"Give the boy a few years' time. I say, hire an underwriter outside."

The President turned to face the table.

"I take it, then, that it is the wish of the Board that the company's rule regarding office promotions be waived in this instance. But we must remember--as I have always maintained--that it has a discouraging effect on loyalty and ambition, to import material to fill important places. However, it is for you gentlemen to decide."

"Have you thought of anyone for the position?" inquired one.

"Not seriously," responded the President. "I have scarcely had time.

There are of course plenty of men we might get, but I have really not felt like considering the question of their relative desirability before submitting the matter to you."

"I heard a speech last week," said Mr. Griswold, "by some man who wanted to reduce the fire waste of the whole country. It was delivered before the Chamber of Commerce in Plainfield, New Jersey, where I live--I occasionally attend their meetings. He's got something to do with a Chicago company. I think his name is Lyon. He impressed me as being a clever talker. Do you know anything about him?"

"Oh, yes," replied Mr. Wintermuth, with a smile. "You mean Charles Lyon. He is President of the Liberty Fire--quite a new company. He _is_ a clever talker--they say he can talk a bird out of a tree. To have organized the Liberty and gotten it started with real cash paid in was a distinct personal achievement. But I'm afraid he's a better promoter than an underwriter; the Liberty has been losing money at an astonishing rate ever since it actually commenced to write business.

If he succeeds in cutting the fire waste of the country in two, his own company may survive and may even share in the benefits, although probably not to a disproportionate extent. But I'm afraid he's too much of a philanthropist--a little too unselfish for us. We want an underwriter, not a philanthropist--some one more interested in keeping down the losses of the Guardian Fire Insurance Company than those of the United States of America. And I imagine that Lyon at present would stick to the Liberty anyway, although I fancy he will be open for a new position before very long."

"Well, I move that the President be empowered to hunt up the most likely candidate he can find for Mr. O'Connor's position," said Mr.

Whitehill, and the motion was carried. An adjournment was taken for a week, or until such time as Mr. Wintermuth should have a candidate ready for consideration.

There was one decided drawback to the successful accomplishment of the task to which Mr. Wintermuth now addressed himself. This was the fact that the Guardian was not disposed to pay exorbitantly for an underwriting head. It was willing to pay a reasonable salary, but it was not a corporation of unlimited resources or gigantic income, and the expense ratio had perforce to be considered. Plenty of men whose names occurred to the President would have been competent and in every way eligible, but they were men of recognized standing in the profession, and already occupied positions of trust. It is not often that highly capable men are open to change without unusual inducement, and Mr. Wintermuth, scanning the ranks of possibilities, found them dishearteningly scanty. All the men he wanted, he knew perfectly well could not be detached from their present allegiances, and the men who were detachable he didn't want. Moreover, it had been a good many years since Mr. Wintermuth had been actively at work in the field. The men with whose character and ability he was most familiar were too advanced in age; the younger generation he did not know.

Virgil and several others of the early cla.s.sic authors have commented upon the surprising swiftness with which common rumor travels. If its speed was provocative of comment in those bygone days, which lacked most of the accelerating features now found on every hand, it should certainly fare far faster at the present time. At any rate, no tidings ever spread through the subliminal Chinese empire, warning of Magyar hordes beyond the Wall, with greater celerity than the news of Mr.

Wintermuth's quest through the insurance world. The waves of it rolled echoing from office to office, from special agent to special agent, from city to city.

Like vultures out of an empty sky came the effects. Circ.u.mspect as Mr.

Wintermuth had been, keeping the object of his search as secret as might be, it was not more than four days before he was driven ruefully to reflect that he might just as well have put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper. Apparently everybody in the insurance world, including especially the insurance editor of the paper in which he did not advertise, knew he had decided to go outside his own office for a managing underwriter; and apparently every person within reach had some one--usually himself--to recommend for the position. Mr. Wintermuth finally found it necessary to deny himself to aspiring applicants who besieged his office, and went out on a still hunt in the lanes and byways where he was less likely to meet people with axes to grind. It was on one of these excursions, in a most natural and unpremeditated manner, that he found himself confronted by Mr. Samuel Gunterson.

