Easy to Talk Too Much

1919

One Must Admit There Is Much Truth in These Sage Reflections

"It is my opinion," said Mr. Goslington, "that beggars talk too much. For instance, this morning I met a man who asked me for a nickel with which to buy a cup of coffee. As I was reaching for the nickel he kept right on talking, telling me among other things that he hadn't had anything to eat for three days, which I knew of course was false, and which detracted very much from my pleasure in giving.

"I am an easy mark. Perhaps as I grow older I shall grow harder, but as I fell about it now I would rather give to a dozen frauds than take a chance of missing one man who was hungry. Still I don't like the fraud to be too obvious; and I am sure there must be many prospective givers who, when the beggar keeps on with that surplus talk, rescind their original determination to give and keep their money in their pocket. Surely you would think the beggar would learn wisdom and talk less, wouldn't you?

"But the beggar is not the only man. How often do we hear it said of some banquet speaker that he is a good talker but he talks too much? This may seem a harsh way of putting it, but that's what people say. This speaker starts engagingly and talks for a time to the pleasure of everybody, wandering on then interminably to the complete obliteration of the first favorable impression. Here the only result is the tiring of the speaker's hearers; but talking too much might have a far more serious result in the case of, say, a man applying for a job.

"Many a man has talked himself out of a prospective job. He goes to the employer with what he wants to say clearly laid out in his mind, he says this clearly and simply, and the employer has practically made up his mind to take him; but then the applicant keeps on talking, to his own undoing. As he talks he reveals himself in a light less favorable; he discloses perhaps some peculiarity that may not really be a detriment but that strikes the employer not agreeably; and so this job that at first the applicant had felt perfectly sure of slips away from him entirely and without his realizing just how it all came about.

"The beggar is far from being alone in over-talking. There are many men in many walks who lack the fine gift of knowing when to stop."