeding one another with
an ever more furious energy of hurry-scurry. Among the rest I got in,
and straight fell into talk, and in love, with this traveller who had
come from so far and from scenes so foreign to my knowledge. She
was as sweet and instructive as an old diary brought from a bureau,
smelling of rose-leaves and cedar-wood. She was merry, too, and
wont to laugh at my wholly illusory attachment to an age which was
already as dead as the moon when I was born. But she humoured
me; though she complained that her feminine reminiscences were
sweetmeats to a man.
“You should talk with William keeper,” she said. “He holds on to the
past by a very practical link indeed.”
It was snowy weather up at the Hall—the very moral of another
winter (so I was told) when His Majesty’s frigate “Caledonia” came
into Portsmouth to be paid off, and Commander Playfair sent
express to his young wife up in the Hampshire hills that she might
expect him early on the following morning. He did not come in the
morning, nor in the afternoon, nor, indeed, until late in the evening,
when—as Fortune was generous—he arrived just at the turn of the
supper, when the snow outside the kitchen windows below was
thawing itself, in delirious emulation of the melting processes going
on within, into a rusty gravy.
“You see,” said Madam, “it was not the etiquette, when a ship was
paid off, for any officer to quit the port until the pennant was struck,
which the cook, as the last officer, had to see done. And the cook
had gone ashore and got tipsy; and there the poor souls must bide
till he could be found. Poor Henry—and poor little me! But it came
right. Tout vient à qui sait attendre. We had woodcocks for supper. It
was just such a winter as this—the snow, the sky, the very day. Will
you take your gun, and get me a woodcock, sir? and we will keep the
anniversary, and you shall toast, in a bottle of the Madeira, the old
French rhyme.”
I had this rhyme in my ears as I went off for my woodcock—
Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,

Duquel la chair resueille l’appetit.
Il est oyseau passager et petit:
Est par son goust fait des vins bien juger.
I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought

the coverts and dead ferns and icy reed-wrecked pools, and flushed
not the little oyseau passager of my gallantry’s desires. But at last, in
a silent coomb, when my feet were frozen, and my fingers like
bundles of newly-pulled red radishes, William keeper came upon me,
and I confided my abortive wishes and sorrows to his velveteen
bosom.
He smiled, warm soul, like a grate.
“Will’ee go up to feyther’s yonder, sir,” said he; “and sit by the fire,
and leave the woodcock to me? The old man’ll be proud to entertain
ye.”
“I will go,” I said meanly. “But tell me first, William, what is your
very practical link with the past?”
He thought the frost had got into my blood; but when I had
explained, he grinned again knowingly.
“ ’Tain’t me my lady meant, sir,” he said. “ ’Tis old feyther, and his
story of how the mail coach was robbed.”
The cottage hung up on the side of the coomb, leaning its back to
an ash wood, and digging its toes well into the slope to keep itself
from pitching into the brook below. There were kennels under the
faggot stacks, a horse-shoe on the door, red light behind the
windows. It looked a very cosy corner after the white austerity of the
woods. William led me to it, and introducing me and my errand to his
father, left the two of us together by the fire.
It was a strange old shell of a man, russet and smooth yet in the
face; but his breath would sometimes rattle in him to show how dried
was the kernel within. Still his brown eye was glossy, and his voice
full and shrewd; and in that voice, speaking straight and clear out of
the past, and in an accent yet more of the roads than of the woods,
he told me presently the story of the great mail robbery.
“It ruined and it made me, sir,” said he; “for the Captain, hearing as
how the company had sacked me for neglect of duty, and knowing
something of my character, swore I’d been used damnably, and that
he’d back his opinion by making me his gamekeeper. And he did
that; and here I be, waiting confident for him to check my accounts
when I jine him across the river.”
He pointed to a dusky corner. There hung on the wall an ancient
key-bugle, and an old, old napless beaver hat, with a faded gold
band about it.
“I was twenty-five when I put they up there, and that was in the
year ’14; and not me nor no one else has fingered them since.
Because why? Because it was like as if my past laid in a tomb
underneath, and they was the sign that I held by it without shame or
desire of concealment.
“In those days I was guard to the ‘Globe’ coach, that run between
London and Brighton. We made the journey in eight hours, from the
‘Bull and Mouth’ in Aldersgate to the ‘New Inn’ in North Street—or
t’other way about; and we never stopped but for changes, or to put
down and take up. Sich was our orders, and nothing in reason to find
fault with ’em, until they come to hold us responsible to something
besides time. Then the trouble began.
“Now, sir, as you may know, the coachman’s seat was over the
fore-boot, and, being holler underneath, was often used as a box for
special parcels. So it happened that this box was hired of the owners
by Messrs. Black, South, and Co., the big Brighthelmstone bankers,
in order to ship their notes and cash, whenever they’d the mind to,
between London and the seaside, and so escape the risks and
expense of a private mail. The valiables would be slid and locked in
—coachman being in his place—with a private key; and George he’d
nothing to do but keep his fat calves snug to the door, till someun at
the other end came with a duplicate key to unlock it and claim the
property. Very well—and very well it worked till the fifteenth of
December in the year eighteen hundred and thirteen, on which day
our responsibility touched the handsome figure—so I was to learn—
of £4000 in Brighton Union bank notes, besides cash and securities.
“It was rare cold weather, much as it is now, save that the snow
was shallower by a matter of two inches, and no more bind in it than
dry sand. We was advertised to start from the ‘Bull’ at nine; and
there was booked six insides and five out. At ten minutes to the hour
up walks a couple of Messrs. Pinnick and Waghorn’s clerks from the
borough, with the cash box in whity-brown paper, looking as innocent
as a babby in a Holland pinifore. George he comes out of the
shades, like a jolly Corsican ghost, a viping of his mouth; the box is
slung up and fastened in; coachman climbs to his perch, and the five
outsides follow-my-leader arter him to theirs, where they swaddle
’emselves into their wraps strait-veskit-vise, and settin’ as miserable
as if they was waitin’ to have a tooth drawed. Not much harm there,
you’ll say—one box-seat, two behind, two with me in the dickey—all
packed tight, and none too close for observation. Well, sir, we’ll hear
about it.
“Out of the six insides, all taken, there was three already in place:
a gentleman, very short and fierce, and snarling at everything;
gentleman’s lady, pretty as paint, but a white timidious body;
gentleman’s young-gentleman, in ducks and spencer and a cap like
a concertina with the spring gone. So far so good, you’ll say again,
and no connexion with any other party, and leastways of all with the
insides as was yet wanting, and which the fierce gentleman was
blowin’ the lights out of for bein’ late.
“ ‘Guard,’ says he, goin’ on outrageous, while the lady and the
young gentleman cuddled together scared-like in a corner, ‘who are
these people who stop the whole service while they look in the shop-
vinders? If you’re for starting a minute after the stroke,’ says he,
‘dash my buttons,’ he says, ‘but I’ll raise all hell to have you
cashiered!’
