"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."