Broken to the Plow / A Novel

by Charles Caldwell Dobie

CHAPTER VI

March passed in a blur of wind and cold, penetrating rains. Except for the placing of the insurance on the Hilmer shipbuilding plant, business was dull. Fred began to make moves toward getting in money. But it was heartbreaking work. The people who had yielded up their consent so smilingly to Fred for personal accident policies, or automobile insurance, passed him furtively on the street or sent word out to him when he called at their offices that they were busy or broke or leaving town. He did not attempt to do much toward collecting the fire-insurance premiums. Most people with fire policies knew their rights and stood by them. The premiums on March business were not due until the end of May and it was useless to make the rounds much before the middle of that month.

The whisperings on the street continued, and a few surly growls from Kendrick reached Fred's ears. One day a close friend of Fred, who knew something of Insurance Exchange matters, said to him:

"There's something going on inside, but I can't quite get the dope… I hope you're not giving Kendrick the chance to have you called for rebating… He's an ugly customer when he gets in action."

Fred was annoyed. "I've told you again and again," he retorted, "that
I'm not yielding a cent on the Hilmer business."

"It isn't that," was the reply. "Kendrick knows better than to stir up a situation he's helped to befoul himself… No, it's another matter."

Fred shrugged and changed the subject, but his thoughts flew at once to Brauer. He decided not to say anything to his partner until he made a move toward investigating, himself.

The next morning he took a half dozen names of Brauer's customers at random from the ledger and he made out bills for their premiums. Practically all of Brauer's business was fire insurance, so Fred had typical cases for his test. The first man he called on produced a receipt from Brauer for the premium paid on the very day the policy was issued. The second man protested that he had paid Brauer only the day before. The third man stated brusquely that he had placed his business through Brauer and he was the man he intended to settle with. The fourth was noncommittal, but it was the fifth client who produced the straw that betrayed the direction of the wind.

"I want to see Brauer," the man said. "He promised to do something for me."

The sixth customer was even more direct.

"There's something to come off the premium," he said. "Brauer knows."

Fred did not wait for Brauer to come into the office—he went and took him to lunch instead, where he could prod him away from Helen's sight and hearing.

"I'm surprised at you, Brauer," Starratt broke out suddenly, once they were seated at Grover's and had given the girl their order.

"Over what?" Brauer's face clouded craftily.

"Why do you go about collecting premiums and holding them back from the office?… That isn't sound business tactics."

Brauer's sharp teeth glistened savagely in spite of his weak and bloodless mouth. "What have you been doing … bothering my people? I'll trouble you to let me attend to my own clients in future. Those premiums aren't due for a good six weeks yet. When they are I'll turn them in."

Fred cooled a little in the face of Brauer's vehemence. "Oh, come now, what's the use of talking like that? I'm not intending to bother your customers, but there are some things due me… My name is on every one of those policies. Therefore I ought to know when they are paid and anything else about the business that concerns me. You know as well as I do what is reasonable and just. Suppose you were taken ill. It doesn't look right for a firm to go about making attempts to collect premiums that have been paid."

"Well … you're pretty previous, Starratt, dogging folks in March for money that isn't due until May," Brauer grumbled back. "What's the idea, anyway?"

Starratt leaned forward. "Just this, Brauer. I heard some ugly gossip yesterday, and I wanted to find out if it had any justification. It seems Kendrick is after us. He's going to try and get us on a rebating charge. I saw six of your people … and I'm reasonably sure that two out of that six have been promised a rake-off… Do you call that fair to me?"

"That's a lie!" Brauer broke out, too emphatically.

"I doubt it!" Starratt replied, coldly. "But that's neither here nor there. What's done is done. But I don't want any more of it. I'm playing a square game. I was ready to throw Hilmer overboard rather than compromise, and I'll—"

"Do the same thing to me, I suppose!" Brauer challenged.

Fred looked at him steadily. "Precisely," he answered.

The waitress arrived with their orders and Starratt changed the subject… Brauer recovered his civility, but hardly his good temper. At the close of the meal they parted politely. Fred could see that Brauer was bursting with spite. For himself, he decided then and there to eliminate Brauer at the first opportunity.

A few days later Brauer came into the office with an order to place a workmen's compensation policy. It covered the entire force of a canning concern, and the premium was based upon a large pay roll.

"I've had to split the commission with them," Brauer announced, defiantly. "That's legitimate enough with this sort of business, isn't it?"

Starratt nodded. "It's done, but I'm not keen for it. However, there isn't any law against it."

The policy was made out and delivered to Brauer, and almost immediately he came back with a check for the premium. "They paid me at once," he exulted.

Starratt refused to express any enthusiasm. Brauer sat down at a desk and drew out his check book. "I guess I might as well settle up for the other premiums I've collected," he said, "while I'm about it."

He made out a long list of fire premiums and drew his check for their full amount, plus the workmen's compensation premium in his possession. But he took 5 per cent off the latter item.

