A humpback stood in front of Des Miriltons, a fashionable club of Paris. Day and night his pathetic figure would be seen, a piteous expression on his face, as he made his silent appeal to the men going into the building—some to try their fortune at the gaming table. The French are a superstitious race and have a thousand little ceremonies to lure the great god Luck, one of the most efficacious being to rub the hump of an _enfant d’escalier_—one born on a staircase. I have seen gold pieces frequently change hands, as a member of this club rushed in or out, so this particular deformity proved fortunate, for the humpback died wealthy. Now a hump, if it be a conspicuous infirmity, is never laughed at. One is born with it and it is therefore not one’s fault. But deformities are not all physical. I come of five generations of parsons who talked for a living; also, at school, as I have said before, it was the habit of the teacher to give credit to the boy who shouted his lessons the loudest. This helped along the trouble, and I claim that talking too much is just as much a mental hump as a twisted back is a physical one, and, as such, should be pitied. My brother used to say that any newcomer to the house where we lived thought at first that everyone was suffering from some throat disease. After a while however, he found that it was only hoarseness from talking too much. I remember, as a boy, the sounds in the Old Manse. With mother upstairs making beds, my sister halfway down, one aunt in the sitting room, and another in the kitchen, there was a sort of continuous rattle of words—never stopped, but only interrupted by the opening and shutting of doors: “Lizzie, when you go downtown, don’t forget to buy—but she won’t need—oh yes, I will if—it’s forty inches wide, and that—but Sophie—well, red, if you—think blue will fade terr—in that case you’d bet—two yards are—why not you see the sleeves will take—oh, let her alone, she’ll get it all ri—” There is a story of this disease of mine that Jules Guerin is fond of telling. Of course, it never happened, but it makes a good tale. There was to be a contest between the greatest talkers in the East and West. A man from the Bohemian Club in San Francisco and myself were chosen. There was money bet; we were put in a locked room with a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water apiece. After three days the sounds of voices died down and the anxious listeners broke open the door. The Western talker was lying dead and I lay beside him, dying and _whispering_ in his ear. Sometimes this talk of mine has produced startling results. I had a dear friend, now dead, whose son was connected with a monthly magazine. One day I saw in it a botched attempt, as I thought, to tell, as his own, a wonderful story of Anatole France’s. I was indignant and told everyone I would make it my business to “call that young man down.” Some time after, I was sitting at the writing table at The Players when the boy came up to me, saying: