 What motif runs through the story? Coincidences
No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... The present downtown temperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, but according to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrella when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost tropical downpour. At the moment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—I felt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on my hand. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase "I'm just spitballing" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, "The whole ball of wax," twelve times. There you have what is known as the Advertising World, the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon which rung of the ladder you have achieved. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on. How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick and such. There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear about, and picked up the pencil. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick was exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be allowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so that their wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinking about this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn, they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all wanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided and fell. There were four men confronting him, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and the impulse to stay and beat him up. All I know is five straight...." And each time, somebody else has four aces...." Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice and I was getting used to miracles. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tie his shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxi swerved to avoid Nat.
 Coincidence
 Antisocial behavior  Unfounded rage  Coincidence  Incorrect hypotheses