"I presume you would like my decision, Mr. O'Connor," he said, in a low voice.

"Why, yes--as soon as convenient--the sooner the better," the other man replied easily.

"Well, then, I will give it to you now," said the Bostonian. "Mr.

O'Connor, I am an old man; I have lived in this city for nearly seventy years, and during those years I do not think I ever made a bargain which I would have been ashamed for the world to have seen. I am too old to begin to be either disloyal or dishonest now--for I do not see what else you can call what you have proposed but disloyalty to my friend Mr. Wintermuth and his company and dishonesty to my a.s.sociates in the Boston Board. If I thought you intended to insult me, I would ask you to leave my office, but I do not think you intended your proposal as an insult, for I do not believe that by your own code you are doing anything which that code would condemn."

His visitor started to voice a protest, but the other man stopped him.

"Let me finish," he said. "I have known your former chief, Mr.

Wintermuth, considerably more than half my lifetime. When I resign the Boston agency of the Guardian, it will be either at his request or because my day in the insurance world is over and I can no longer give the company a sufficient business. That is all. And now, Mr.

O'Connor, I do not ask you to leave my office, but I hope you will never come into it again so long as I am here."

The President of the Salamander got to his feet, and his eyes narrowed.

"All right, Mr. Osgood," he said. "Don't worry--I won't stay where I'm not wanted. But my offer was made in good faith, it would have been advantageous to your firm, and I'm sorry you turned it down. I wanted to give you a chance, in a way that I admit would have been a good thing for me, to keep your own office organization intact--for the impression seems to be gaining ground that the Boston Board will pa.s.s a separation rule, and in that event you will have to give up the Guardian agency, anyway."

The Bostonian turned back to his desk.

"That is too remote a contingency for me to discuss with you," he replied, somewhat curtly. "Good-day, sir."

"Good-day, Mr. Osgood," said F. Mills O'Connor. He paused at the threshold. "I don't believe you've heard the last of this yet," he remarked, as he closed the door behind him.

It is a common saying with regard to any especially clever criminal: what a great man he would have made of himself if only he would have applied all this cleverness to legitimate ends! This is probably untrue in nine cases out of every ten, and perhaps in even a larger ratio, for the successful crook is successful only along crooked lines; his mind will work only in forbidden channels; it needs the spice and flavor of the illicit to stimulate its brilliancy. Let him address himself to a legitimate problem, ethical or commercial, and his efficiency evaporates--or rather it is non-existent.

Although not a criminal, F. Mills O'Connor was, to a limited degree, a demonstration of this fact. Mr. O'Connor had been competent but never particularly clever along strictly legitimate lines; it was always and only along ways just a little devious, a little tricky, a little sophistical, that his ac.u.men mounted above the ordinary. His greatest successes with the Guardian had always been gained by methods which had been kept secret from his chief, for Mr. Wintermuth's keen sense of business honor would have prevented the fruition of every one.

He was now in the right company. The Salamander took its key from its leading director, and Mr. Murch's code of ethics briefly consisted of a belief that it was advisable to "stay inside the law"--unless he were absolutely certain that transgression would be undiscoverable or unpenalized. Into this scheme of things Mr. O'Connor fitted like water in a skin. Hence one need not have been astonished, half an hour later, had he overheard one end of a conversation conducted from Mr.

Bennington Cole's private phone in the office of Silas Osgood and Company.

"Yes--this is Mr. Cole."

"Yes--I know who is speaking."

"Yes--I presume I could come over. Young's Hotel, did you say?"

"I understand. Room forty-three. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

In twenty minutes room forty-three saw Mr. Cole being suavely greeted by Mr. O'Connor, and then it proceeded to furnish the scene for a little drama of business intrigue that would have been very interesting to an audience of law-abiding Conference companies who believed in living up to their pledges.

In the course of this undivulged conversation it developed that Mr.

O'Connor was satisfied with what had just gone before; that Mr. Osgood had done exactly what both O'Connor and Cole had expected he would do, making it possible for Cole, by the proper playing of his cards, to succeed almost immediately to the management of the Osgood agency, and that aided thereto by the fact that the scrupulous Mr. Osgood would doubtless hesitate to interfere in any way with any act of his successor, the fuse was all laid for the introduction of the Salamander into the Osgood office by means of the pa.s.sage of a separation rule in Boston at the very next meeting of the local board. The interview must have been a satisfactory one, for Cole's step, as he walked back to Kilby Street, was buoyant, and Mr. O'Connor bore himself as a deeply satisfied man.

Among the local agents in Boston there had never been any marked sentiment either for or against the adoption of a separation scheme.

Some of the agents believed in it and some did not; but as most of the princ.i.p.al offices represented, with a few unimportant exceptions, only Conference companies, it had never been really a vital issue up to the time Mr. O'Connor came to Boston for the Salamander. By what means he contrived to bring the agents into line will never be known.

Undoubtedly the time was precisely ripe, and he had the very influential cooperation of many of the strongest Conference companies.

At all events, however he went to work, that way proved efficacious.