Mr. Gunterson had, it was true, been suggested as a possibility, but through an outside source which Mr. Wintermuth felt sure was most unlikely to have been stimulated to the suggestion by the person most interested. The President was in a mood of despondency, incidental to the painful discovery of how frail a tissue of truth most of the recommendations of his applicants' supporters usually possessed. He had spent four days investigating the records of men whose names, enthusiastically presented to him, proved to be the only commendable thing about them. Now, after this discouraging experience, he hailed the prospect of independent selection with relief. It was with much lightened depression that he recognized that Mr. Gunterson was not--actively, at least--endeavoring to secure for himself the Guardian appointment, but seemed, on the contrary, quite well contented in his present position, and Mr. Wintermuth settled down to overtures with almost his customary cheerfulness.

Mr. Samuel Gunterson was, at this period of his highly variegated underwriting career, some forty-six years of age. A life whose private character no journal had as yet been tempted to divulge had left no trace upon the impa.s.sive contour of his face nor on the somber dignity of his bearing. He was of middle height, and somewhat stout, his hair was iron-gray, and he carried himself with a sort of restrained or reflective optimism, as though he forced himself to be cheerful and companionable at the cost of untold anguish to an inner ego that no one knew. It was an effective carriage, and few people attempted to take liberties with its possessor.

During his experience in the fire insurance business Mr. Gunterson had contrived to become connected with and separated from more different concerns than could be readily computed. He had averaged somewhat better than one change bi-yearly, and the history of his peregrinations could never have been written, for no one but himself could have furnished the necessary material, and on all matters concerning himself Mr. Gunterson was as cryptic as were the Delphic oracles of old. He chose to consider himself a victim of an astonishing series of circ.u.mstances, and in a certain sense this was true, although the circ.u.mstances were largely of his own creation. Good companies and bad, established concerns and promoters' flotations, auspicious ventures and forlorn hopes--he had been a.s.sociated with them all, and from each one he emerged with untroubled calm while the unhappy machine, its steering gear usually crippled by his hand alone, went plunging downhill over the cliff into the soundless waters of oblivion.

Mr. Gunterson had been either President or underwriting manager of the Eureka Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, whose demise scarcely surprised those who were aware that its remarkable popularity with its agents was mainly due to the willingness with which it accepted their bad business in almost unlimited quant.i.ties; of the Florida Fire and Marine, whose annual premium income of about eight times the amount warranted by its resources attracted the thoughtful attention, although scarcely the respect, of some of the leading underwriters in New York; of the United of Omaha, whose heavy investment in the bonds of a subsequently exploded copper company promoted by Mr. Gunterson's brother-in-law precipitated its insolvency even before its underwriting losses could overtake it; of the Planters of Oklahoma, which the Insurance Commissioner of Ma.s.sachusetts one day examined with the interesting discovery that its liabilities were nearly three times its a.s.sets; and of the Const.i.tution Fire of Washington, D.C., which ceased to issue policies by request of the United States Government. From each of these unfortunate endeavors Mr. Gunterson had emerged with unblemished reputation, and even enhanced gravity and authority due to his wider experience, and with his air of slightly melancholy urbanity diminished not at all.

Four years prior to the time when fate led Mr. Wintermuth to his door, he had been the nerve if not the brains of the general agency of Hill and Daggett of William Street, representing in an extensive territory a fleet of some seven small companies with more sporting spirit than a.s.sets, and his astute helmsmanship had resulted in running all seven soundly and irrevocably upon the rocks. From the wreck he emerged, in the first lifeboat to leave, with his broad white brow as untroubled and serene as ever. The collapse, however, left him without visible means of support, so he took a short trip abroad, returning in a month or two as the American manager of a large German company which was just entering the United States.

