"Eliminate that possibility from the discussion," said Mr. Murch, tersely; and O'Connor's last faint hope died.
"There remains, then, to find some company willing to take over your outstanding business. Your present reinsurance reserve is about $1,500,000. Your available assets over capital, including your real estate and everything, will bring approximately $1,800,000. Mr. O'Connor tells me you will pay in Boston about $700,000. This leaves you $1,100,000. For this sum, or perhaps a little less, you can probably reinsure all your business now in force, leaving you, let us say, with your capital stock intact and perhaps $100,000 over."
"In other words," said Mr. Murch, "we'll get for our liquidated stock about 120;—stock which sold last week at 210!"
"Precisely. If I can get you a reinsurer on the terms I mentioned. And I think you'll be getting out pretty well. You're impaired right now, you know."
Mr. Murch's financial vanity was touched.
"After all," he said, with an effort, "I probably averaged only 150 for mine. I've got pretty fair dividends on it for some time. That'll get me out pretty nearly even. Well, Mr. Belknap, if you can arrange to reinsure the Salamander on those terms, go ahead."
"The directors of the company—?" said Belknap, suggestively.
"I either own or control a majority of the stock," replied Mr. Murch.
There was no more to be said. The President and the majority stockholder of a corporation whose days were numbered walked back to the office with hardly a word spoken between them.
These were troublous times in William Street. The Salamander was not the only company which had been hard hit in Boston. Many of the smaller underwriting institutions were tottering very close to the wall. Already two failures were known; a dozen others were suspected. But in Boston, where the stricken city lay impatiently waiting, most of the companies already had men on the ground, adjusting and paying claims. The Boston insurance district had fortunately been left untouched, so that the local records were intact, making the work of the adjusters much simpler than it would otherwise have been.