"Harry," he would say, "put on your hat and take Mr. Webb back to his office. He's not himself; the heat is too much for him."
And Mr. Webb would smile—and be lost.
There are very few positions which make greater demands upon one's judgment, one's diplomacy, and one's temper than this one which Mr. Cuyler had filled so long and so inimitably. To pick a man's pocket of all its contents, deliberately selecting those of sufficient value to retain and throwing the remainder back in his face, is a matter for fine art, for the broker must not be angered or a good connection is lost to the office.
And there are artists in both galleries. There are placers who have all the fine frenzy of a starving poet in a midnight garret, men who would make the fortune of a country hotel if they would but write for it a single testimonial advertisement, men whose flow of persuasive talk is almost hypnotic, whose victims are held just as surely as ever was Wedding Guest—and with this difference, that while that classic personage merely turned up late to the ceremony, these charmed men listen to the siren tongue until they find themselves doing things which may very readily—if fate is unkind and the risk burns—cost them their repute and their positions as well.
When such a Pan-Hellenic meeting occurred, Mr. Cuyler rose to his highest triumphs. It was perhaps a frame celluloid goods factory in Long Island City, which some soul-compelling voice had just finished describing, accoutering the grisly thing in all the garments of verbal glory. One gathered that the Guardian's fate hung on the acceptance of this translucent risk, that it was a prize saved from the clutches of a hundred grasping competitors and brought to the counter of the Guardian like a pure white lamb to the altar of the gods. When it was all over, and nothing was wanting except Mr. Cuyler's signature to the binder—then Mr. Cuyler came into his own.
"Joe," the organ note would start—"Joe, that looks as if it might be a first-rate risk of its class, and some folks think it's not a bad class, too, when the hazards are properly arranged. I've always thought myself that the bad record on celluloid workers was largely accidental. And I don't see how I can turn down anything that comes from your office—I guess I'll have to help you out with a small line, anyway. Where's your binder? Wait a second, though. Let me look at that map again—I forgot my exposing lines. Well! we seem to be pretty full in that block—eighty-five, ten, twelve-five, sixteen—by Jove! I'm afraid I'll have to pass that up, after all—I didn't think I had so much around there. Awfully sorry, old man; I'd take it for you if I could for any man in the world."
And the binder was affably passed back over the counter. But when, as probably developed at this point, Mr. Cuyler was advised that his remarks bore convincing traces of the proximity of an active steam-radiator and that the broker knew perfectly well that the Guardian hadn't a dollar at risk within three blocks—it was then that the real contest began. Celluloid was a mighty hazardous article—was Joe aware that in New York State alone the losses had been nearly three times the premiums on the class? Perhaps this was accidental, but it was a fact just the same. But after all, what else could one expect? Celluloid was very much like gun-cotton—made out of practically the same constituents—and only a little less dangerous to handle. It also appeared that celluloid works all over the country had for the last year been unusually disastrous to the underwriters, and that the President himself had written a letter on the subject to the various rating bureaus. Honestly, it would be more than Cuyler, with all his extreme desire to oblige, would dare do—to tell the old man that the local department had written a celluloid factory. His good friend, the caller, Mr. Cuyler felt certain, would not wish to see the venerable hairs of the Guardian's local secretary trampled into the dust by the infuriate heels of the board of directors, led by the outraged President Wintermuth himself. No, he was extremely sorry, but he simply—could not—take—the risk.
And take it he would not. Such was James Cuyler. For thirty years he had stood at the Guardian's local threshold, fidelity personified, a watch-dog extraordinary that could not have been duplicated in all watchdogdom. He had but one superstition and but one grievance.
His superstition was that he would not allow a customer to enter the office after the clock struck the first blow of five. At that moment, if no employee was at hand, he himself would step out from behind the counter, close the door, and turn the key in the lock. And the best friend of the office could not have gained admission once the key was turned.
"Why do I do it?" he would say. "My boy, at about half-past five P.M. on June fourteenth, eighteen eighty-nine, I was alone in the office, and Herman White, who used to be placer for Schmidt and Sulzbacher, came in with a ten thousand dollar line on coffee in one of those Brooklyn shorefront warehouses. I guess all the other offices must have shut up, for Herman never gave me anything he didn't have to. He banged on the door, and I let him in, and the risk was all right and we were wide open, and I took his ten thousand. . . . And about twenty minutes later, as I stood on the front deck of the Wall Street ferryboat crossing the river, the flames burst out of the roof of that warehouse, and we paid nine thousand two hundred and thirty-seven dollars for that coffee. . . . This office closes at five P.M."