Holmes closed the door and threw himself across the bed grumpily, scowling in my general direction as he lit his pipe.
"You were insufferably rude," said I severely, preparing to go next-door.
"I fail to see how any sensible man can be so wrapped up in ridiculous superstition! That sort of rot I expect from a woman, but not from a man of any intelligence!"
"Superstition has nothing to do with intelligence," I retorted, defending our poor client. "All phobias, including that of triskaidekaphobia, involve completely different areas of the brain than that of logic. You cannot just think your way out of being afraid of something!"
I received only an eye-roll and a cloud of thick smoke for my defense of our hapless client, who had unfortunately chosen the wrong genius to allow at his dinner-table with the other twelve of us.
When asked to rise along with the rest of the guests as one, the detective had blatantly risen alone, to our host's horror, and then proceeded to expound upon the origins of the fear, stating he was going to prove the man's quite common superstition (that the first person rising from a group of thirteen would be dead within the year) completely unfounded.
The year, late 1890.
Regarding that superstition, I am still undecided what to believe.