The pa.s.sage of the rule through the Board was a.s.sured. After its vote on the coming Wednesday, no agent in Boston representing a Conference company could, at the expiration of thirty days, continue to represent an outsider.

The effect that such a rule would have on the local interests of the Guardian was at once apparent. Representing, as the Osgood office did, a number of Conference companies, three of which it had represented almost as long as the Guardian, Mr. Osgood would have no practical choice. It was a case of one against the rest--and naturally the one would fall. Of all this, however, Mr. Osgood himself knew nothing as yet, save for the vague menace conveyed by O'Connor's valedictory address. Of this also the Boston insurance fraternity at large knew almost nothing, for the matter was to be jammed through the Board, and those behind it were sworn to secrecy.

Outside the inner ring who were back of the move, only one man in Boston caught wind of the matter which now only waited the coming of Wednesday to take its place among the rules of the Boston Board. This man was Mr. Francis Hancher of the Boston _Index_, the most alert insurance-news gatherer of New England. If anything of moment went on in the insurance world that centers in Boston, without coming under the attention of the inquisitive Mr. Hancher, it had to wear felt slippers and move about only at night. He had as unerring an instinct for insurance news as any ward boss for graft, and he was a man of humanity and bonhomie besides. Into his ears came the first faint rumors of things astir, and he began to work on the almost impalpable scent.

Silently he worked, craftily, without arousing suspicion in the minds of those he questioned. Bit by bit, fragment by fragment, he gathered the makings of a Story, until at last, on the Sat.u.r.day morning before the fateful Wednesday, he happened into the office of Silas Osgood and gained the last link in his chain.

"What's new?" was his greeting to Mr. Osgood.

"Could there be anything new that you do not know?" replied the other, with a smile.

"I see O'Connor's in town," said Hancher, abruptly, and his interest quickened when he saw the sudden change of Mr. Osgood's expression.

"You've seen him, I suppose?" the journalist pursued nonchalantly.

"Yes," Mr. Osgood rather stiffly admitted.

Mr. Hancher took a sudden resolution. He drew up his chair a little closer, and leaned forward.

"I think you'd better tell me what he's here for--all you know about it," he said bluntly. "You know me--I won't use what you tell me unless I have your permission. And I've got an idea that you ought to know what's going on."

"I would very greatly prefer that it should not become common knowledge," Mr. Osgood replied with some hesitation; "but I may tell you, Mr. Hancher, that Mr. O'Connor came to see me with a proposal that we take the agency of the Salamander and turn over the Guardian's business to them. I told him--were you going to say anything?"

"No. That's it, then. Go on--what did you tell him?"

"I told him no. I didn't care to consider the matter," said the older man, simply.

"Mr. Osgood," said the other, "you've given me what I need to make what I suspected stand on a solid bottom. I can see the motive now for what's being done. It's the fact that O'Connor wants the Guardian's business. Now, I want to tell you something--or rather ask you something. Do you think your refusal to consider his proposition closed up the whole business completely?"

"Well, no," Mr. Osgood replied; "I suppose not. In fact, when he left, he rather intimated that I might look for further developments."

"That was temper," Hancher commented judicially. "Not good judgment, at all. Ordinarily he'd never have said such a thing. But he meant it, all right--you can believe that. If he can't get the Guardian business one way, he'll try it another. And the second way he has chosen is this--after the meeting of the Boston Board next Wednesday you will be obliged to choose between resigning either the Guardian or all your other companies."

"You mean that a separation rule will be put through?" Mr. Osgood inquired quickly.

"Surest thing you know," the journalist declared. "That is, unless somebody puts a little sand on the slide pretty all-fired soon. I say, Mr. Osgood,--I'm a non-combatant, but I like to see fair play,--why don't you write the Guardian people?--or wire them? I think this is something your friend Wintermuth ought to know."

Mr. Osgood reached toward the b.u.t.ton that summoned his stenographer, and then drew back his hand.

"No," he said slowly. "What's the use? If it's decided, I can't stop it. And I fancy the best of my fighting days are over. That's for the younger men to do. I'll talk to Cole about it, and see what he thinks we'd better do."

The journalist glanced at him somewhat skeptically.

"Well, you needn't fight, yourself--let the Guardian people attend to that. And if you take my advice, you'll write Wintermuth. Good-by."

Mr. Osgood wrote, and on Monday morning his letter came to the hand of Mr. Wintermuth, whose eye brightened at the sight of his friend's signature. But there was no pleasure in his tone when a moment later he sent for Mr. Gunterson.

"Look here," he said, "I'm afraid these Eastern Conference people mean trouble. We've been a.s.suming that the excepted cities were safe--nothing could happen there. Well, I don't believe they're as safe as we thought. Read what Osgood says about Boston. Boston! where we've got as fine a business as any company of our size in the field.

Look at that!"

With a dignified reticence Mr. Gunterson took the letter, and in a rich silence he perused it. Then, with a calm smile, he gave his decision.

"Mr. Osgood's evident alarm may be well founded--perhaps not. But at all events, I believe our interests at Boston should be protected by some one of authority, and I shall go up myself on the five o'clock this afternoon."