"No, it's not that. It's what I say. Of course I never supposed your going in for the Municipal Reform League movement could have any business significance——"
Luke, relieved about Betty, was unable to follow Forbes's disjointed sentences.
"It hasn't," he said. "It hasn't any business significance whatever."
"Ah"—Forbes shook his head—"that's what I thought, too. But it has. Huber, this may mean the end of R. H. Forbes & Son. Think of it: it may mean the end of the Business—a business that has been honorably conducted by my family for three generations."
What such a catastrophe would mean to Forbes nobody knew better than Luke, but how the Municipal Reform League could be concerned in it was beyond guessing.
"Won't you try to begin at the beginning?" said Luke. He was used to getting coherent stories in preliminary interviews with incoherent witnesses, and he fell into his professional manner.
"It's this way." Forbes turned his gray eyes away and fumbled with an ornament on the mantel-tree. "When you came into the Business, I had several loans outstanding—the Business had. They were all well secured, and you know how solid the concern's always been. With the money you put in and the earnings, I was able to take up some of them, but there were the improvements and extensions made necessary by fresh competition and the new inventions and the machine-trust's raise of prices. Well, I had to leave a loan outstanding at the East County National."
"Yes," said Luke encouragingly. "How much was it?"
"Two hundred and fifty thousand. It was a good deal, I know, but, you see, when I negotiated it——"
"Never mind the reasons now. What were its terms?"