Smith took office at nine o'clock on the first business day of April.
The fifteen minutes following were spent by him in patiently listening
to Mr. Wintermuth's diagnosis of the various ills with which the
Guardian was afflicted, related supposedly for his education. When the
first pause was reached, the new Vice-President said:--
"I've followed things pretty carefully, sir; and with what you have
just told me I think I know about where we stand. We're certainly in
bad shape at present, from the agency standpoint, but it's by no means
hopeless. And financially we seem to be well off. I looked over the
statement Mr. Bartels gave me last night, and since the first of the
year some of our investments must have appreciated handsomely; I see
that Ninth National Bank stock is selling away above the valuation we
put on it in our statement."
"Yes; it is thought that some of the Duane Trust Company people are
trying to buy a controlling interest," the President responded more
cheerfully.
"But of course that is not in my province," Smith continued. "The
question with me is what immediate action to take with reference to the
agency plant. Now, Boston is gone--there's no hurry there. Buffalo is
lost, too. It seems unlikely that New York will get in any deeper
trouble this week or next--although of course you can't tell. But
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh need attention right away." He glanced at
the small clock on Mr. Wintermuth's desk. "If you'll excuse me, sir,"
he said, "I think I can make the ten o'clock on the Pennsylvania. I
brought my suitcase down here, thinking that I might want to start in a
hurry."
"Go ahead, my boy. Good luck," said his chief.
And so Smith caught the ten o'clock express from the Pennsylvania
station, leaving behind him in the Guardian office an elderly gentleman
in whose breast an undefined cheerfulness had awakened. But it was to
neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburgh that the Vice-President's ticket
read; he had taken a ticket to Harrisburg.
Many years before, the Attorney-General of the state of Pennsylvania
had been a famous football player at the state university; whether his
gridiron career had any bearing on his legal equipment or not was a
question, but it certainly did not make him a worse man. His name was
James K. Prior, he stood six feet one, and weighed two hundred pounds.
Mr. Prior was a believer in modern government, although in fighting his
way up to the attorney-generalship he had seen enough of the
Pennsylvania variety to have given a lesser optimist his doubts. He
also believed in modern business conditions, and so far as he properly
could, he officially encouraged what he regarded as being legitimate
commercial combinations. But he did not believe in trusts. He had
followed local legislation long enough to be very sure that there was
in it far too much sophistry and too little equity, and he was a strong
upholder of what he termed fair play, whether it came peacefully along
statutory lines or whether it had to be jerked raw from the shambles of
a hundred confused and specious lawyer-made laws.
All in all, he made an active and satisfactory attorney-general.
Now it chanced that during the last session of an unusually prolific
legislature a political opponent of Mr. Prior's had contrived to secure
the passage of a bill designed to give a certain latitude to certain
rather questionable combinations of capital, known in the vernacular as
trusts. Senator McGaw, Mr. Prior's antagonist, had managed this bit of
special legislation very craftily indeed. The bill was so innocently
worded as to disarm the most vigilant and radical trust-buster; it
appeared as though its purpose was exactly the reverse of that for
which it had been subtly designed; in fact, in an excessive effort to
avert suspicion a couple of clauses had found their way into this
document which gave Mr. Prior some of the keenest pleasure of his
career.
"You are perfectly safe in signing that bill, Governor," he had said to
the State's chief executive, who had asked his advice in the matter.
"I'll bet my professional reputation that the courts will hold that it
gives us more than it takes away. McGaw's people think it ties the
State's hands from proceeding against concerns which operate in
restraint of trade by restricting their distributing centers. Instead
of which we'll have them on the hip--that section four went a little
too far. Just let one of them try to keep his product exclusively in
the hands of his sole distributers, and I give you my word I'll have
the responsible officer of that concern in jail! Go ahead and sign the
bill, Governor--it's all right with me."
