"Yes, about a week."
"You must have some idea, then, whether or not there is likely to be anything at all left for depositors, and you will oblige me very much indeed by giving me your personal opinion on the subject. I understand how impossible it is to give exact figures; but you cannot have failed to discover by this time whether or not the assets amount to anything worth considering, as compared with the amount of the bank's liabilities. I would like the little information you can give me, however inexact it may be."
"My dear sir," said the assignee, "I'm afraid you don't understand these things. Our statement is not ready yet, and I can not possibly tell you what its nature will be until it is."
"When will it be ready, sir?" asked Robert.
"That I can not say as yet, but it will be forthcoming in due time, sir; in due time."
"Will it require a week, or a month, or two or three months? You can, at least, make an approximate estimate of the time necessary for its preparation."
"Well, no," said the man of business, "I should not like to make any promises; I am hard at work, and the statement will be ready in due time, sir; in due time."
Robert left the man's presence thoroughly disgusted. Thinking the matter over he concluded that the affairs of the bank must be in a very bad way. Otherwise, he argued, the man would not be so silent on the subject.
Now the assignee was perfectly right in saying that Robert did not understand these things. If he had understood them he would have known that the reticence from which he thus argued the worst, meant just nothing at all. Business men are not apt to commit themselves unnecessarily in any case, and especially in such a case as the one concerning which Robert had been inquiring. The bank might have been utterly bankrupt or entirely solvent, and that assignee would in either case have given precisely the same answers to our young friend's questions. He knew nothing with absolute certainty as yet, and could know nothing certainly until the last column of figures should be added up and the final balances struck. Then he could make a statement, but until then he would say nothing at all. He acted after his kind. Business is business; and, as a rule, business men know only one way of doing things.
Robert, however, was not a business man. He knew nothing about these things, and accordingly, making no allowance for a business habit as one of the factors in the problem, he proceeded to argue that if the affairs of the bank were in the least degree hopeful the man would have said so. As he had carefully and persistently avoided saying anything of the kind, Robert could only conclude that there was no hope at all to be entertained.