“ ‘All right, sir,’ I says. ‘I knows my business better’n you can tell it
me—’ and just as I spoke, a hackney kerridge come rumbling into
the yard, and drew up anigh us.
“ ‘Globe?’ says a jolly, fat-faced man, sticking his head out of it. ‘All
right, Cato—’ and down jumps a black servant, in livery, that was on
the box, and opens the door.
“The fat man he tumbled out—for all the world like a sheetful of
washing a wallopin’ downstairs—Cato he got in, and between them
they helped from the hackney and across to the coach as rickety a
old figure as ever I see. He were all shawls and wraprascal. He’d
blue spectacles to his eyes, a travellin’ cap pulled down on ’em, his
mouth covered in; and the only evidence of flesh to be seen in the
whole of his carcass, was a nose the colour of a hyster. He shuffled
painful, too, as they held him up under the arms, and he groaned
and muttered to himself all the time he were changing.
“Now, sir, you may suppose the snarling gentleman didn’t make
the best of what he see; and he broke out just as they was a-hauling
the invalid in, wanting to know very sarcastic if they hadn’t mistook
the ‘Globe’ for a hearse. But the fat man he accepted him as good-
humoured as could be.
“ ‘It’s nothing affectionate, sir,’ says he. ‘Only paralysis, which ain’t
catching. The gentleman won’t trouble you.’
“ ‘Not for my place,’ says the fierce gentleman, bristling up like a
dog. ‘Damme, sir, not for my place. O, I can see very well what his
nose is a-pinting to, and damme if it isn’t as monstrous a piece of
coolness as ever I expeerunced. These seats, sir, are the nat’ral
perkisite of a considerate punctiality, and if your friend objects to
travelling with his back to the ’orses——’
“ ‘Now, now,’ says the fat man—‘nothing of the sort. You don’t mind
sitting with your back to the ’orses, do you, nunky?”
“ ‘Eh,’ says the old man, ’usky-like, and starting a bit forward—‘No,
no, no, no, no, no, no—’ and he sunk into the front cushions, while
Cato and the fat ’un dispodged him to his comfort.
“ ‘Time, gentlemen!’ says I.
“ ‘Wait a bit’ says snarler. ‘It can’t never be—why, surely, it can’t
never be that the sixth inside is took for a blackamoor?’
“ ‘Alfred,’ says the lady, half veeping: ‘pray let things be. It’s only as
far as Cuckfield we’re goin’, arter all.’
“ ‘A poor argiment, my dear,’ says he, ‘in favour of suffering forty
miles of a sulphurious devil.’
“ ‘Pray control yourself, sir,’ says the fat man, still very ekable.
‘We’ve booked three places, for two, just to be comfortable. Our
servant rides outside.’
“Well, that settled it; and in another minute we was off. I laughed a
bit to myself as I swung up; but I hadn’t a thought of suspicion. What
do you say, sir? Would you have? Why, no, of course not—no more
than if you was a Lyons Mail. There was the five o’ them packed in
there, and one on the roof behind the coachman—three divisions of
a party as couldn’t have seemed more unconnected with one
another, or more cat and dog at that. Yet, would you believe it, every
one of them six had his place in the robbery that follered as carefully
set for him as a figure in a sum.
“As for me, sir, I done my duty; and what more could be expected
of me? At every stage I tuk a general look round, to see as things
were snug and nat’ral; and at Croydon, fust out, I observed as how
the invalid were a’ready nodding in a corner, and the other two gents
settled to their ‘Mornin’ Postses.’
“Beyond Croydon the cold begun to take the outsides bitter; and
the nigger got into a vay of drummin’ with his feet so aggerawacious,
that at last George he lost his temper with him and told him to shut
up. Well, he shut up that, and started scrapin’ instead; and he went
on scrapin’ till the fierce gentleman exploded out of the vinder below
fit to bust the springs.
“ ‘Who’s that?’ roars he—‘the blackamoor? Damme!’ he roars, ‘if
you aren’t wus nor a badger in more ways than one,’ he roars.
“ ‘All right, boss,’ says the nigger, grinning and lookin’ down. ‘Feet
warm at last, boss,’ and he stopped his shufflin’ and begun to sing.
“Now, sir, a sudden thought—I won’t go so far as to call it a
suspicion—sent me, next stop, to examine unostentatious-like the
neighbourhood of them great boots. But all were sound there, and
the man sittin’ well tucked into his wraps. It wasn’t like, of course,
that he could a’ kicked the panels of the box in without George
knowin’ somethin’ about it. And he didn’t want to neither; for he’d
finished his part of the business a’ready. So he just sat and smiled at
me as amiable as Billy Vaters.
“Well, we went on without a hitch; and at Cuckfield the three back
insides turned out into the snow, and went for a bespoke po’-chaise
that was waitin’ for ’em there. But, afore he got in, the fierce
gentleman swung round and come blazin’ back to the vinder.
“ ‘My compliments, sir,’ says he, ‘at parting; and, if it should come
to the vorst,’ he says, ‘I’d advise you to lay your friend pretty far
under to his last sleep,’ he says, ‘or his snores’ll wake the dead.’
“ ‘Hush,’ says the fat ’un. ‘It’s the drowndin’ spirit in him comin’ up
to blow like a vale.’
“ ‘Is it?’ says the fierce gentleman. ‘Then it’s my opinion that the
outsides ought to be warned afore he gives his last heave——’ and
he went off snortin’ like a tornader.
“The fat man shook his head when he were gone. His mildness,
having sich a figger, was amazing. He sat with his arm and shoulder
for a bolster to old paralysis, who was certainly going on in style.
“ ‘Now, sir,’ says I, ‘the whole blessed inside is yourn till the end of
the journey.’
“ ‘Thank you, guard,’ says he; ‘but I won’t disturb my friend, and
we’ll stay as we are, thank you.’
