"None of it? How can that be?"

"This was seed money. We had to sow the seed. Some of it fell on fallow ground."

"Sow the seed? Reverend Bacon, surely you didn't advance these people their money before they did the work!"

"These are minority firms. People from the community. That was what we wanted. Am I not correct?"

"Yes. But surely you have not advanced— --"

"These are not firms with your 'lines of credit,' your 'computerized inventories,' your 'pre-staggered cash flows,' your 'convertible asset management,' your 'capital-sensitive liquidity ratios,' and all that. These are not firms with factors to go to, like they have in the garment industry, when bad luck knocks on the door with your 'unavoidable delays' . . . see . . . These are firms founded by people in the community. These are the tender shoots that sprout up from the seeds we sow—you, me, the Episcopal Church, the Gates of the Kingdom Church. Tender shoots . . . and you say, 'unavoidable delay.' That's not just a term, that's not just your red tape—that's a sentence of death. A sentence of death. That's saying 'Kindly drop dead.' So don't tell me I can just explain it to them. Unavoidable delay . . . Say, unavoidable death."