Starratt made no comment. But he was willing to stake his life that the check from the canning company to Brauer was for a full premium without any 5-per-cent reduction, and that Brauer, himself, was withholding this alleged rebate and applying it to making up the deficits on the fire premiums he had discounted.

The next day Fred's friend said again: "Kendrick's doing some gum-shoe work, Starratt… You'd better go awful slow."

With the coming of May other anxieties claimed Starratt's attention. Bills that he had forgotten or neglected began to pour in. There was his tailor bill, long overdue, and two accounts with dry-goods stores that Helen had run up in the days when the certainty of a fixed salary income had seemed sure. A dentist bill for work done in December made its appearance and, of course, the usual household expenditures went merrily on. The rent of their apartment was raised. Collections were slow. In March the commissions on collected premiums had just about paid the office rent and the telephone… April showed up better, but May, of course, held great promise. At the end of May the Hilmer premiums would be due and the firm of Starratt & Co. on its feet, with over two thousand dollars in commissions actually in hand. On the strength of these prospects Helen began to order a new outfit. Fred Starratt did not have the heart to complain. Helen had earned every stitch of clothing that she was buying—there was no doubt about that; still, he would have liked to be less hasty in her expenditures. He had been too long in business to count much on prospects. He disliked borrowing more money from Brauer, but there was no alternative. Brauer fell to grumbling quite audibly over these advances, and he saw to it that Fred's notes for the amounts always were forthcoming. Hilmer did not come in quite so often to the office; a rush of shipbuilding construction took him over to his yards in Oakland nearly every day. But Mrs. Hilmer was in evidence a good deal. Helen was constantly calling her up and asking her to drop downtown for luncheon or for a bit of noonday shopping uptown or just for a talk.

"She's a dear!" Helen used to say to Fred. "And I just love her to death…"

Fred could not fathom Helen. A year ago he felt sure that Mrs. Hilmer was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable, much less attractive… He concluded that Helen was enjoying the novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up. He figured that the shopping tours with Helen might be reflected in a sprightlier bonnet or a narrower skirt or a higher heel on her shoe. But no such transformation took place. Indeed, her costuming seemed to grow more and more uncompromising—more Dutch, to use the time-worn phrase, made significant to Fred Starratt by his mother. But Helen always made a point to compliment her on her appearance.

"You look too sweet for anything!" Helen would exclaim, rushing upon her new friend with an eager kiss.

At this Mrs. Hilmer always dimpled with wholesome pleasure. Well, she did look sweet, in a motherly, bovine way, Fred admitted, when the note of insincerity in his wife's voice jarred him.

One day Mrs. Hilmer brought down a hat the two had picked out and which had been altered at Helen's suggestion. She tried it on for Helen's approval, and Fred stood back in a corner while Helen went into ecstasies over it. Even a man could not escape the fact that it was unbecoming. Somehow, in a subtle way, it seemed to accent all of Mrs. Hilmer's unprepossessing features. When she left the office Fred said to Helen, casually:

"I don't think much of your taste, old girl. That hat was awful!"

Helen laughed maliciously. "Of course it was!" she flung back.

Starratt shrugged and said no more. There was kindliness back of many deceits, but he knew now that Helen's insincerities with Mrs. Hilmer were not justified by even so dubious virtue.

At the moment when the Hilmer shipyard insurance had been turned over to Fred Starratt he had at once made a move toward a reduction in the rate. Having gone over the schedule at the Board of Fire Underwriters, he had discovered that they had failed to give Hilmer credit in the rating for certain fire protection. On the strength of Starratt's application for a change a new rate was published about the middle of May. Starratt was jubilant. Here was proof for Hilmer that his interests were being guarded and that it paid to employ an efficient broker. He flew at once to Hilmer's office.

"Let me have your policies," he burst out.
"I've secured a new rate for you and I want the reduction indorsed."

Hilmer did not appear to be moved by the announcement.

"Better cancel and rewrite the bunch," he replied, briefly.

Fred gasped. This meant that only about a sixth of the premium on the present policies would be due and payable at the end of the month and the prospects of a big clean-up on commissions delayed until July.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," he tried to say, calmly. "This reduction applies from the original date of the policies. It's just as if they had been written up at the new rate."

Hilmer ripped open a letter that he had been toying with. "Better cancel," he announced, dryly. "It's a good excuse, and I'm a little pressed for money. It will delay a big expenditure."

There was no room for further argument. Fred left, crestfallen. Was Hilmer making sport of him, he wondered. He must wait then until July for an easy financial road. And would July see him? out of the woods? Suppose Hilmer were to conjure up another excuse for canceling and reissuing just as the second batch of premiums fell due?

He voiced his fears and anxieties to Helen. She shrugged indifferently.

"You told me when you went into business that you weren't counting on
Hilmer," she observed, with a suggestion of a sneer.

