"But how can you?"
"Oh, we have a pretty complete fire record compiled from loss experiences sent by every company to the publisher. All companies subscribe to this record. If a man has several suspicious-looking fires, nobody will insure him. If he gets such a bad fire reputation in one town that he can't get insurance there, he moves somewhere else, but the record keeps track of him, and finally he has to turn honest—or change his name."
"Do many of them do that?"
"Not so many as you'd think. You see, it's not so easy to disguise one's personality. The La Mode Cloak and Suit Company may turn out to be our old friend Lazarus Epstein; but we have the service of the principal commercial agencies to aid us in becoming better acquainted with our policyholders. And any one who has no rating in these commercial agencies we investigate very thoroughly, making our local agent tell us all he knows of the man, and sending for a full detailed report by the commercial agency besides. Even then we occasionally get caught with a crook, but not often. The Guardian is very careful; if all other companies were equally so, there would be fewer firebugs in business."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, many companies rely wholly on their agents; they don't send for these special reports, and the result is that they get caught for a dishonest loss, and the crook who is smart enough to make the agent think he is straight gets away with it. Thus encouraging the impostors."
"But are not the commercial agency men fooled too?"
"Oh, yes, they're only human; but at least you have two sources of information to draw on—and three, if the man has a fire record. By the time we've finished we are apt to know a good deal about our policyholder, here at the home office, and sometimes we learn very strange things—sometimes humorous and sometimes quite the reverse."
He stopped, and Miss Maitland, seeing his pause, hesitated with the question she had been about to put.
"I wonder if you'd care to hear about a case that came to my notice yesterday," he said.