He was alone in the office, since the one other person who had been with him had, under instructions, departed. This was George McGee, the Salamander's map clerk for New England. There was no reason whatever why George should have visited William Street on a Sunday; nevertheless Mr. O'Connor, on arriving, had found him standing aimlessly and undecided in front of the door.
"What do you want here?" he had said to George, coldly.
"Nothing. That is, I came over from Brooklyn to see if any one wanted anything. I thought maybe somebody would be down, and they'd need some one to help take off the lines, sir."
"Well, I don't need any help. You can go," said the other.
"I didn't know. We've got a lot of business in that part of Boston, sir. I know where all the dailies are filed. You'll need me if you're going to go over the lines, sir."
O'Connor considered.
"Well, come up, then," he said ungraciously. "We'll have to walk up; there's no steam on."
It was then three o'clock. At not later than a quarter to four Mr. O'Connor had definitely determined that unless the report of the conflagration's extent had been exaggerated beyond all human connection with the facts, the Salamander had sustained a loss in Boston which was considerably greater than its resources would permit it to pay. In other words, if the printed account were even remotely true, the Salamander was, as the phrase has it, insolvent. To put it even more shortly, the company was ruined. Facing this fact and its string of entailed consequences, the man most directly interested was silent so long that his youthful assistant became nervous.
"Pretty bad loss, ain't it?" he asked sympathetically.
O'Connor looked at him unseeingly. In his busy mind he was running through an imaginary calculation. It was somewhat as follows: Salamander's net liability in the section of Boston presumably destroyed, $600,000—Salamander's net surplus available for payment of losses, $400,000. Inevitably the problem ended: Salamander's impairment of capital, $200,000. And the fire was still burning. Boston could be rebuilt, but could the Salamander?