and
a large and healthy ambition to own the town?"

Griswold nodded.

"Well, he has come pretty close to making a go of it. What he doesn't
own or control wouldn't make much of a town by itself. A year ago he
tried to get a finger into my little pie. He wanted to reorganize the
Raymer Foundry and Machine Works, and offered to furnish the additional
capital and take fifty-one per cent of the reorganization stock.
Naturally, I couldn't see it. My father had left the plant as an
undivided legacy to my mother, my sister, and myself; and while we
haven't been getting rich out of it, we've managed to hold our own and
to grow a little. Don't let me bore you."

"You couldn't do that if you should try. Go on."

"This spring Wahaska began to feel the boost of the big crop year.
Everything was on the upward slant, and I thought we ought to move along
with other people. Before the snow was off the ground we had hit the
capacity limit in the old plant and the only thing to do was to enlarge.
I borrowed the money at Grierson's bank and did it."

"And you can't make the enlarged plant pay?"

"Oh, yes, it's paying very well, indeed; we're earning dividends, all
right. But in the money matter I simply played the fool and let Grierson
cinch me. As I've told you more than once, I'm an engineer and no
finance shark. My borrow at the bank was one hundred thousand dollars,
and there was a verbal understanding that it was to be repaid out of the
surplus earnings, piecemeal. I told Grierson that I should need a year
or more, and he didn't object."

"This was all in conversation?" said Griswold: "no writing?"

Raymer made a wry face.

"Don't rub it in. I'm admitting that I was all the different kinds of a
fool. There was no definite time limit mentioned. I was to give my
personal notes and put up the family stock as collateral. A day or two
later, when I went around to close the deal, the trap was standing wide
open for me and a baby might have seen it. Grierson said he had proposed
the loan to his directors, and that they had kicked on taking the stock
as collateral. He said they wanted a mortgage on the plant."

Griswold nodded. "Which brought on more talk," he suggested.

"Which brought on a good bit more talk. Really, it didn't make any
intrinsic difference. Stock collateral or property collateral, the bank
would have us by the throat until the debt should be paid. But you know
how women are: my mother would about as soon sign