Mr. Cram looked him straight in the face.
"Can't you hear?" he thundered. "Can't you hear when I call? Come
here--you."
"Ha?" the applicant queried submissively.
"Can't you hear?" and turning to me he said: "You see? that's how they
are! Spite-workers. He'll let me call ten times, as though I was the
applicant and not he; they are all the same, vicious
scoundrels--derelicts, beggars, rascals. You'll see what a damned lie
he'll put up."
He sat back on his chair and read the application a few times.
"How old are you?"
"Ha?" the poor man queried again, putting a hand to his ear and bending
over the desk.
"Are you crazy? Don't you understand? How old are you?" And addressing
me again he said: "A fine job, isn't it?"
"Ha? speak a little louder. I'm hard of hearing," the applicant begged.
"Write down your questions," I suggested, giving the man pencil and
paper.
"Oh! I see!" Cram said, "you have no experience. Do you really think
that he cannot hear? It's a fake--a fake. He hears better than you and
I. It's a fake--a rotten old trick. I tell you, it's some job I have."
"But maybe he is deaf," I insisted.
Mr. Cram looked at me with scorn, and turning to the applicant he
shouted at the top of his voice:
"How old are you?"
"A little louder," the man begged.
The investigator puffed at his pipe in disgust, and after my insistence
consented to write down his questions.
"How long have you been deaf?" he wrote down.
"I have just been discharged from the hospital," the man answered. "They
made an operation on my ears."
"You see?" I put in.
"Oh! it's all a fake--a rotten old fake. He hears better than you and I,
I tell you," Cram still insisted.
"Have you a doctor's certificate?" I wrote on a slip, handing it to the
applicant.
Quickly the man fumbled at his vest pocket, to prove his case, but Cram
did not want to be convinced. With a movement of his hand he stopped the
man.
"It's all right. We know it all. It's all a fake, I tell you, Mr. Baer.
They get certificates for fifty cents."
I looked up at the applicant. His face betrayed no sign that he heard
what had just been said, and I thought it fortunate for the "red hot
Socialist."
Cram put his application in a pigeon-hole and told the man to go home.
The man did not move, but fixed questioning eyes on Cram's lips, seeking
to understand.
"Go home," the other yelled. He showed no sign of understanding except
that he knew he was addressed. "Ha?" he queried.
"Go to hell," Cram answered.