“I got up then, and on we went—last stage, sir, through Clayton,
over the downs, whipping through Pyecombe and Patcham, swish
through Preston turnpike, and so into East Street, where we’d scarce
entered, when there come sich a hullabaloo from underneath as if
the devil, riding on the springs, had got his tail jammed in the brake.
Up I jumps, and up jumps the blackamoor, screeching and clawing at
George, so as he a’most dropped the ribbins.
“ ‘Eh, boss!’ he yelled. ‘De old man—down dere!—damn bad!’
“George he pulled up; and I thought he’d a bust, till I climbed over
and loosened his neckercher, and let it all out. Then down we got—
nigger and I, and one or two of the passengers—and looked in.
‘What the thunder’s up?’ says I. The fat man were goin’ on awful,
sobbin’, and hiccupin’, and holding on to old paralysis, as were sunk
back in the corner.
“ ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’s dyin’! O, why did I
ever give way to him, and let him come!’
“Well, we all stood pretty foolish, not knowing what to say or do,
when his great tricklin’ face come round like a leg o’ mutton on a spit,
and, seein’ the nigger, bust into hystrikes.
“ ‘O, Cato!’ he roars; ‘O Cato, O Cato! Sich a loss if he goes!’ he
roars. ‘Run on by a short cut, Cato,’ he says, ‘and see if you can find
a doctor agen our drawin’ up at the “New Inn.” ’
“That seemed to us all a good idea, though, to be sure, there was
no cut shorter than the straight road we was in. But anyhow, before
we could re’lise it, the nigger was off like a arrer; and one of the
gentlemen offered to keep the fat man company. But that he wouldn’t
listen to.
“ ‘If he should come round,’ he said, ‘the shock of a stranger might
send him off agen. No, no,’ he said: ‘leave me alone with my dying
friend, and drive on as quick as ever you can.’
“It were only a matter of minutes; but afore we’d been drawed up
half of one afore the inn, a crowd was gathered round the coach
door.
“ ‘Is he back?’ says the fat man—‘Is Cato come back with a
doctor? No, I won’t have him touched or moved till a doctor’s seen
him.’
“Then all at once he was up and out, rampageous.
“ ‘Where is he?’ he shrieks. ‘I can’t vait no longer—I’m goin’ mad—
I’ll find one myself’—and, afore you could say Jack Robinson, he
was off. I never see sich a figger run so. He fair melted away. But the
crowd was too interested in the corpse to follow him.
“Well, sir, he didn’t come back with a doctor, and no more did
Cato. And the corpse may have sat there ten minutes, and none
daring to go into it, when a sawbones, a-comin’ down the street on
his own account, was appealed to by the landlord for a verdict, seein’
as how by this time the whole traffic was blocked. He got in, and so
did I; and he bent over the body spread back with its wraps agen the
corner.
“ ‘My God!’ I whispers—‘there’s no breath comin’ from him. Is he
dead, sir?’
“The sawbones he rose up very dry and cool.
“ ‘No,’ he says, ‘there ain’t no breath comin’ from him, nor there
never will. It ain’t in natur’ to expect it from a waxworks.’
“Sir, I tell you I looked at him and just felt my heart as it might be a
snail that someun had dropped a pinch of salt on.
“ ‘Waxworks!’ I says, gaspin’. ‘Why, the man spoke and groaned!’
“ ‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’
says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.
“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;
—and I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy—
nothing more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock
my pullin’ it away give me—for there, behind where it had set, was a
’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and
panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the
mail’s been robbed!’ ”
The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised
excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the
question he expected.
“And it had been?”
“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In
the vinter of ’13, sir—the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a rare
stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards, when
one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were
took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man
were a ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides
to themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job.
They cut into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and
passed the boy through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’
Croydon. He set to—the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!
—tuk a piece clean out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and
brought down the cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his
dance overhead to drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened
and emptied, and put back in the boot where it was found; and the
swag, for fear of accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”
He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the
younger, standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled
auburn trophies in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a
sigh—then with a smile.
“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock.
“How plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”
THE JADE BUTTON
The little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with a
good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is the
subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by any
lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself misinformed,
and attend your last moments on the scaffold.
Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John

