It's his luck.

Just when I get scared to death, and run down and want a tonic, and it looks as if there'd be no need to put out next week's washing, then his luck steps in, and we get another run.

But it takes a heap out of a man, getting scared.

Whenever I look on a lot of green trees and cattle and horses, and the sun, to say nothing of women and children, and listen to music, or feel a horse eating up the ground under me, 2.10 in the sand, I hate to think of leaving it, and I try to prevent it.
Besides, I don't like the proposition of going, I don't know where.
That's why I get seared.

But he says that it's no more than turning down the light and turning it up again.