go about repeating such false axioms, for they can only do harm to those
who have a heavy burthen to bear through life as it is. In my opinion a
hunchback's thoughts are as straightforward as an athlete's; or do you
imagine that if a mother were to place her new-born children in a spiral
chamber and let them grow up in it, they could not tend upwards as all
men do by nature?"

"Your comparison limps," cried Rufinus, "and needs setting to rights.
If we are not to find ourselves in open antagonism. . . ."

"You must keep the peace," Joanna put in addressing her husband; and
before Rufinus could retort, Paula had asked him with frank simplicity:

"How old are you, my worthy host?"

"Your arrival at my house blessed the second day of my seventieth year,"
replied Rufinus with a courteous bow. His wife shook her finger at him,
exclaiming:

"I wonder whether you have not a secret hump? Such fine phrases. . ."

"He is catching the style from his cripples," said Paula laughing at him.
"But now it is your turn, friend Philippus. Your exposition was worthy
of an antique sage, and it struck me--for the sake of Rufinus here I will
not say convinced me. I respect you--and yet I should like to know how
old. . . ."

"I shall soon be thirty-one," said Philippus, anticipating her question.

"That is an honest answer," observed Dame Joanna. "At your age many a