"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.