It was the draft of this bill, now signed and recently become a law,
which occupied the attention of Smith during a large part of the ride
from New York to Harrisburg. And the more he studied it, the more
hopeful became his expression. And it was with the most buoyant of
steps that he made his way from Harrisburg station to the office of Mr.
Prior. To that distinguished gentleman he sent in a card whereon he
added after his name two things: first, "Vice-President Guardian Fire
Insurance Co. of New York," and second, by a whimsical but considered
afterthought, "I saw you kick that goal from the field against Cornell."
Mr. Prior was thoroughly inured to conversing with corporation
executives,--they were no novelty to him,--presumably, therefore, it
was the second memorandum which caused Smith to be ushered almost
immediately into the presence of the Attorney-General, who regarded his
visitor with a good-humored smile on his clean-shaven lips.
"Mr. Smith, I presume?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir," the other answered.
"I gather from this card," Mr. Prior pursued, glancing at it, "that you
remember having seen me--elsewhere."
"When I was fifteen years old," Smith replied. "And I've been to a
good many games since, but I don't think I ever saw any one else kick a
goal from the field at a mean angle on the forty-yard line with a stiff
wind quartering against him."
"Perhaps not--at least in the last two minutes of play," the
Attorney-General agreed reflectively; and the New Yorker could easily
pardon this embellishment.
It was some little time later when Mr. Prior somewhat reluctantly
returned to things mundanely legal so far as to ask his caller's
business.
Smith explained.
When, on the following afternoon, he walked into President Wintermuth's
office, if there was in his manner a certain undertrace of elation, it
must be forgiven him, for this, his first stroke in his broad horizon,
seemed thus far up to every expectation of success.
"Well, what did you do?" was Mr. Wintermuth's greeting, as he looked up
to find Smith before him.
"The Attorney-General of Pennsylvania," said Smith slowly, "is going
into court to-morrow to ask for an injunction, alleging conspiracy and
restraint of trade, forbidding the Eastern Conference from enforcing a
separation rule anywhere within the boundaries of the state."
"What's that?" said the President, sharply. "A restraining order, you
say?"
"Yes. Mr. Prior, the Attorney-General, thinks he will have little
trouble in securing a temporary injunction. Later on he will move to
make this permanent, and there will doubtless be a fight on that; but
he thinks he can beat them under the new Anti-Trust Law. In the
meantime it ties up the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh boards, and I think
we can get back most of the smaller Pennsylvania agents we've lost.
Most of them are well disposed toward us; other things being equal,
they'd be glad to restore the status quo, and none of them are anxious
to be made joint defendants with the Conference companies in a
conspiracy suit."
Mr. Wintermuth said nothing for a long minute; then his face broke into
almost the first sincere smile which had been seen on it since the
opening of the year.
"That's very well done--a good idea and well executed, Richard," he
said.
"Thank you, sir," said Smith.
There was more discussion to follow, and the two went over the
situation as a whole more fully than had been hitherto possible.
"Of course," Smith pointed out, "this is just a beginning. But
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are safe--that's something. And Baltimore
will never dare make a move after this, for Maryland always follows
Pennsylvania. No, our chief problem at present is New York and New
England."
"Yes," agreed the older man. His face darkened. "Boston! How about
Boston? What can we do up there?"
"I don't know," returned Smith, slowly. "But there's one thing we can
do, and do at once. We can close the Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy
agency. We can decapitate that crew in forty-eight hours, and with
your permission I'll go up there and do it myself."
"Go ahead," said the President.
That night Mr. Wintermuth enjoyed the first peaceful rest for almost
three months. Smith, on the contrary, perhaps through his anxiety to
put his Boston agency house in order, remained sleepless far into the
small, still hours. Nevertheless he departed next day for Boston on
the three o'clock express, arriving in Boston at eight, although he
might as well have taken a later train, for it was certain that neither
Sternberg, Bloom, nor McCoy would be apt to remain in their offices
until that hour of night. Doubtless it was for this reason that he
left the train at the Huntington Avenue station and turned west toward
Deerfield Street.