Belmont hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this
antagonism was a button.
It was of jade stone, and it was a talisman. For three generations it
had been the mascot of the Belmont family, an heirloom, and
symbolizing in its shining disk a little local sun, as it were, of
prosperity. The last three head Belmonts had all been men of an
ample presence. The first of them, the original owner of the stone,
having assigned it a place in perpetuity at the bottom hole of his
waistcoat (as representing the centre of his system), his heirs were
careful to substantiate a tradition which meant so much to them in a
double sense.
Indeed, the button was as good as a blister. It seemed to draw its
wearer to a head in the prosperous part of him. It was set in gold,
artfully furnished at its back with a loop and hank, and made
transferable from waistcoat to waistcoat, that its possessor for the
time being might enjoy at all seasons its beneficent influence. In
broad or long cloth, in twill or flannel, by day and by night, the button
attended him, regulating indiscriminately his business and his
digestion. In such circumstances, it is plain that Death must have
been hard put to it to find a vulnerable place; and such was the fact.
It has often been said that a man’s soul is in his stomach; how, then,
could it get behind the button? Only by one of those unworthy
subterfuges, which, nevertheless, it does not disdain. The first
Belmont lived to ninety, and with such increasing portliness that, at
the last, a half-moon had to be cut, and perpetually enlarged, out of
the dining-room table to accommodate his presence. Practically, he
was eating his way through the board, with the prospect of emerging
at the other end, when, in rising from a particularly substantial repast
one night, he caught the button in the crack between the first slab
(almost devoured) and the second, wrenched it away, and was
immediately seized with apoplexy. He died; and the Destroyer, after
pursuing his heir to threescore years and ten, looking for the heel of
Achilles, as unworthily “got home” into him. He was lumbering down
Fleet Street one dog-day when, oppressed beyond endurance by the
heat, he wrenched open—in defiance of all canons of taste and
prudence—his waistcoat. The button—the button—was burst from its
bonds in the act, though, fortunately—for the next-of-kin—to be
caught by its hank in the owner’s watch-chain. But to the owner
himself the impulse was fatal. A prowling cutpurse, quick to the
chance, “let out” full on the old gentleman’s bow-window, quenching
its lights, so to speak, for ever; and then, having snatched the chain,
incontinently doubled into the arms of a constable. The property was
recovered—but for the heir; the second Belmont’s bellows having
been broken beyond mending.
The third met with as inglorious an end, and at a comparatively
early age; for the button—as a saving clause to whatever god had
thrown it down, for the fun of the thing, among men—was possessed
with a very devil of touchiness, and always instant to resent the least
fancied slight to its self-importance. Else had Tithonus been its
wearer to this day, as——but I won’t anticipate. The third Belmont,
then, in a fit of colossal forgetfulness, sent the button, in a white
waistcoat, to the wash. The calamity was detected forthwith, but not
in time to avert itself. After death, the doctor. Before the outraged
article could be restored to its owner and victim, he had died of a
rapid dropsy, and the button became the property of Mrs. John
Belmont, his relict and residuary legatee, who——
But, for the history of the button itself? Why, in brief, as it affected
the Belmont family, it was this. Mr. Adolphus Belmont had been
Consul at one of the five treaty ports of China about the troublous
years of 1840-42. During the short time that he held office, a certain
local mandarin, Elephoo Ting by name, was reported to Peking for
high treason, and honoured with an imperial ukase, or invitation to
forestall the headsman. There was no doubt, indeed, that Elephoo
Ting had been very strenuous, in public, in combating the intrusion of
the foreign devil, while inviting him, in private, to come on and hold
tight. There is no doubt, too, that in the result Elephoo and Adolphus
had made a profitable partnership of it in the matter of opium, and
that the mandarin had formed a very high, and even sentimental,
opinion of the business capacities of his young friend. Young, that is
to say, relatively, for Adolphus was already sixty-three when
appointed to his post. But, then, of the immemorial Ting’s age no
record actually existed. The oldest inhabitant of Ningpo knew him as
one knows the historic beech of one’s district. He had always been
there—bland, prosperous, enormous, a smooth bole of a man
radiating benevolence. And now at last he was to die. It seemed
impossible.
It was impossible, save on a condition. That he confided to his odd
partner and confidant, the English Consul, during a last interview. He
held a carving-knife in his hand.
“Shall I accept this signal favour of the imperial sun?” he said.
“Have you any choice?” asked the Consul gloomily. “The decree is
out; the soldiers surround your dwelling.”
Elephoo Ting laughed softly.
“Vain, vain all, unless I discard my talisman.” He produced the jade
button from his cap. “This,” he said, “I had from my father, when the
old man sickened at last of life, desiring to be an ancestor. It renders
who wears it, while he wears it, immortal; only it is jealous, jealous,
and stands upon its dignity. Shall I, too, part with it, and at a stroke
let in the light of ages?”
He saw the incredulity in his visitor’s face, and handed him the
carving-knife.
“Strike,” he said. “I bid thee.”
“You take the consequences?”
“All.”
With infinite cynicism, Mr. Belmont essayed to tickle, just to tickle,
the creature’s infatuation with the steel point. It bent, where it
touched, like paper. He thrust hard and ever harder, until at last he
was thrashing and slicing with the implement in a sort of frenzy of
horror. The mandarin stood apathetic, while the innocuous blade
swept and rustled about his huge bulk like a harmless feather. Then
said he, as the other desisted at length, unnerved and trembling: “Art
thou convinced?”
“I am convinced,” said the Consul.
Elephoo Ting handed him the button in exchange for the knife.
