"What commission would you expect?" Mr. Gunterson inquired.
"Whatever you're paying now is all right with us," McCoy responded promptly. "And we'll guarantee you a liberal increase in premiums the first year."
The heart of the Guardian's Vice-President swelled in his breast when he anticipated O'Connor's chagrin over this development.
"The Spokane's man is in town," Bloom said, as if by an afterthought. "Put it in the form of a contract, Mr. Gunterson, and I'll notify him to-day that we're holding his supplies subject to his order."
The contract was promptly drawn, signed, and witnessed, each party retaining a copy, and Samuel Gunterson, with the sting of defeat removed by this brilliant achievement, and with his self-esteem and confidence wholly restored, turned blithely toward the South Station on his way to New York.
CHAPTER XV
Contemporary historians point out that in Egypt, more than four thousand years ago, those who bore bad tidings to the reigning monarch were in the habit of meeting death so swiftly that they could scarcely have been incommoded by the circumstance. In fact, they had all the satisfaction of inevitable demise with none of the discomforts necessarily attendant on lingering annihilation.
Mr. Samuel Gunterson, returning from Boston with the signed contract of Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy, presently found himself in the position of sensing all the restlessness and unhappiness of an expiring frame with no hope of an early easement by carefree and cheerful decease. For the news of his first important agency appointment was received by William Street in a manner not at all calculated to flatter the man who had made it. Of the numerous opinions expressed or unexpressed, ranging from polite incredulity to unholy joy or open contempt, the only quality which all these opinions held in common was their invidiousness.
The appointment received perhaps its most kindly treatment from those most directly concerned. Mr. Wintermuth did not know anything about Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy—in fact, he had never heard of them. And so, when Mr. Gunterson, in his most convincing rhetoric; explained the merits of the new agents and the increased income which he felt confident the Guardian would receive, the President gave his assent, merely expressing his deep regret at concluding his business relations with Silas Osgood.
"But Mr. Osgood is retiring from the firm, anyway," said Mr. Gunterson.