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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."
Of all towns in the world!" Mr. Cuyler was not a Bostonian. It was perfectly true; Mr. Wintermuth was not a strictly consistent underwriter, and perhaps some day he would adopt Mr. Cuyler's viewpoint. And then, the flood-gates open, the local secretary would come into his metropolitan own. Certainly, if the Guardian's line in Boston was safe, its liability in New York was small indeed.
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.
By virtue of some little strategy he presently managed to catch sight of Mr. Wintermuth, seated at his desk, pen in hand, in his most magisterial attitude, listening judicially to the remarks of some visitor.
But the Boston business had always shown a profit, and James Wintermuth and Silas Osgood had grown up together in the insurance world; and so for the present the Boston line would stand. And it was impossible to satisfy Mr. Cuyler, he was continually moaning about the restrictions under which he labored, and so it was likely that nothing would be done in New York, either.
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 advertisement in the paper.
O'Connor, you have served a long time under me, and I am surprised at you! When James Wintermuth gets to the point where he is unable to live up to his promises, it will be time for him to quit. We are not in that business, sir." The Vice-President summoned a forced smile to his lips. "I think you misunderstood me, sir," he replied smoothly.
It was half-past ten when she found herself before a portal on which were the words: The Guardian Fire Insurance Company of the City of New York. Intrusting herself to the deliberate conveyance of the elevator, she arrived eventually at the top floor, and to a clerk near the door she expressed her desire to see Mr. James Wintermuth.
He had several weaknesses, the chief among which was venal ambition; and of courage, that quality which makes all other qualities seem just a little tawdry and futile, he had none except in a broad, physical sense. He was not, of course, afraid of the dark, but he was decidedly afraid of James Wintermuth; and when on Monday noon the telephone rang at the call of Mr.
Wintermuth and his company and dishonesty to my associates 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.
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