Mr. Simcox, detailing this, permitted himself an amused contempt. The public were ignoramuses, mere children; they knew nothing whatever about insurance.
Rosalie said in a voice consonant with the grave measure of her nods: “Of course, if it was a man, as you said, looking for a house, he’d go to an agent. A house agent would tell him of houses best suited to his needs that he could choose between. Well, there are insurance agents. You’ve told me about them.”
“Ah, but not the same thing, not the same thing,” corrected Mr. Simcox. “An insurance agent, the ordinary insurance agent, is agent for a particular company. He only knows what his own company can do and he only wants his own company to do it. That’s no good to the kind of man in the position we’re speaking of. He wants some one who can tell him what all the companies will do for him. Some one who can hear his case, analyse it, put it before him in the right light and advise him the best way of placing it. That’s what he wants. Exactly the same as these letters I send out—as you and I send out, I should say. Why, I’ve had practical examples of it. There was a young fellow I met at your aunt’s house. There’ve been three or four cases of it for that matter but this happens to be some one you know—”
He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle’s, a young man home on leave from the Indian army and recently married, with whom he had got into conversation on the subject of insurance and had most ably helped. The young man had a certain policy in view. Mr. Sim-cox had put an infinitely better before him. “If he had come to me before his marriage when he was first taking out a policy in his wife’s favour, I could have saved him and gained her hundreds, literally hundreds,” said Mr. Simcox. “He’d made a most awful mess of the business. As it was I helped him very considerably. He was very grateful, devilish grateful. He went straight to an agent of the office I recommended and did it.”
“There must be hundreds like him that would be grateful,” said Rosalie.
“Thousands,” said Mr. Simcox. “Tens of thousands. Every single soul who insures, you may say.”
“Who got the commission?” said Rosalie.
“The agent, of course,” said Mr. Simcox.
“Oh,” said Rosalie.
“Why?” said Mr. Simcox.