So he had thought or, at least, so he had pretended. What colossal braveries he had assumed in his attempts to play a swaggering role! He had started in with the determination to set a new standard in the insurance world. He was going to show people that a young man could begin with nothing but honesty and merit and walk away with the biggest kind of business. He knew that his hands were clean, but he realized that not one in ten believed it. He had to confess that appearances were against him. Scarcely anyone believed the Hilmer myth. And underneath the surface was Brauer. Fred felt sure that Brauer's ethical lapses were still in progress. At intervals Brauer always contrived to place an insurance line other than fire and insist that he was compelled to grant a discount. These premiums were always settled promptly and, in their wake, a list of fire premiums paid in full were turned in by Brauer. It was plain that Peter was being robbed to pay Paul. Starratt even grew to fancy that there was a substantial balance left over from these alleged discounts to clients, which Brauer pocketed himself. But he had to smile and pretend that he did not suspect. Were his hands clean, after all? Well, just as soon as it was possible he intended to rid himself of Brauer. But how soon would that be possible? And meanwhile Kendrick was sniffing out disquieting odors.

He rallied from his first depression with a tight-lipped determination. He was not trying out a business venture so much as he was trying out himself. Previously he had always figured success and failure as his performance reacted on his audience. He was learning that one could impress a stupendous crowd and really fail, or strut upon the boards of an empty playhouse and still succeed. He began to realize just what was meant by the term self-esteem—how hard and uncompromising and exacting it was. To disappoint another was a humiliation; to disappoint oneself was a tragedy. And the tragedy became deep in proportion to the ability to be self-searching. There were moments when he closed his eyes to self-analysis…when it seemed better to press on without disturbing glimpses either backward or forward. He was eager to gain an economic foothold first—there would be time later for recapitulations and readjustments to his widening vision.

The two months following were rough and uneven. He had to borrow continually from Brauer, meet Hilmer with a bland smile, suffer the covert sarcasms of his wife. Some money came in, but it barely kept things moving. His broker friend had been right—the payment of any premiums but fire premiums dragged on "till the cows came home." Many of the policies that had seemed so easy to write up came back for total cancellation. This man had buried a father, another had married a wife, a third had bought a piece of ground—the excuses were all valid, and they came from friends, so there was nothing to do but smile and assure them that it didn't matter.

But somehow Starratt weathered the storm and the day came when the Hilmer insurance fell due. Fred found Hilmer absent from his desk, but the cashier received him blandly. Yes, they were ready to pay, in fact the check was drawn and only awaited Hilmer's signature. To-morrow, at the latest, it would be forthcoming. Fred drew a long sigh of relief. He went back to his office whistling.

In the hallway he met Brauer.

"I want to have a talk with you," Brauer began, almost apologetically.

Fred waved him in and Brauer came direct to the point. He was dissatisfied with the present arrangement and he was ready to pull out if Fred were in a position to square things. His demands were extraordinarily fair—he asked to have the notes for any advances met, plus 50 per cent of the profit on any business he had turned in. He claimed no share of the profits on Fred's business.

"I suppose you've collected the Hilmer premiums," he threw out, significantly.

Fred nodded and began a rapid calculation. It turned out that he had borrowed about $500 from his partner and that 50 per cent of the commissions on the Brauer business came to a scant $125. Well, his profits on the Hilmer insurance would be in the neighborhood of $1,900 under the new rate. To-morrow he would be in possession of this sum. It was too easy! He drew out his check book, deciding to close the deal before Brauer had a chance to change his mind. Brauer received the check with a bland smile and surrendered the notes and the partnership agreement.

At the door they shook hands heartily. Brauer said at parting:

"Well, good luck, old man… I hope you aren't sore."

Fred tried to suppress his delight. "Oh no, nothing like that! If it had to come I'm glad to see everything end pleasantly."

And as Brauer drifted down the hall Starratt called out, suddenly:

"I say, Brauer, don't put that check through the bank until day after to-morrow, will you?"

Brauer nodded a swift acquiescence and disappeared into a waiting elevator.

Fred retreated to his desk. "Well," he said to Helen, as he let out a deep sigh, "that's what I call easy!"

She looked up from her work. "Almost too easy," she answered. He made no reply and presently she said: "You didn't tell me how tightly you let him sew us up. With signed notes and that agreement he could have been nasty… It's strange he didn't wait a day or two and then claim half of the Hilmer commissions… I wonder why he was in such a rush?"

Fred shrugged. Helen's shrewdness annoyed him.

That evening just as Helen and he were getting ready to leave, a messenger from the Broker's Exchange handed him a note. He broke the seal and read a summons to appear before the executive committee on the following morning. His face must have betrayed him, for Helen halted the adjustment of her veil as she inquired:

"What's wrong? Any trouble?"

He recovered himself swiftly. "Oh no … just a meeting at the
Exchange to-morrow."

But as he folded up the letter and slipped it into his coat pocket he began to have a suspicion as to the reason for Brauer's haste.