In Mr. Cole's office, meanwhile, the small pile of checks and drafts was being counted over with scrupulous care by Mr. Wilkinson.
"They seem to be in order," he said. "Three hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents. Benny, a thought strikes me! Why should not an insurance broker get a commission on losses as well as premiums? It seems to me that that is a very reasonable idea—I wonder it has never occurred to anybody before."
"You get your commission when the line is rewritten, of course," Cole responded. "What more do you want?"
"Why, that's so; I hadn't thought of that. I presume that such an operation will be more or less lucrative—unless my sagacious though unwilling father-in-law executes his sometime threat."
"Oh, I don't believe even John M. Hurd would be such a jackal without benefit of clergy as to do that."
"Well, perhaps not. Do you think of anything else, Benny, before I depart?"
"Absolutely nothing. And for heaven's sake get out!—I'm busy, and you lend an atmosphere of inertia to the whole place."
"And yet," returned Mr. Wilkinson, suavely, rising, nevertheless,—"and yet this is, in the plebeian phrase of the world of trade, my busy day. To be sure I have other occasional days when I handle transactions that run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars; but I don't mind admitting to you that these usually take place in the last ineffable hour of slumber preceding the dawn. But to-day—to-day it is true! Benny, I will go to the length of buying you a drink, a short and frugal drink."
"At eleven A.M.? Not for me," responded Cole. "Run along."
"I go," rejoined the other, gracefully, and the door swung shut behind his debonaire retreat.