Fifteen minutes later he was waiting in the reception hall of an
apartment house, the construction of which he had once, in the Guardian
office at New York, quite minutely described for the edification of a
certain young lady visitor. In due course of time he was conveyed to
the proper floor, and a moment later found himself shaking hands with
the identical young lady.
"Mother, this is Mr. Richard Smith of New York, a friend of Uncle
Silas, of whom I told you."
Smith found himself bowing to a little gray lady whose manner was so
gentle that he unconsciously lowered his voice in speaking to her. She
was dressed all in gray, and her hair was gray, and the silvery lights
that glistened in it moved through the folds of a tiny lace object
which might, had it been developed, have proved to be a cap. To call
so filmy and nebulous a thing a garment of any kind was perhaps absurd;
but if this premise was once granted, it would have been correct to say
that Mrs. Maitland clung to caps. Certainly no article could have
better suited her, and in her single person she had done almost as much
as all the rest of Boston to revivify a dying but delightful
institution.
The little lady, for all her mildness of manner and appearance, proved
to be as wide awake as any one of the three. She even found a way to
discover, without Smith's being aware of it, whether he possessed the
typical New Yorker's attitude toward her native city. Mrs. Maitland
lived in the firm and fixed belief that all New Yorkers, dwelling as
they did in a restless and artificial milieu of restaurants and
theaters and dollars, had for Boston and Bostonians a kind of
patronizing pity. The fact that she herself regarded New Yorkers in
very much the same light had never occurred to her.
Smith, however, was not a typical New Yorker. He had too real and
intense an interest in all created things to fear Mrs. Maitland's
gently suspicious inquisition. In addition to this he was so genuinely
interested in at least one of the Bostonians before him that he
naturally and easily escaped the pitfalls into which another might have
tumbled. So thoroughly, indeed, did he win approval and disarm
suspicion that before very long he had his reward in being left, before
the small but cheerful fire, with the daughter of the house.
This tactful withdrawal did not lessen the attraction of Mrs. Maitland
in Smith's eyes, and it was with real admiration in his tone that he
said to Helen:--
"I think your mother is charming."
"I have thought so," returned Helen, with assumed loftiness, "for
thirty or forty years."
"So long?" queried Smith, thoughtfully. "That merely goes to show how
one can be deceived."
"Deceived!" said Miss Maitland. "Unless you mean self-deception, I
would like an explanation of that remark."
But her visitor said that in his opinion to explain anything, however
occult, to a Bostonian, savored of intellectual impudence, and was, at
the least, a piece of presumption of which he hoped he should never be
guilty.
"And yet I can remember," said the girl, laughing, "an occasion when
explanations _were_ made to a young lady from Boston--and explanations
that took some time, too. I--even I--can bear witness to that."
"My life," Smith rejoined, "has been like that of a candidate for
office, such that he who runs may read--and he need not necessarily be
a ten-second sprinter, either. Only one dark, shameful page is in it,
and that is the record of the day when I talked deaf, dumb, and blind
the helpless stranger within the Guardian's gates."
"Are you really sorry?" Helen asked more seriously.
Smith looked at her.
"It has been more than three months since you left New York," he said.
"I have been glad of it--and sorry for it--every day of that time."
"And which are you now?" inquired the girl, with interest.
"If I should start on that subject, I should probably regret it.
Hadn't we better talk of something else?"
"As you wish," Helen returned lightly. "But you can at least tell me
about the Guardian, and what has been happening since I left. In an
occasional letter which I have received from an insurance friend of
mine in New York, there has never been a word about his company."
"Your correspondent no doubt wanted to be cheerful when he wrote to,
you, and for that reason it has been necessary for him to omit all
reference to the Guardian's affairs."
