Wilkinson sat down.
"All the better reason why I need assistance," he rejoined. "I need everybody's assistance. But only to get started. When I'm started properly I can look after myself."
"My boy," said the veteran underwriter, kindly, "I have known John M. Hurd since he was thirty years old. I knew him when what is now the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company consisted of two cars, four horses, and three miles of single track. And he never carried a dollar of insurance then, and he never has since. I have seen the brightest brokers in Boston go into his office and come out in anywhere from three to twenty minutes; and not one of them ever got anything at all for his pains. Better give it up, my boy; you'll save yourself more or less trouble, and the result will be the same."
The young man laughed.
"There's one point of dissimilarity that I see already," he replied. "The time of the brightest brokers in Boston is valuable; mine is not. Really, you're not very encouraging, but I didn't expect you to be. I know my step-uncle, and I'm prepared for a stiff and extensive campaign. All I'm asking for is a detonator—something to start the action, you know, or something novel in the way of an explosive. Perhaps an adaptation of one of those grenades that the Chinese pirates throw when they want to drive their victims suffocating into the sea. I realize that there isn't much use engaging Uncle John with ordinary Christian weapons; he's practically bomb-proof."
"I am afraid," said Mr. Osgood, slowly, "that I am not very expert in the manufacture of noxious piratical chemicals. You will have to seek your inspiration elsewhere."
Smith turned to Wilkinson. Heretofore the representative of the
Guardian had taken no part in the conversation.
"Would you mind stating, without quite so many figures of speech, just what you want?" he asked quietly.
"Certainly. What I want is something, some handle which will get me
John M. Hurd's attention just long enough to make him listen to me. If
I can get him to listen, I stand a chance."
"You say he carries no fire insurance on any of the trolley properties?" the New Yorker inquired thoughtfully.