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Once, many many years ago, Professor Lichtenberg pulled on his lecture coat and headed out. He wanted to see what the weather was doing. Because he was a vain fellow, he had silver buttons on his lecture coat. From time to time, he would lose one. Then he would go crawling around his apartment in the wing of the house on the Gotmarstrasse, crying: Where has it got to now? As he srabbled around among the chair legs, one thing became clear: he had a hunchback! Quick, let's write about it!

The hunchback was enormous!

Lichtenberg himself can't have been much taller than four-foot-nine. And that's how he would go about in the world. That's how he would go about in public street, and even out of town. But he always came back. Sometimes he would wear a hat, mostly he wouldn't. They called him "a little lizard of a fellow" or "our leprechaun."

He would never have been good-looking, even without a hunchback. His eyes were generally inflamed, his nose dripped from time to time, people corresponded about his ears- "like dishcloths!" -and as for his teeth ... More about them anon!