"But I heard indirectly about them, just the same--from Uncle Silas. I
know of course that he retired from the active management of Silas
Osgood and Company because he was humiliated and chagrined at being
obliged to resign the agency of his old friend Mr. Wintermuth's
company, and I know that, although he would not interfere with Mr. Cole
after Mr. Cole took charge of the business, he disapproved of Mr.
Cole's accepting the agency of the Salamander."
"Well, if you know as much as that, you know that our suspicions of Mr.
O'Connor proved all too true. He not only engineered the scheme to get
us out of the Eastern Conference, but after we got out he has tried to
steal all our best agents and business for his own company, and, thanks
to the lack of any resistance on our part, he has been able in many
cases to succeed."
"But why didn't you resist? I don't quite understand. Couldn't
anybody--couldn't you stop him?"
"I--I didn't have a chance," answered Smith.
"Indeed? And why not?" continued his inquisitor.
"From the series of pointed questions you are putting me, I might
almost imagine I was being interviewed by the representative of a
muck-raking magazine," countered her visitor, in covert concern.
"From the lack of actual information in your replies one might almost
imagine you were," Helen cordially agreed. "Now are you going to
answer my inquiry?"
"Well, the Guardian directors selected another man to take charge of
its underwriting affairs, and we didn't hit it off very well--naturally
he did things in his own way."
"I know," said the girl, nodding her head; "Mr. Gunterson."
"Good heavens!" said the young man, "is there any use in my attempting
to give information to some one who already has it all? If you know
all about this and what has gone on, why ask me?"
"I wanted to hear what you'd say. It is a natural desire, I'm sure,
and you ought to be willing to help gratify it. You see, you are
responsible for my interest in the affairs of your insurance company,
and you have almost a parental responsibility."
"How is Wilkinson?" said Smith, engagingly.
"Presently it may be that the conversation can be diverted to Mr.
Wilkinson. But not now."
"Well, then, to go back to the affairs of the Guardian, how is Mr.
Osgood? It's rather dangerous for a man who's been in harness so long
to get out of it so suddenly. It's not good for a man--in my opinion."
"More adroit--for I really want to tell you about Uncle Silas. But
business first--then pleasure."
"Well," said her visitor, with resignation, "go ahead, Miss Portia."
"I wish to know all about what happened in the Guardian while Mr.
Gunterson was in charge," said Helen, simply.
And finally, with a few evasions which were immediately detected and
some omissions which were possibly suspected, Smith told the story of
the decline of the Guardian.
"So Mr. Gunterson left," commented the girl, when all was said. "What
happened then?"
"Why, that's substantially all, to date," returned the New Yorker,
dishonestly; "except that I've been sent up here to see what I can do
to improve our position in Boston."
"Ah! Who sent you? Who is in charge of the Guardian now?" continued
Miss Maitland, calmly.
"Mr. Wintermuth, of course," replied her victim.
"And under Mr. Wintermuth? Has no one been elected to fill Mr.
Gunterson's place?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Gunterson only resigned a few days ago. Boards of
directors don't as a rule move very rapidly. There hasn't really been
a great deal of time."
"Who has been elected to fill Mr. Gunterson's place?"
"Are you under the impression that--?"
"Do you wish me to say it again? Who has been elected Vice-President
of the Guardian?"
"A man," said her visitor slowly, "by the name of Smith."
Helen leaned back in her chair in mock exhaustion.
"That was certainly awfully difficult," she said, with a little laugh
of triumph. "I thought you would never admit it."
"I suppose you'd have found it out sometime, anyway," Smith said
philosophically.
"No, you're wrong," his companion denied, "for the very good and simple
reason that I already knew it."
"You knew it! And yet you put me through this cross-examination?"
Helen nodded complacently.
"Uncle Silas told me this afternoon."
"But how did he know? No announcement has been made."
"Mr. Wintermuth wrote him."
"Well," said Smith, "no ring master with a long, cracking whip ever
made a reluctant poodle jump through a series of hoops in a more
professional manner than you put me through my little story."
