"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.