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 a.s.sent 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 subst.i.tuting 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.

"h.e.l.lo. 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 protege 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."

CHAPTER XVII

Mr. James Wintermuth had just finished a luncheon of such unusual proportions that evidently it had attracted the respectful attention of the Down Town a.s.sociation's waiter who usually served him, and who of late had grown almost to despair of being able ever again to bring his client anything more substantial than a half portion of crab-flake salad.

"Nice day, sir," the waiter suggestively remarked, as if Mr.

Wintermuth's appet.i.te were in some curious way governed wholly by the vagaries of the weather.

"Yes," agreed his patron, with almost a touch of embarra.s.sment; "a very nice day, indeed."

Mr. Wintermuth was feeling uncommonly cheerful, and the cause of it was quite largely the oblong yellow missive then reposing on his desk. He knew he would have to wait a day or two before he could learn the details of Smith's doings in Boston, but it was at least a relief to feel that some decisive action was being taken.

When, two days later, Smith returned, his report seemed eminently satisfactory to his chief.

"I'm not a lawyer, so I can't tell you exactly what kind of court proceedings will have to be brought," he said; "but so far as I can make out it's a sort of action for conspiracy against the companies belonging to the Eastern Conference, joining them all as defendants.

The Insurance Commissioner of Ma.s.sachusetts comes in, too, in some way, and I believe that under the state law as recently amended we will finally win out."

"Finally!" said the President. "That sounds rather remote. How long do you expect it will take? Protracted litigation is both expensive and unsatisfactory."

"Oh, it won't cost us anything; the Insurance Commissioner nominally brings the suit, as I understand it, and I'm sure it won't take more than a year. But in the meantime I feel positive that we will suffer no further annoyance or injury in New England. We've already lost about all the agents that could be shaken loose, and with this suit pending I fancy the Conference will go very slow before forcing the issue further--for fear of civil actions for damages from all the non-Conference companies if we win our conspiracy case."

"That sounds reasonable."

"It is. So I really think we need not worry much about New England for a while. I fancy I managed to stiffen up the backbone of Crowell, who's a first-cla.s.s field man, and I'm going to circularize the local agents, telling them the facts."

Mr. Wintermuth looked at Smith thoughtfully.

"All right, Richard; go ahead," he said. "I am quite content to leave it in your hands."

"Now for New York," pursued Smith, inclining his head in acknowledgment of his superior's commendation. "In New York State we shall have to accomplish our purpose mainly by means of bluffing, to put it plainly, for I can't find any law that covers the point; but perhaps we won't need a law. Mr. Ferguson, the Superintendent of Insurance, is, as you know, not unalterably opposed to being nominated for Governor this fall. He has listened before now to the siren voice, and Albany seems very attractive to him. And this is an anti-combination year. I don't think he'll need much persuasion to be convinced that much credit and capital will be gained by a spirited attack on something that more than faintly resembles a trust."

"That correctly describes the Eastern Conference, in its present activities," said Mr. Wintermuth. "But what do you expect Mr. Ferguson to do?"

"Oh, I haven't any idea," said his subordinate, with a smile. "He hasn't any law on his side; but as you are aware, his office carries with it very arbitrary and radical powers, and if he thinks that he can climb into the Governor's chair over the prostrate body of the Eastern Conference, he'll find some excuse to sandbag it and make it a stepping stone. He'll do something all right, or I miss my guess."

"Probably you are right, Richard."