"Yes," said Helen, demurely. Then, growing suddenly more serious, she
said, "And won't you let me congratulate you, Mr. Vice-President?"
"I will," said Smith. "There is no one I know by whom I would rather
be congratulated."
He took in his own her offered hand, and for just a moment an enchanted
silence abode in the room. Then, with no effort on Smith's part to
detain her, Helen withdrew her hand.
"Now I can tell you about Uncle Silas and Charlie Wilkinson," she said.
"And both are so interesting as topics that I hardly know where to
begin."
"Begin with Mr. Osgood, please," her visitor suggested.
"Very well, then. I have been seeing quite a little of Uncle Silas
lately. After he turned over the management of his business to
Bennington Cole, it seems as if he hardly knew what to do with himself.
For many years he has been such a busy man that this leisure has left
him at a loss to pass his time. So he has been playing around with me
to some extent. We have had lots of long talks together; among other
subjects we have even discussed you."
"So I learn," Smith responded.
"Don't be saturnine," the girl rejoined. "Seriously, though, while
I've enjoyed Uncle's Silas's society, I don't believe this idleness is
good for him. In fact, I'm rather worried about him--I think having
nothing to do makes him despondent, for it makes him feel as though his
day's work was over. And there's no reason why it should be. He's not
really old, although he looks rather frail, and I believe he'd be
better and happier if he went back into business now."
"Why doesn't he, then?" the other asked. "He still retains his
interest in the agency, doesn't he?"
"Yes, I believe so. But it's largely a matter of pride with him. He
retired because it was necessary for the firm to resign the Guardian,
and I doubt whether he would go back unless it could be arranged that
the Guardian go back too. Can't you arrange it?"
"Well, hardly--that is, right away," Smith replied. "Present
conditions are about the same as when the company left the Osgood
agency, but I feel more encouraged, myself, to believe there may be a
way around. I'll call on Mr. Osgood to-morrow the first thing I
do--no, the second."
"What is the first?--if I may ask."
"To close the agency of our present Boston representatives, Messrs.
Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy. And now tell me the news about Mr.
Charles Wilkinson, the hero of the Hurd trolley schedule."
"Mr. Wilkinson is about to extend his responsibilities in connection
with the Hurd family."
"You don't mean that old John M. Hurd was so impressed that he--?"
"Quite another thing. Undoubtedly Mr. Hurd was impressed with Mr.
Wilkinson's talents as an insurance broker, but scarcely to the extent
of desiring him for a son-in-law."
"A son-in-law! You mean--"
"That Charlie got a trolley schedule and a fiancée out of the same
family."
"Well, well! So Miss Hurd is going to marry Wilkinson! Well, she'll
acquire an ingenious and enterprising husband, at any rate. And what
does John M. say?"
"Not a great deal--he's quite laconic, as usual. But what little he
says is very much to the point. He says he had supposed a daughter of
his would have more sense. However, since she hasn't, he can merely
state that he withholds his consent to the match. Isabel's of age, and
if she chooses to marry Charlie she can do so, but without approval or
assistance from her father."
"Meaning," said Smith, "an unpleasant codicil in the paternal last will
and testament, providing that instead of a previous bequest, his
beloved daughter be paid two hundred dollars a month as long as she
lives. What does Wilkinson say to Mr. Hurd's attitude? One might
gather that it would make a certain difference with him, for, although
Miss Hurd is certainly very attractive, I somehow gained the general
impression that your friend Charlie had a very clear eye on the main
chance."
"Isabel doesn't seem a bit disturbed, for I think she anticipated her
father's point of view; and as for Charlie, seeing that his chief
source of income at present depends wholly on the favor of a man who is
angry enough to disinherit his daughter for wanting to marry him--well,
one would expect that Charlie would be depressed, or at least
thoughtful. But not at all. He's in the highest of spirits, and says
that the mere rumor that he is going to marry into the Hurd family will
establish a line of credit good enough to last ten years."
"But really--isn't the young man a bit mercurial?"
