TED. Very well, I am a collector.
CASE WORKER. By what firms have you been employed?
TED. None.
CASE WORKER. Then how can you be a collector?
TED. You said I must have an occupation.
CASE WORKER. You are not helping me by lying and you may get
yourself into trouble.
MARTIN. Is it the first time you ever ran into a man, who needed
relief, not because he had worked, but because he hadn't?
CASE WORKER. [_Snappily._] I didn't prepare those blanks, but I
have to fill them out. One can have an occupation, like
stenography, when trained for it, even though they have never been
employed.
TED. All right, put that down and go ahead.
CASE WORKER. Stenography?
TED. No, collecting.
CASE WORKER. But collectors aren't trained. One has to have worked
at that.
TED. Then say I worked as a collector for my father.
CASE WORKER. What business was he in?
TED. He was retired.
CASE WORKER. Then what did you collect for him?
TED. First editions.
CASE WORKER. Please talk sense.
MARTIN. Books. A book collector.
CASE WORKER. You mean, a bookkeeper?
TED. [_Bitterly._] We kept them as long as we could. My father died
during the Wall Street panic. He'd gone bankrupt. Since you want to
know how I lived, I lived for some time by selling my father's
books.
CASE WORKER. [_Writing._] Then you lived without working, on
property that you inherited?
TED.
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