Wellwood slunk out. The presidency of the Salamander, involving as it did occasional interviews of a nature similar to this with Mr. Murch, was no sinecure. Mr. Wellwood frequently debated whether it would not be better to listen to the siren voices of the agricultural weeklies with their alluring refrain of "back to the soil"; but the facilities for his favorite dissipations were painfully inadequate in the rural districts, and besides he was a city man born and bred, and while he knew how to take hold of a shovel, he would probably have stood askance and aghast before a scythe. So he hung on, hoping against hope for something—almost anything—to happen. To be sure his own comparative incompetence was to blame for the company's underwriting record, but that was a matter beyond his control.
It was perhaps an hour after Mr. Wellwood's departure when the card of another caller was brought to Mr. Murch by the efficient office boy.
"Show him in," he said.
A man in a light fall overcoat entered the room, nodding to the capitalist as he did so, but turning back almost immediately to attend to the cautious closing of the door.
"Sit down, won't you?" said Mr. Murch, carelessly. He raised his eyes to the door. "Anybody out there?" he inquired. "I mean any one that knows you?"
"No," the caller replied.
"Well, it doesn't matter about any one but Wellwood. But it would be better not to have him know anything about your having been here."
"Why? What do you care?" queried the other.
"No need of superfluous friction and unpleasantness, that's all. If we—agree, he'll find out everything soon enough; if we don't, no call to excite him."
"No doubt you're right," assented the visitor, lightly. He had by this time removed his overcoat and laid it over the arm of a convenient couch. He then selected a chair near Mr. Murch's own but facing that gentleman squarely, and sat down.