“Take and wear it,” he said, “for my sake, whom you have pleased
by outwitting, on the score of benefiting, two Governments. You have
the makings of a great mandarin in you; the button will do the rest.
Would you ever escape the too-soon satiety of this stodgy life, pass
it on, with these instructions which I shall give you, to your next-of-
kin. Be ever deferential to the button and considerate of its vanity, for
it is the fetish of a sensitive but undiscriminating spirit. So long as
you cherish it, you will prosper. But the least apparent slight to itself,
it will revenge, and promptly. As for me, I have an indigestion of the
world that I would cure.”
And with the words he too became an ancestor.
Then riches and bodily amplitude came to Adolphus Belmont, until
the earth groaned under his importance. He was a spanker, and after
him Richard Belmont was a spanker, and after him John Belmont
was a very spanker of spanks, even at thirty-two, when he
committed the last enormous indiscretion which brought him death
and his fortunes almost ruin. For the outrage to the button had been
so immeasurable that, not content with his obliteration, it must
manœuvre likewise to scatter the accumulations of fortune, which it
had brought him, by involving in a common ruin most of the concerns
in which that fortune was invested, so that his widow found herself
left, all in a moment, a comparatively poor woman.
And here Mrs. John Belmont comes in.
She was a little woman, of piquancy and resource, and a very
accomplished angler of men. She could count on her pink finger-tips
the ten most killing baits for vanity. And, having once recovered the
button, she set herself to conciliating it with a thousand pretty kisses
and attentions. It lived between the bosom of her frock and the ruff of
her dainty nightgown. Yet for a long time it sulked, refusing to be
coaxed into better than a tacit staying of its devastating hand. And so
matters stood when the Assembly ball was held.
Miss Emma Belmont and Mrs. John Belmont lived in the same
town, connexions, but apart. Their visits were visits of ceremony—
and dislike. Miss Emma was Mr. John’s sister, and had always highly
disapproved of his marriage with the “adventuress.” Her very name,
she thought, bordered on an impropriety! How could any “Inez”
dissociate herself from the tradition of cigarette-stained lips and
white eyeballs travelling behind a fan like little moons of coquetry?
This one, in fact, took no trouble to. Her reputation involved them in
a common scandal; and it was solely on this account, I think, that
she so resented her sister-in-law’s appropriation of the button. She
herself was devoted to good works, and utterly content in her
mission. She did not want the button; but, inasmuch as it was a
Belmont heirloom, and Mrs. John childless, she chose to symbolize
in it the bone of contention, and to use it as a convenient bar to
amenities which would, otherwise, have seemed to argue in her a
sympathy with a mode of life with which she could not too
emphatically wish to disconnect herself.
They met at the Assembly ball. Miss Belmont, though herself
involved in the financial ebb, had considered it her duty to respect so
respectable an occasion, and even to adorn it with a silk of such
inflexibility that (I tremble as I write it) one could imagine her slipping
out of it through a trap, like the vanishing lady, and leaving all
standing. Presently Mrs. John Belmont, with a wicked look, floated
up to her.
“You here, Inez!” exclaimed Miss Emma, affecting an amazement
which, unhappily, she could not feel.
The other flirted and simpered. When she smiled, one could detect
little threads drawn in the fine powder near the corners of her mouth.
There was no ensign of widowhood about her. She ruffled with little
gaudy downs and feathers, like a new-fledged bird of paradise.
“Yes, indeed,” she said. “And I’ve brought Captain Naylor, who’s
been dining with me. Shall I introduce him to you?”
Miss Belmont’s sense of decorum left her speechless.
Inez, on the contrary, rippled out the most china-tinkling laugh.
“You dear old thing,” she tittered. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew
you’d be here to chaperon me, and——” She came a step closer.
“Yes, the button’s there, Emma. You may stare; but make up your
mind, I’m not going to part with it.”
Miss Belmont found herself, and responded quietly—
“I hope not indeed, Inez. I don’t ask or expect you. You might
multiply it to-night by a dozen, and only offend me less.”
Mrs. John laughed again, rather shrilly.
“O, fie!” she said. “Why, even you haven’t a high-necked dress,
you know.”
And then a very black and red man, in a jam-pot collar and with a
voice like a rook, came and claimed her.
“Haw, Mrs. Belmont! Aw—er, dance, I think.”
Miss Belmont, to save appearances, rigidly sat out the evening.
When at last she could endure no more, she had her fly called and
prepared to go home. She was about to get into it, when she
observed a familiar figure standing among the few midnight loafers
who had gathered without the shadow of the porch.
“Hurley!” she exclaimed.
The man, after a moment, slouched reluctantly forward, touching
his hat. He had once been her most favoured protégé—a rogue and
irreclaimable, whom she had persuaded, temporarily, from the devil’s
service to her own. He had returned to his master, but with a
reservation of respect for the practical Christian. Miss Belmont was
orthodox, but she had a way with sinners. She pitied and fed and
trusted them. She was a member of the Prisoners’ First Aid Society,
with a reverence for the law and a weakness for the lawless. Her aim
was to reconcile the two, to interpret, in a yearning charity, between
the policeman and the criminal, who at least, in the result, made a
common cause of honouring her. Inez asserted that, living, as she
did, very nervously alone on the outskirts of the town, she had
adopted this double method of propitiation for the sake of her own
security. But, then, Inez had a forked tongue, which you would never
have guessed from seeing the little scarlet tip of it caressing her lips.
Well, Miss Belmont had once coaxed Jim Hurley into being her
handy man, foreseeing his redemption in an innocent association
with flowers and the cult of the artless cabbage. He proved loyal to
her, gained her confidence, knew all about the button and other
matters of family moment. But the contiguity of the kitchen-garden