"Oh, awfully! To tell the truth, I was a little surprised when Isabel
took him, for under her society manner she's very sensible and
self-controlled. And yet Charlie's very attractive and amusing and
really clever at times, and she is just the kind of girl that ought to
take hold of him and tactfully make him amount to something. She'll be
the best thing in the world for him."
"I wonder why a man almost always falls in love either with a girl who
is just the sort or not at all the sort he should have selected. It's
always one or the other--never any middle course. I wonder what kind
of girl you would say was just the sort for me."
"One would have to know a man extremely well to venture a suggestion on
such a point, don't you think?" Miss Maitland parried.
"Perhaps," Smith agreed. "And after all, since I can't myself say
exactly what sort of girl would be most perfectly suited to my special
peculiarities, it would be a little unreasonable to expect any one else
to do so."
His companion gave a suppressed sigh of relief that a subject which
might have developed elements of high hazard seemed now to be avoided.
She was not quite sure what she thought of the man before her, but she
knew that he seemed strong and vital and sincere. From Mr. Osgood she
had learned that other people of considerable discrimination held a
like opinion.
It was quite strange. Superficially, introspection would have led her
to believe that she would have been attracted by some one nearer to her
own enthusiasms, her own breeding, her own ideals. This young man was
alien to her in birth, and his education had been along totally
different lines, and logically they should not have been in sympathy
one with the other, for he made her ideals seem somehow bloodless and
her enthusiasms sterile and hardly worth while. It was certainly
perplexing, for after three months in which she had not seen him, the
attraction he exercised upon her had not noticeably lessened. She
oddly felt that it would have been more considerate in Smith had he
reappeared a little weaker and less vivid than her remembrance of him.
Nevertheless she was distinctly glad to see him again. That was a fact
to be faced, and when, at parting, he inquired whether Boston would be
scandalized if he were to call again the following evening, since he
would probably have to leave on the next day, she found herself
impelled to yield so ready an assent that she felt swift need to
disguise it. Yet she gave him the answer he wished.
Next morning Smith's first visit was to Mr. Gunterson's discoveries.
Only one of the partners, Mr. Bloom, had reached the office at the time
the representative of the Guardian was announced, and it became
necessary to wait until Mr. Sternberg and Mr. McCoy arrived. This they
presently did, and a brief meeting took place in the same room in
which, three months before, this precious trio had signed a Guardian
contract with Samuel Gunterson. But the present interview was far less
meandering and much more to the point than its predecessor.
"Gentlemen," said Smith, "the jig is up. I've come here to close your
agency for the Guardian."
The three partners looked at him. Sternberg was first to recover the
power of speech.
"Why, Mr. Smith," he said unctuously, "you're acting very hasty! Do
you think this is fair and just to us? We haven't had enough of a
tryout to really count."
"And I bet you we're giving you fifty per cent more business than
Osgood did," Jake Bloom broke in. "Just because we've been a little
unfortunate right on the go-off on a few losses is no reason for
closing us up. You're making a mistake to leave us. Give us a year at
least--we'll make good for you."
"The losses you've got through this office is on business any company
would be glad to write," interposed McCoy. "Any company would take it
right over again."
"I'm sorry," responded the New Yorker; "but in accordance with the
conditions of our contract, either party can terminate it at any time,
and I consider it best to take this action for my company. I regret
that it is necessary, but there is no alternative. If it's a mistake,
we all have to make mistakes now and then, and I guess I'll choose this
for mine."
Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy regarded him in hostile silence.
"Furthermore," Smith continued, "the Guardian feels that it would
prefer to cancel all policies written through your agency. I hope that
this can be arranged without trouble to your firm."
Bloom laughed, and directed a stream of tobacco juice into a convenient
cuspidor.
"Sure it can, Mr. Smith," he said, "because this firm absolutely
declines to have nothing to do with it. If you want any policies
canceled, cancel 'em yourselves."
