White Ashes. Sidney R. Kennedy
seeing Mr. Osgood's look fixed for a moment on the parchment above his head, said inquiringly, "How long is it that you have represented the Guardian in Boston?"
The older man smiled reflectively and turned his eyeglass in his hand as he spoke.
"It was the year after the big fire when I first took the Guardian into my office. You are a close enough student of the game to know that that was just about forty years ago."
Smith nodded.
"Before Richard Smith was born. But I remember the date. Who appointed you as agent?"
Mr. Osgood pointed to the scrawl at the foot of the framed commission.
"My old friend, James Wintermuth," he said. He paused a moment. "I can almost see him now as he looked when he came to call on me—in the old office farther down the street. Tall and quick-tempered, and you can imagine how strong in the fingers he was in those days! I recall I used to keep my glove on when I shook hands with him. He was a fine young chap, was James. Perhaps a little too hasty for us conservative New Englanders, but—" He broke off, a half-smile on his lips.
Smith remained silent.
"It's a fault you young New Yorkers are apt to have," the Bostonian presently went on. "Most of you are a trifle aggressive for us over here—just a bit radical."
The other laughed good-naturedly.
"I myself should say that my honored chief had lived down his radicalism long ago. It's lucky for Silas Osgood and Company that there is a little of it left somewhere in the company, for the President convalesced from his attack of radicalism in eighteen eighty-five or thereabouts and has never been threatened with a relapse or a recurrence. You may criticize us, sir, but you will have to admit that unless there was a little radicalism in my own department, the Guardian would never have accepted the lines and the liability in this down-town district that you have sent us and are sending us now. I hope I'm conservative enough, but with all due respect to Mr. Wintermuth, what he calls conservatism often strikes me as dry rot."
He stopped, laughing again.
"This is not an explosive protest," he said. "It is merely the result of having traveled on the conservative Boston and Manhattan, which would turn a phlegmatic Pennsylvania Dutchman into a Nihilist."
Then both men laughed together, and turned their attention to the business before them, Mr. Osgood's pale silver head close beside Smith's brown one.
In the outer office typewriters clicked, clients hung over desks, and the traffic of a busy morning proceeded. It was just about twelve o'clock when the clerks nearest the door stopped their work for a brief minute to look up and smile, for Charles Wilkinson, whenever he came to that office, timed his arrival with a skill that was perfectly understood by all. Mr. Wilkinson beamed blandly over the map counter, and still more blandly inquired whether Mr. Bennington Cole was in. Mr. Cole was, it appeared, at his desk, and Mr. Wilkinson required no one to show him the way.
"Hello, Benny," he said cheerfully. "You hardly expected to see me here to-day, did you? But I'm the early bird, all right. The excessively shy and unseasonable habits of the matinal worm never appealed favorably to me, but we have to have him once in a while, so here I am. You know what for, don't you? Or do you?"
Cole surveyed his visitor dispassionately.
"I fancy I can guess," he replied.
"No, upon my word," the other rejoined with spirit; "you do me a grave injustice, Benny. I've already had luncheon—that is to say, I've just had breakfast. You can more fully appreciate the significance of my call when I tell you that I came to you directly from the breakfast table. No, sir, the object of this visit is strictly business."
Bennington Cole gravely buttoned up his coat and thrust both hands into his pockets.
Mr. Wilkinson smiled buoyantly.
"Benny, you've a delightful surprise in store for you," he said. "Having astonished you by telling you that I was not open to an invitation to lunch, I am going to follow it up by assuring you that I do not intend to suggest the extension of even the paltriest of pecuniary accommodations. I am after bigger game."
Cole's suspicion melted into a semblance of interest.
"You don't mean—" he began.
"Yes, but I do, though," said the other. "That's the precise meaning of this pious pilgrimage at this ungodly hour. I want to find out where you keep that worm. Yesterday afternoon, at the Hurds', you had an idea. You know you did—you can't conceal it from my piercing sense of penetration. And your idea had the ring of real currency when you accidentally dropped it. So I'm here to collaborate, that's all."
Mr. Osgood's junior partner looked around at the clerks, who hastily resumed their interrupted duties.
"Come in here," he said to the visitor, and he led his guest into an inner office next to Mr. Osgood's own, and closed the door behind him.
"I did have an idea," he conceded, as he motioned Wilkinson to a seat, "and it was an idea that had several things to recommend it. But it was a business proposition, and if you will pardon my saying so, Charlie, you are not the kind of a collaborator I would choose, if I were doing the choosing."
"But you're not, my boy," replied the other, unabashed. "I'm doing the choosing, myself, and I choose you. Your idea was palpably based on separating my barnacled connection from some of the ghastly pile of glittering gold that he has taken, five cents at a time, from the widows, orphans, blind, halt, and lame who patronize his trolley lines. Elucidate forthwith, Benny—in the vernacular, unbelt. I am listening."
Cole was reflecting. No one knew better than he how little regard John M. Hurd really felt for this mercurial youth. Yet Mr. Hurd had resisted with entire success all other means of approach. After all, family connections counted for something, even with the retentive old trolley magnate. So when at last he spoke, it was with the determination to show a part of his hand, at least, to Wilkinson.
"Mr. Hurd is President of the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction
Company," he began.
His visitor smiled affably.
"There is a popular impression to that effect," he admitted.
"Silas Osgood and Company and—" he paused a moment—"Bennington Cole
are in the fire insurance business. The Massachusetts Light, Heat, and
Traction Company carries no fire insurance on any of its properties.
Well," he said sharply, "do you begin to see how you come into this?"
"See what?" asked Wilkinson, blankly.
"The insurable value of the various properties of the company must amount to six or eight million dollars. The average rate on those properties would probably be about seventy-five cents per hundred dollars a year for insurance. That would make a premium of say fifty thousand dollars per annum. The commission to the insurance broker who handled that line—who could secure it and control it—would be ten per cent of fifty thousand, or five thousand dollars. Half that amount—I am doing these sums for you so that you can catch the idea—would be twenty-five hundred—without any risk to yourself and every year of your life. Do you think the game worth a try?"
Wilkinson sat up with eager interest.
"Why half? Why not both halves?" he inquired.
The other man spread his hands before him in a gesture as well recognized among elder peoples as it is to-day.
"Naturally I would expect half for originating the scheme, drawing up the schedule in its proper form, securing the lowest rate, and placing the line with the various companies. You couldn't do those things, you know; it takes knowledge of the business."
His visitor once more sat back in his chair.
"And all I have to do is to get Uncle John to take out an insurance policy on his trolley