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Statistics for the behavioral sciences -

Australia ● Brazil ● Mexico ● Singapore ● United Kingdom ● United States

text and Cover designer: Lisa Henry Student Edition:

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CHAPtER 1 Introduction to Statistics 1

CHAPtER 2 Frequency Distributions 33

CHAPtER 3 Central Tendency 67

CHAPtER 5 z-Scores: Location of Scores and Standardized Distributions 131

CHAPtER 6 Probability 159

CHAPtER 7 Probability and Samples: The Distribution of Sample Means 193

CHAPtER 8 Introduction to Hypothesis Testing 223

CHAPtER 9 Introduction to the t Statistic 267

CHAPtER 10 The t Test for Two Independent Samples 299

CHAPtER 11 The t Test for Two Related Samples 335

CHAPtER 12 Introduction to Analysis of Variance 365

CHAPtER 13 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance 413

CHAPtER 14 Two-Factor Analysis of Variance (Independent Measures) 447

CHAPtER 15 Correlation 485

CHAPtER 16 Introduction to Regression 529

CHAPtER 18 The Binomial Test 603

CHAPtER 1 Introduction to Statistics 1

CHAPtER 2 Frequency Distributions 33

CHAPtER 3 Central Tendency 67

z-Scores: Location of Scores

5.4 Using z-Scores to Standardize a Distribution 141

CHAPtER 6 Probability 159

Probability and Samples: The Distribution

CHAPtER 8 Introduction to Hypothesis Testing 223

CHAPtER 9 Introduction to the t Statistic 267

CHAPtER 10 The t Test for Two Independent Samples 299

CHAPtER 11 The t Test for Two Related Samples 335

CHAPtER 12 Introduction to Analysis of Variance 365

CHAPtER 13 Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance 413

Two-Factor Analysis of Variance

CHAPtER 15 Correlation 485

CHAPtER 16 Introduction to Regression 529

The Chi-Square Statistic: Tests for Goodness

CHAPtER 18 The Binomial Test 603

Chapter 5 The section discussion relationships between z, X, μ, and σ has been

■■Matching the Text to Your Syllabus

Le bécasseau est de fort bon manger,

I had it in my ears, and more and more despairingly, as I sought

Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John

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