metimes begin on a
new track, but he soon merges into the old. You are inclined to say,
"You have told me that before;" but respect to the person who speaks, or
a sense of good manners, restrains, so you are under the necessity of
enduring the unwelcome repetition.

I have known this talker, again and again, rise from his seat with an
intention of going because of a "pressing engagement," and yet he has
stood, with hat in hand, for a further half-hour, telling the same
stories which on similar occasions he had told before. I knew what was
coming, and wished that he had left when he rose at first to do so,
rather than afflict me with the same worn-out threadbare tales of
three-times-three repetition in my ears.

I have thought, Whence this failing? Whether from loss of memory or from
the fact that these things have been so often repeated that, when once
begun, they instinctively and in the very order in which they are laid
in the mind find an irresistible outlet from the mouth: like a
musical-box, when wound up and set a-going, goes on and on, playing the
same old tunes which one has heard a hundred times, and which it has
played ever since a musical-box it has been.

I am inclined to think, however uncharitable my thinking may seem, that
this is the chief cause of his fault. I think so because I have
frequently noticed him saying as soon as he has begun, "Have not I told
you this before?" and I have answered, "Yes, you have;" still he has
gone on with the old yarn, telling it precisely in the same way as
before; as the aforesaid instrument plays its old tunes without
variation right through to the end.

The affliction would not be so bad to bear if he cut his stories short;
but, unfortunately, he does not, and I verily believe cannot, any more
than the parson who has repeated his sermons a hundred times can
curtail, or leave out some of the old to substitute new. Not only so;
another addition to the burden one has to endure is, that he always
repeats his stories with such apparent self-satisfaction--a smile here,
a laugh there, a "ha-ha-ha" in another place; at the same time you feel
he is a bore, and wish his old saws were a hundred miles away.

One has been reminded, in hearing him talk, of what Menander says about
the Dodonian brass, that if a man touched it only once it would continue
ringing the whole day in the same monotonous tone. Thus this talker,
touch him on the story-key, and he plays away until you are