"Well, we've lost O'Brien," he said.

"What's that?" demanded the other. "Lost O'Brien? What do you mean?

Not O'Brien of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street?"

"That's the man. The best branch manager we ever had--the man we kept when the Exchange made us close all our branch offices but one. Well, he's thrown us."

"Thrown us! O'Brien? Why, he's been with us for fifteen years! Tell me about this at once, sir."

"There's nothing to tell, or nothing much," replied the local secretary, bitterly. "The business he's been giving us has been dropping off,--we haven't got a new risk out of him in a month and we've been losing a lot of our renewals,--and yesterday Charlie saw his placer going into the Salamander office with a bundle of binders."

"The Salamander? O'Connor!"

"Yes, sir, O'Connor. So to-day I went around to the restaurant where he eats when he comes down town. He was there."

"O'Brien, you mean? Well, what did he say?"

"He said," replied Cuyler, slowly, "that he had no complaint to make of the way we'd treated him, but that the Salamander was offering him facilities which we didn't offer him, and he felt obliged to do something for them."

"He means they're paying him excess brokerage or something of that sort," said Mr. Wintermuth, acidly.

"Yes, I suppose so, but of course that's a thing you can't say unless you're in a position to prove it. Anyhow, he's gone--and about twenty thousand dollars worth of preferred business with a thirty per cent loss ratio for ten years has gone with him."

The President rose and walked up and down his office. This was bringing the fight to his very door, with a vengeance.

"What can we do about it?" he said, stopping in front of Cuyler and fixing on that dismayed person a vaguely furious gaze.

"I don't know. I suppose we'll have to hunt around and dig up another branch manager in O'Brien's place. It'll take a lot of hunting, though. You don't pick up a business like that every day in the week."

The President could make no better suggestion, and in this instance he did not call the Vice-President into conference.

"Do the best you can, then," he said shortly; "and let me know how you're getting along."

Mr. Cuyler descended gloomily to his proper milieu, and took up the task of finding a branch office manager to replace the recreant O'Brien. But agents like O'Brien were few, and most of the best of them had their own old-established connections with other companies.

Again, the Guardian's reputation for conservatism made Cuyler's task the harder. One or two, after considering the matter, were frightened away by their dread lest the Guardian accept nothing but their more desirable risks, making it all the more difficult for them to place those that were not so desirable. The Guardian's local secretary had as wide an acquaintance as any man on the Street, but he found himself confronted by an exceedingly difficult problem.

Meanwhile a branch manager must be secured. The company's local income was dropping behind in a way that had not happened within the memory of man. In this state of affairs it was not long before Cuyler again sought Mr. Wintermuth, and this time the advice of Mr. Gunterson was solicited.

It had been nearly a week since Mr. Gunterson had been impaled upon any very serious dilemma, and in this interval he had regained much of his shaken confidence, so that he addressed himself to the solution of Mr.

Cuyler's difficulties with much of his pristine a.s.surance.

"Why not get Joe Darkner? He's got a fine cla.s.s of business and a lot of it," he suggested at once.

"Yes, but he's sewed up body and soul with the National of Norway,"

Cuyler responded shortly.

"Well, what's the matter with Hart and Leith?"

"Nothing but East Side stuff. Besides, they're dead ones--won't last out the year," replied the local underwriter, somewhat impatiently. As though he had not canva.s.sed such obvious possibilities as these!

"Why not try Schermerhorn and Snow?" was Mr. Gunterson's next suggestion.

The President broke into the discussion.

"They've been uptown managers of the Inland for twenty years. And Snow is a big stockholder in the company. We would be wasting our time to approach them."

There was a hint of contempt in his tone. A man who volunteered helpful advice about a difficult situation without being in possession of the most rudimentary information bearing on it was hardly worthy of serious attention. Perhaps the keen ear of the Vice-President detected this, for he flushed slightly, and was silent for a moment.

"I'll give the matter my attention," he said rea.s.suringly to Cuyler.

"I'm a little out of touch with local affairs, but I know plenty of first-rate uptown brokers, and I guess I can locate us to good advantage. I'll see you about it later."

And he made his majestic exit.

The matter being now under his august advis.e.m.e.nt, it might have been supposed that relief was in sight and a new and desirable connection as good as made. But in less than a week from the time of this conversation Mr. Cuyler again sought the President, and the expression of his face could not have been misinterpreted.

"Well, what's the matter now?" Mr. Wintermuth inquired, as the local underwriter seated himself.

"Who do you think is gone now?" said Cuyler, abruptly.

"Who?" demanded his superior officer.

"Jenkinson--and Hammond, Dow, and Company."

"Gone!" repeated the President, slowly. The brokers in question were known to be on the most friendly terms with the company, and it was generally supposed that the first choice of most of their business went to the Guardian. "Gone! What do you mean? Nothing has happened to either of those people! What are you talking of?"

"I mean they're gone, so far as the Guardian is concerned. We've taken as much as ten thousand a year from each of those offices. And now O'Connor's got them."

The President looked at him in silence.

"I knew something was the matter, and to-day I saw O'Connor and Jenkinson at lunch, laughing and talking as familiar as though they'd been friends for years. It's no use, sir--he's going after every really good broker that we've got attached to us."

"But the Salamander can't take care of all their business. Why, those two firms must do business with nearly every office on the Street, anyway."

"The Salamander will take all the best of the business we get now, or most of it, and help them out, I suppose, on a lot of tough risks that I've never been willing to write. O'Connor's a plunger, you know, when he's got a gambling company back of him. It looks to me as if we'd only get what he left--targets, and big lines where Jenkinson and Hammond Dow have enough to go round."

Mr. Cuyler's oldest friend had never seen him more troubled than at this moment. So deep, in fact, was his gloom that the President put aside his own concern to try to rea.s.sure his old counterman. In this he succeeded not at all; Mr. Cuyler's dejection was settled.

"What about a branch manager in place of O'Brien?" inquired Mr.

Wintermuth at length, thinking at least to change the subject, and hoping to touch a brighter theme. Mr. Cuyler's face darkened still further, if such a thing were possible.

"Nothing doing," he said inelegantly but comprehensively.

"Hasn't Mr. Gunterson--?" the President began, but he stopped short.

"What's that?" he asked sharply. "What were you going to say?"

"I guess I'd better not say it," responded the local underwriter with deliberation.

"Go ahead," said his chief.