"Well," said Smith, "if we cancel all these policies we will
undoubtedly inconvenience the brokers that placed the business with
you, and they'll come back at you. Now I tell you what I'll do. If
you'll cancel these policies and replace the lines in one or more of
your other companies, I won't demand any return commission. By just
substituting other policies you can square yourselves with the brokers
and make a double commission besides. Isn't that fair?"
The three partners looked at one another inquiringly.
"That seems all right," Sternberg finally said. "But you're making a
mistake to leave us, Mr. Smith. I tell you that straight. No one else
can give you what we can."
Probably the last statement was absolutely true, but it did not alter
the New Yorker's decision.
"Well, we won't go into that," he said. "I shall expect our canceled
policies to come along as soon as you can get at them. Meanwhile,
please give me your commission of authority and unused policies
forty-one twenty-seven to forty-five hundred inclusive. You can send
back the rest of the supplies by express collect, or destroy them."
A few minutes later, Smith, with a large bundle under each arm, might
have been seen leaving the office of his late agents and making
straight for an express office from where he shipped the Guardian's
supplies back to New York. To Mr. Wintermuth he sent a telegram which
read concisely, "Closed Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy agency. Smith."
He then sought a telephone booth.
"Hello. Is this Mr. Silas Osgood? Yes, I'd like very much to see you.
That's very good of you to say so. Yes, last evening--I called for a
few minutes. Can't you take lunch with me at the Touraine? Good--in
about half an hour."
It was a very cordial meeting between the two, and when they sat down
to luncheon in a peaceful corner where their talk would be
uninterrupted, Mr. Osgood was more alert and cheerful than the veteran
underwriter had been since the bleak day when O'Connor and the Eastern
Conference moved on Boston; and as Smith went on, his companion's
manifest pleasure increased.
"So I think I am justified in saying that even if the courts do not
absolutely hold the separation feature illegal, they will come so close
to it that the Superintendent of Insurance will take a hand," Smith
said. "I'm mighty glad you didn't sell your interest in the agency,
for I believe that things are going to break our way, and when it's
possible for the Guardian to go back into the Osgood agency, I hope to
see Silas Osgood in command--opening the front door to let us in."
"I'll open the door to admit myself and the Guardian together--I'd
rather have it that way," the older man replied. "But I hope that this
can be accomplished before very long. I dislike idleness intensely.
When I was in the harness I often thought I had too much to do; but any
excess amount is better than nothing at all. How long do you suppose
all this will take? I expect to spend the summer in Europe--do you
suppose that it can be fought out within a year?"
"It's rather hard to say," the other responded. "There appears to be
no clear-cut law under which we can proceed directly, as we did in
Pennsylvania. I suppose you heard that the Attorney-General over there
had taken up our battle for us. Still, it ought not to take a year
here. Meanwhile my hands are rather tied here in Boston. I can't
appoint another agent, because it wouldn't be fair to close up his
agency and go over to Silas Osgood and Company when you were ready to
take us. Meanwhile the Guardian will be doing no business at all in
Boston, and I hate to be getting no premium income whatever out of the
town, but I guess I'll have to be patient. You haven't any one to
suggest, have you, that would give us exclusively a suburban business
so that he wouldn't interfere with your congested district lines when
we appointed you?"
Mr. Osgood reflected for a moment.
"That sounds like a difficult question to answer," he said; "but I
believe I know such a man. There is a very live young fellow named
Greenwood who has a nice business out toward Dorchester mostly. He's a
sort of protégé of mine, and if I had remained in the agency I think I
should have offered him a junior partnership. He doesn't represent any
company except as a sub-agent. If you appointed him, his risks
wouldn't conflict at all with ours later on. Perhaps, even, I might
carry out my original intention toward him."
"An excellent idea," Smith said. "When do you suppose we could go and
see this Mr. Greenwood?"
"I think," said Silas Osgood, with a smile, "that we could go this
afternoon."