The Unluckiest Man in the World by Bernard Capes

He was nicknamed, ironically, Carabas-a sort of French equivalent for Fortunatus-the only title by which I ever knew him. Perhaps the underlying sympathy which impelled the jest reconciled him to its mockery; for there is, after all, an acute distinction in being the unluckiest man in the world. Somebody says somewhere that it is better to "lead" in hell than be a super in heaven. There came a time, I think, when Carabas would have resented good fortune as an outrage. It would have broken his record, and made him commonplace at a blow. As with Hawthorne's young woman who was bred and throve on poisons, a normal dietary would have been fatal to him. Carabas was nurtured on ill-luck.

I made his acquaintance at Verey's in Montreux. It was for ever Carabas here and Carabas there, and, sometimes, in badinage, M. le Marquis; for the fellow was always in huge request for his capability and good-humour. There was a great deal of commiseration being shown for him when I first arrived. Latterly he had drawn a prize ticket-for thirty thousand francs, I think it was-in some State lottery. But, alas! a few days before the declaration of the winning numbers, he had parted with his voucher for a trifle over cost price. We got up a consolation subscription for him in the hotel-relatively, quite a respectable little sum-which, with effusive thanks, he deposited in the Bureau de Secours Mutuels. The bank stopped payment almost at once, and Carabas lost his nest-egg, with a prospect of future "calls" from the parent cuckoo.