"Perhaps not," said Smith, dryly. "Is there anything else you want of me, sir?" he turned to the President. "If not, I guess I'll get back to my mail."
"Go ahead," returned his chief. "Mr. Gunterson and I will plan this thing out together."
And Smith left the office with as much numb despondency in his heart as he had ever felt in his thirty-odd years. He knew—what the others did not seem fully to appreciate—that there was an animus in this attack of O'Connor's which would stick at nothing. He saw, or he believed he saw, the excepted cities of Boston, Philadelphia, and the rest, under the polite coercion of the Eastern Conference, passing similar separation rules of their own. He foresaw the Guardian forced out of Graham and Peck's agency in Philadelphia, out of the Silas Osgood office in Boston, and losing its long established connections in other cities where the Guardian's business was as well selected and profitable as that of any company of them all. He looked gloomily down a long vista of losses and disappointments, and it appeared to him there could naturally be but one end. However, it was no doing of his. He was there to obey orders and to transact the company's business as the management desired it to be done, and in the press of other crowding matters he was glad to forget everything but the tasks before him.
The days succeeding the Conference announcement brought very little in the way of further developments. So still was the insurance stage, indeed, that Mr. Gunterson began to think that there would be no trouble, after all, and Smith to speculate on the ominous stillness and on what new moves would flash from behind this seeming curtain of inaction.
Almost at the very time of this speculation on his part, a train was carrying toward Boston no less a person than F. Mills O'Connor of the Salamander. Almost at the very hour of a Tuesday morning, when Mr. Gunterson was gravely assuring Mr. Wintermuth that he believed he would be able, in spite of the Eastern Conference, to preserve the company's agency force without the loss of a single important agent, Mr. O'Connor, after more or less indirect preliminary conversation, was presenting his desires quite bluntly to Mr. Silas Osgood.
"To be perfectly frank, Mr. Osgood, the Salamander has never gotten the premium income it should get from Boston, and worse than that, it has always lost money. Now you've got a place for us in your office, and it's the Guardian's place. No—hold on a minute—let me finish. I know that Mr. Wintermuth is an old friend of yours, but Mr. Wintermuth is about finished with the fire insurance business. Now you know that your relations with Gunterson, who is a hopeless incompetent, will never be satisfactory, and you also know that Gunterson will probably put the company out of business within two years. You appreciate also that the Salamander is a bigger company than the Guardian—it has twice the Guardian's premium income—"
"And half the Guardian's surplus," interrupted Mr. Osgood, softly.
"No matter about the surplus. Edward E. Murch and his people are back of us, we've got the premium income, and we're in the game to stay, while you as a practical insurance man know, no matter how far your sympathies may go in the opposite direction, that the days of the Guardian are numbered. I'm offering you the chance to take on one of the livest companies in the field to-day in place of a concern that's headed for oblivion by the most direct route. It's a chance I would jump at if I were in your place, but I understand the sentimental consideration enters in,—it does credit to your heart, Mr. Osgood, and I respect you for it,—and in view of all that sort of thing I came here prepared to give you certain inducements to switch the Guardian's business to the Salamander."
"Inducements? Of what sort do you mean?" inquired Mr. Osgood, mildly, although his face was a little flushed.
"Well, increased latitude on lines and classes—a larger authorization in the congested district—those are some things. Possibly also," he suggested delicately, "a little extra allowance—let us say an entertainment fund—to be used in cultivating brokers with an especially desirable business."