and did not know what to do or what it all meant. Cram showed him the door. The man stood stupidly. Cram rang a bell—an office boy came. "Lead him upstairs," was the order; "he's deaf."

The office boy took the man by the hand. "Come on upstairs," and jokingly to Cram, "They have spread the table for you there."

Soon I heard his heavy steps on the stairs.

"Will they give him something upstairs?" I inquired.

"They'll give him in the neck," he laughed. "They'll put him out."

"Why don't you help him? The charities are here for that," I said.

"My dear friend, you don't understand this business yet," the investigator said. "We don't take stock in his deafness. It's a fake, an old trick."

"Yes, but his certificate proves something, doesn't it?"

"I didn't see it," Cram answered.

"But he wanted to show it to you, did he not?"

"Yes, but I did not want to see it. It's all a fake. Wait, when you have been in the business long enough you will not speak that way." Again he fumbled in his desk.

I looked at him. He had eyes, a nose and a mouth—a face—yet he did not look human to me. What was missing anyway? And as I did not then know what charities were really for, I thought at that moment:

"This place is for a human being with a big heart, that could feel the pain of every sufferer—a human being with a desire to help his fellow creatures—who would speak to him who comes to apply for help words that would be like balsam, who would feel ashamed that he has a home and bread to eat while others are walking the streets, hungry and homeless. Surely 'upstairs' they do not know how this man treats the applicants. They surely don't know—they don't know."

Presently a young girl, an employee of the office, came to Cram's desk and said a few words to him. His face lit up and became human, his voice sounded sweet, and there was so much affection in the look he gave her that I was astonished. I had just thought of him as a brute. He had just behaved so to the old man. But as the rays of the sun from the little window fell on them both it lit my heart with hope. "He is too young—he will learn the truth in time," I thought.

No sooner had the girl gone away than his face again took on a stony composure, and when he again called out the name of an applicant his voice was again harsh and cold as iron.

"Roll—Ida Roll, come here."

A woman, shabbily dressed, with her face almost covered by the big shawl she wore over her head and shoulders, approached the desk. Cram looked at her for a few seconds. A tremor passed through the woman's frame at his scrutiny. She bit her lips and nervously rubbed her hands against the desk.

"What's your name?"

"Ida Rohl."

Cram made a little mark on the application.

"Where do you live?"

"Madison Street—No.—"

"Where does your brother live?"

"I have no brother."

"Where does your sister live?"

"I have no sister."

"How much does your oldest son earn a week?"

"My oldest son is only thirteen years old."

"What's the name of your husband?"

"My husband is dead."

"When did he die?"

"Four years ago."

"Did you marry again?"

"No, sir."

"Mind you," he warned her, "we are going to investigate and if we find out that you have married," and he shook his finger in her face.

"How many children have you?"

"Three—the oldest of them is thirteen."

"And how did you live till now without applying to charity?"

"I worked at the machine."

"Why don't you work now?" and turning to me he explained: "You see? Four years she has worked and supported herself. Now some one has told her of the existence of the charities, so she does not want to work any longer. She thinks she has a good case. A widow—three children—and," whispering in my ears in a confidential tone, "you'll hear her say soon that she is sick—sick—that's what they all claim. All are sick." Meanwhile he cleaned his pipe.

"Well, why don't you answer? Why don't you work now? Tell me—did you get tired—or do you think begging a better trade?"

"I am sick."

Cram glanced at me as though to say, "You see."

"Sick? and what is your disease? Lazyo-mania?"

"No, I am sick," the woman said, her eyes swimming with tears.

"Sick—what sickness?"

"I am sick. I can't tell you what sickness. I worked at pants—an operator—and now I am sick. I have pains all over and I can't work. I can't—I won't mind it for me—but my children go to bed without supper and go to school without breakfast. And I can't stand it—I can't—I never applied to charities—"

"Enough, enough," Cram interrupted. "Never applied to charity! I know that gag. You shouldn't have applied now. A strong woman like you should be ashamed—ashamed to come here with the other beggars," sweeping his hand towards the others. "Go to work. You won't get a cent from here."

"But I can't. I am sick."

"Go to a hospital if you can't work."

"And my children?" sobbed the poor mother.

"Well, then, what do you want? A pension of $200 a month, a trip abroad, a palace, a country house? Say—say quickly what do you want? I have no time. You will get everything immediately. It's a fine job, Mr. Baer, is it not?"

"I want to be helped out until I am well enough to work. My children are hungry. They have had no breakfast to-day and there isn't any supper for them either."

"That's the real stuff—her children. The more kids, the easier the money. I tell you, some class to them, my friend."

Cram looked at her and then at the application, and after a moment's thought he wrote on top of it, in blue pencil:

"To be investigated."

"Go home," he said to the woman.

"But Mr. ——"

"Go home, I say. We'll take care of it. That's all, don't stay here any longer, don't get me angry."

"But I told you my children are hungry and cold—"

"I am not a groceryman—go home. I have no time. There are others—also sick and with dead husbands and hungry children. Move on—good-day."

"But, Mr.—to-night my children have no supper and it's bitter cold."

"All right. We'll take care of that. Go home." And as the woman tried to speak again: "Now go home and don't bother me."

Again he busied himself at the desk. The woman looked at him and then at me. Big, heavy tears rolled down her careworn cheeks and she seemed to me the very personification of suffering, the suffering of a mother who sees her children tortured by gnawing hunger. She went away.

"Will you immediately send an investigator?" I asked Cram.

"In four or five days. Our investigators are very busy now and it's very cold."

"Four or five days!" I was amazed. "And meanwhile, the children—what about the poor kids?"

"Oh, well—it's not as terrible as all that. I don't believe all she said," and again he repeated his favourite sentence: "I don't take any stock in her story. It's all a fake—a fake."

Many other women and men were called, but I did not see or hear them. These two were enough. Only the harsh and grating voice of Cram and the bitter outcry of some applicant awoke me from my stupor.

THE SECOND DAY

On returning home I went to my bed without supper. The whole night through I heard Cram's questions and the answers of the poor applicants, and the whole world appeared to me