Kan you hear me?

I had just finished eating a quick lunch, at a diner on Queen St. W. The manager/owner just started going around collecting dirty dishes from the tables, and a grey haired and bearded man walked in, wearing bluejean overalls. He was doing an old trick among panhandlers, handing out business cards that said he couldn't speak or hear, and if you could spare some change.

The manager went and picked up the cards, and handed them back to him, and told him to leave. Once she turned her back, he went right back to handing out the cards. She once again rounded up the cards and ushered him out the door.

She came to pick up my plates, as I stood up to leave, and was telling me that he's been coming there for 15 years, doing the same thing. "He come for 15 years, every day. And just you wait, his wife will be by in half an hour." She went on to say "...and they both can speak, they not deaf and dumb."

She then told me that they lived in the public housing around the corner, collected welfare, and that this was some extra tax free cash that they round up.

As I left the diner, I walked East on Queen St. W., and saw the man walking ahead of me. He came up to a woman, to whom he spoke, and handed her the business cards. She then proceeded back the way that I had just come from, handing out the cards to people on the street. I'm sure that she was on her way back to that diner.

DB