"If mother were here she could tell me all I want to know," sighed Violet, putting off the dreaded moment; "and father, I know he could also tell me, only he does not like me to talk about hunchbacks."
"About hunchbacks!" cried Fritz with a sudden gasp; "I do not know anything about hunchbacks."
"Yes, yes, thou dost," she cried excitedly. "I am a little hunchback; thou knowest that; thou saidst so thyself, Fritz, one day long ago. And now thou wilt tell me this one thing. Is it true—" She paused and breathed more quickly than ever; the question was evidently one of gigantic importance.
"Is what true?"
"That God gives the little hunchbacks these humps?"
"Yes, of course; that is to say, first they get a fall or something, and then God gives them the humps afterwards."
"And what does he put into them?"
"What? I do not understand thee."
"Is there not something inside of every poor hunchback's hump?"