"I fell from a ladder when I was ten years old," he said. "After that, I always stammered. My parents thought it was a habit--I can remember yet how my mother scolded me day after day and told me to 'quit talking that way.' But it was useless to tell me to quit. I COULDN'T quit! If I could have done it, certainly I WOULD, for having stammered yourself, you know what it means. "School now began to be a burden. I think I must have supplied fun for every boy on the school grounds during recess-time, for if there was a boy who didn't make fun of me and mock me and laugh at me, then I don't know who he was. "Then one day I started back to school at noontime, saw a crowd of boys on the corner a couple of blocks away, thought of what a task it would be to go into that crowd or try to pass it. A mortal and unreasoning fear came over me. Try as I would, I couldn't screw my courage up to the point of going past that crowd. But I had small choice. It was either go that way or stay out of school. And stay out of school I did. "And then came the crucial day. I could not ask my parents to vouch for any absence--I dared not tell them I was not there. So I went back without an excuse. The teacher was angry. She tried to get me to talk, but I could not say a word. So she sent me to the principal. She, too, asked me to explain. Try as I would, I couldn't get the first word out. Not a sound. "She, too, failed to understand. Result: I was expelled from school--sorry day--nobody seemed to understand my trouble--nobody seemed to sympathize with me--a stammerer. "Although I pretended to be at school, before the week was out, my parents found out. Then a storm ensued. I tried to tell them the truth. They wouldn't listen. Father stormed and mother scolded. There seemed to be no living for me there. So I ran away from home--ran away because my parents wouldn't listen--because they wouldn't try to understand. "Then my troubles began in real earnest. I won't worry you with the details. I got a job--lost it. Got another--lost that. How many times that story was repeated I do not know. And remember--I was but a boy!" Here the old man stopped, his head dropped, his unkempt beard brushed the front of a tattered shirt, that had seen its day. He seemed lost in thought--he was living again those days and those nights when he had wandered an outcast from the world. He was living over a lifetime in a moment. He sat there several moments--thoughts far away. Then he raised his head and there was a tear in the corner of his eye as he said, "But why should I go on? Look at me. See WHERE I am. See WHAT I am. You would think I am over 70--I am not yet 50. But it is too late to do any good. Here I am homeless, friendless, almost penniless. Nobody cares what happens. Nobody would notice if anything should happen. Nobody has a job for me--a stammerer. If I could talk, I could work. If I could talk--Oh, but why tell it again? It is too late now--too late to do any good!!"