It is doubtful by what, if any, method these Continental-European companies select their representatives in this country. Ability and probity seem to be regarded lightly--as scarcely worth careful investigation. But no well-known man whose lack of success has left unimpaired his fluency of speech need despair. So long as new foreign companies continue to establish American branches and appoint managers, any amiable detrimental with sufficient verbosity may secure for himself a comfortable berth. Mr. Gunterson had now for almost two years been in charge of the United States business of the Elsa.s.s-Lothringen on a loss ratio so surprisingly satisfactory that he himself was absolutely at a loss to explain it. For the first time in a considerable period he felt himself to be in a strong strategic position, and he received Mr. Wintermuth in what only his extreme courtesy prevented from being an offhand manner. It was obvious that he had no intention nor desire to meet any one halfway.

Now Mr. Wintermuth had always held that a man too anxious to change his affiliations was no proper man for the Guardian, and this indifference of Mr. Gunterson pleased him. It further developed that Mr. Gunterson had at last, in the Elsa.s.s-Lothringen, found almost what he had always been seeking; his company gave him an entirely free hand,--a highly desirable thing for an underwriting manager,--and he did not know whether he should ever care about looking for anything else. At the psychological moment he nonchalantly displayed to Mr. Wintermuth's interested gaze his twenty-two per cent loss ratio for the Elsa.s.s-Lothringen, but in the next breath, recalling a few recent preliminary tremors unpleasantly suggestive of other catastrophes through which he had pa.s.sed, and not to overlook a link in his entangling chain, he stated that after all, though, he was an American, and intimated that as such he sometimes felt he would a little rather devote himself to the interests of an American underwriting inst.i.tution. Only occasionally did he have this feeling--still, it was there, and he must needs admit it.

Such was the man to whom Mr. Wintermuth had come, and to whom he ultimately extended an invitation to present himself for the consideration of the Guardian's directorate. And Mr. Gunterson, uneasily suspecting that the structure of the German inst.i.tution might at any moment collapse at some quite unexpected point, and calculating that he might secure the managerial berth for his equally inefficient brother-in-law, and thus keep the salary in the family, cautiously accepted the invitation. So this was the man who, a few days later, faced the full board, who with affable confidence in his own abilities won over even the somewhat skeptical Whitehill, and who was, on the ninth day of December, 1912, elected Vice-President and underwriting manager of the Guardian Fire Insurance Company of New York.

He guaranteed to free himself from his Teutonic engagements and alliances in time to join the Guardian by the first of January. Suave and profound, with his grave glance suggesting unutterable depth, he bowed himself out of the presence of Mr. Wintermuth and the other directors. And the ruminative elevator carried to the street level the best satisfied man in New York.

At once the appointment was made public, and newspapers and individuals alike refrained from expressing what the better informed among them feared and expected. Mr. Wintermuth heard nothing on every hand but flattering comments on his own ac.u.men, and praises of the sterling qualities and experience of his new appointee. In fact, the insurance press as a whole spoke of Mr. Gunterson almost as kindly as though he had died, and it was--unofficially--understood that Mr. O'Connor realized that he had made a great mistake. Mr. O'Connor, however, having with considerable satisfaction moved into the Salamander's big room with "President" in bra.s.s letters on the door, ably restrained any irritation he may have felt. Privately he a.s.sured Mr. Murch that things could not have turned out better if he had ordered them himself.

"Gunterson is the very man for our purposes," he said. "He's a stuffed shirt if there ever was one. I couldn't have made a better appointment--for us--myself. We can bleed the Guardian of every desirable agent they've got, and he won't know how to stop us."

And Mr. Murch, smiling, suggested that the bleeding begin as soon as possible.

In the Guardian itself, opinion was divided. No one in the office knew much, if anything, about the new underwriter, and most of the men were inclined, in view of Mr. Wintermuth's recommendation, to take him at his own a.s.sessed valuation. But not so Wagstaff, and not so Smith.

Wagstaff because it hung in his memory how, many years before, this same Gunterson had by rather questionable methods worsted him in a transaction affecting a schedule of cotton compresses in Georgia; Smith because he believed Mr. Gunterson to be a fraud of such monumental proportions that he deserved a place among the storied charlatans of the world.

His company and its reputation being more to Smith than almost anything else, he felt this thing very nearly in the light of a tragedy.

Gloomily regarding the prospect, all he could see ahead was trouble and disgrace. And he knew that his own hands were tied. He was of course only an employee of the company, which could select as officers whom it chose, and any protest from him would very properly be disregarded--and worse than that, he would naturally and inevitably be suspected of speaking once for the company and twice for himself.

It was a rather troubled face that in spite of himself he presented in Washington Square North an evening or two after that eventful ninth of December.

"What is the matter with you? You look too discouraged for words,"

Helen told him, when the conversation was barely begun.

"Do I show it as plainly as that?" he replied, somewhat ruefully.

"Well, I'll admit that, funereal as I may look, it's not a circ.u.mstance to the way I feel. That's partly why I came here--to see you and be cheered up."

Somewhere down in the still, chill Boston archives of Miss Maitland's supposedly well-schooled emotions a little quiver awoke and stirred.

This was quite without warrant or suggestion from the girl herself, and she strove to convince herself that no stir had been felt.

Unfortunately, however, she had received that day a letter from her mother bringing her to a decision which she must now convey to the man before her, and she felt a flash of almost reckless curiosity to see how he would receive it.

"If I were a horrible egotist," she said lightly, "I should think that a little part of your depression came from antic.i.p.ating that I was going to tell you I am going back home next week."

Smith looked at her in silence. He looked at her until she felt the pause and broke again into speech.

"You see, I have to get back to be with mother at Christmas, and there are a lot of things to do before then--" she began, but he interrupted her.

"I said I came here to be cheered up--and that is what you tell me!" he said. "I came up here half hoping to be soothed back into my customary optimism--and this is what I get! This is certainly an accursed month in an accursed year!"

It occurred to Helen that, regarding the matter strictly from a standpoint of gallantry, the year wherein a young man met her and successfully won her friendship should not properly be termed in all ways and wholly accursed. She scarcely felt like pointing this out, however; and the compliment of Smith's real concern at her departure would compensate for a little gaucherie of expression. As though he had read her thought, Smith spoke again, this time with all trace of the sardonic gone from his tone.

"I beg your pardon--I didn't mean that," he said. "It has been a fine year. I won't revile it just because it ends with a double catastrophe. How soon do you expect to leave?"

"The end of next week, I think," the girl answered. There was an expression in his eyes which she did not quite understand, and therefore distrusted; and she hurriedly turned the conversation into another channel.

"If you flatter me by regarding my departure as one catastrophe, what is the other?" she asked. "What has happened? Is it something to do with O'Connor?"

"Well, it's all part of the same thing, I suppose," he said. "I had almost forgotten O'Connor, though, since Gunterson drove him out of my head."

"Who or what is Gunterson, please?"

Smith told her.

"If O'Connor can get the Eastern Conference to put through a separation rule now, we're absolutely helpless," he concluded. "Gunterson wouldn't have the vaguest idea of what to do--and wouldn't let any one else tell him. I can pretty nearly see the Guardian, under Samuel Gunterson's suicidal direction, setting sail with all flags flying, and heading straight for the bottom of the sea."

Helen could think of nothing to say.

"And you are leaving for Boston!" Smith added. "Well, it looks to me as though I might be out of a job before long, and perhaps I'll come up to Boston and strike your Uncle Silas for one. I think Mr. Osgood always rather liked me. And Boston's a pretty good town--or will be after next week."

He spoke a little bitterly, for it seemed that the possibility he mentioned was perhaps not so remote, after all. Even if the Guardian survived the staggering load of its Vice-President, he felt that he could not serve very long under such a man as Gunterson. And if such a thing should come to pa.s.s, he would be in no position to hope as he was now hoping, or to dream as he was now dreaming. Yet, after all, no wall that was ever built can shut out dreams.