"You don't mean John Usselex, the banker?"
"Oh, but I do, though."
The ex-Minister opened the door and looked out into the outer room, then, assured that no one was listening, he resumed his former seat, crossed his legs, and meditatively beat his knee. In his face was an expression which a psychologist would have admired, a commingling of the vatic and the amused, accentuated by sarcasm.
"Well, what of it?" Maule asked shortly, perplexed at the mummery.
The ex-Minister leaned forward and for four or five minutes addressed his nephew in a monotone. As he spoke Maule's perplexity changed to surprise, then to bewilderment, and ultimately into jubilation. "Are you positive of this?" he exclaimed. "Tell me that you are. You must be positive!"
"I give you the facts—"
"I am off, then;" and he sprang from his seat. "I haven't a minute to lose," he added; and taking his uncle by the arm he led him from the office.
In the outer room the corpulent dwarf still sat. "Dere was dot morhgige—" he stammered.
"Accepted," Maule shouted, and turned to the clerk. "Look over the papers, will you? If they are right, get a check ready. As for you, my slim friend," he said to the German, "remember that business men have business hours." And laughing as though he had said something insultingly original, he hurried down the stairs, and jumping into a hansom, he presently rolled up town.
In a trifle over half an hour he was at Eden's door. "There is no time like the present," he told himself, as he rang the bell. But when, in answer to his ring, a servant appeared, he learned that Eden was not at home.