From this calamity, the greatest which had ever visited the city, Boston had, after a timeless period of uncomprehending and demoralized helplessness, leaped anew into activity and life. From all over the country, almost from all over the world, the need of the stricken city was met by a magnificent and human response. A vast catastrophe becomes nearly worth while by virtue of the humanity it discovers. Food, clothing, money—all were donated with lavish hands, and aid was rushed to Boston by a hundred trains. In comparison with the area burned over, the number of people made homeless was not great; and in three weeks the city had somehow managed to drink up and absorb this surplus without leaving a sign.
Life had now begun to move more normally again; and already the city's gaze went forward toward what was to be, rather than backward at what had been. But in a certain Kilby Street office two men were talking, one of whom still looked somewhat gloomily back, while the other, with a smile of transcendent optimism, was engaged in the cosmic process of turning Boston's holocaust into a fiery but triumphant feather for his own cap.
"Has that draft come in yet, Benny?" he was demanding.
"Came this morning," answered Cole, a trifle sourly. "Here it is."
"Would you mind letting me have it? Thanks. This is the last one, isn't it? They're all here now?"
"Yes," said Cole, curtly; "this is the last."
"If you'll give me a large envelope, I'll take them with me, then," returned the first speaker. "With a golden touch like Midas of old will I go forth into the presence of my distinguished relation. Benny, you are a base soul with no instincts above the commercial. You do not appreciate the situation. We are rapidly approaching what is vulgarly termed the psychological moment. If you had any more feeling than a dying invertebrate, you would want to come along and witness the ceremony, which is entirely private and visitors admitted by card only."
"Thanks, but I don't care to," said Cole, shortly.
Since the change which came over the complexion of matters in his world, Cole was much less assured and less assertive than before. The receipt this morning of the Salamander's final and largest loss draft marked the last public connection between that company and the Osgood office. The Salamander had reinsured, and the news of its fall was abroad on the streets of Boston as in New York, the insurance talk of all the towns. O'Connor, temporarily at least, had disappeared, and no man knew what chasm had swallowed him up. So far as Osgood and Company were concerned, he and his company were both dead issues; and once more in the old office in the corner Mr. Osgood could be seen in his wonted place.
Immediately following the conflagration Mr. Osgood had quietly resumed his authority as active head of the firm; and the Guardian, having taken over the Salamander's unburned business, which was in reality its own, once more acknowledged as its Boston representatives Messrs. Silas Osgood and Company. Of course the separation rule of the Boston Board was still nominally in force; but with the legal decision pending there was no disposition on the part of any agency or of any company to force an action of any sort. In the face of a matter so great as the conflagration had been, the smaller things, the lesser animosities, were allowed to slip peacefully into forgotten limbo. In due time the separation rule, its chief protagonist discredited and gone none knew where, would be repealed, either under legal compulsion or without. When that day came, the Guardian would be back in the position it had always enjoyed until Mr. O'Connor played—and lost—his meteoric game.