Broken to the Plow Part 9

"Oh, when a woman's involved, that's different," Fred laughed back.

"There's nothing as alluring here."

"Well, Mrs. Starratt, what do you say?" Hilmer called out to her.

"Your husband doesn't seem to count you in at all."

Helen was erasing a misspelled word. "Married women are used to that,"

she retorted, flippantly. "Sometimes it's just as well that they overlook us. We get a chance to play our own hand once in a while."

Everybody laughed, including Fred, but the effort hurt him. There was a suggestion of unpleasant mockery in Helen's tone. She seemed to be hiding her contempt behind a thin veil of acrid humor. And somehow this revelation in the presence of Hilmer stung him.

"I'll bet you can't guess what I've got here," Hilmer began again, tapping the bundle of papers with his ringer.

Starratt shook his head and Hilmer tossed him the blue print.

"Not the insurance on your shipbuilding plant?" escaped Fred, incredulously.

Hilmer crossed his legs and settled back in his chair.

"You said it!" he announced. "And it's all going to you after we've settled one question... I've been bringing you in little odds and ends as I've had them ... not enough to matter much one way or another ...

so I haven't bothered to really get down and talk business. This is a half-million-dollar line and a little bit different. It means about fifteen thousand dollars in premiums, to be exact. You can figure what your commission will be at fifteen per cent, to say nothing of how solid this will make you with the street... Later on there 'll be workmen's compensation, boiler insurance, public liability. It's a pretty nice little plum, if I do say so."

Helen stopped her typing. Fred could feel his lips drying with mingled antic.i.p.ation and apprehension. He knew just what demand Hilmer intended making.

"The question is," Hilmer continued, "how much of the commission are you going to split up with me?"

Fred shrugged. "You know the rules of the Broker's Exchange as well as I do, Hilmer. I've pledged myself not to do any rebating."

Hilmer did not betray the slightest surprise at Starratt's reply.

Evidently he had heard something of the same argument before.

"Everybody does it," was his calmly brief rejoinder.

"You mean Kendrick, to be exact... I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way."

"Do you mean that you would rather pa.s.s up a half-million-dollar line than share the spoils?"

"It isn't a question of choice, Hilmer. You must know I don't want to lose five cents' worth of business. But there are some things a gentleman doesn't do."

He was sorry once the last remark had escaped him, but Hilmer didn't seem disconcerted by the covert inference.

"Scruples are like laws," Hilmer returned, affably. "I never saw one yet that couldn't be gotten round legitimately."

"Oh yes, you can subscribe to any one of the Ten Commandments with your fingers crossed, if you like that kind of a game. But I don't."

Hilmer moved in his seat with an implication of leave-taking. "Well, every man to his own taste," he said, as he reached for the blue print and proceeded to fold it up.

Starratt leaned toward him. His att.i.tude was strangely earnest.

"Do you really like to partic.i.p.ate in a game you know to be unfair, Hilmer?--dishonest, in fact?"

"Partic.i.p.ating? I haven't signed any Broker's Exchange agreement. I'm not breaking any pledge when I accept a share of insurance commission.

That's up to the other fellow."

"Ah, but you know that he is breaking faith... And a man that will double cross his a.s.sociates will double cross you if the opportunity presents itself... Would you put a man in charge of your cash drawer when you knew that he had looted some one else's safe?"

"That's not the same thing," Hilmer sneered. "That is, it's only the same in theory. Practically, an insurance broker couldn't double cross me if he wanted to... I wouldn't put a thief in charge of my cash drawer, but I might make him a night watchman. He'd know all the tricks of the trade."

"Including the secret entrances that those on the outside wouldn't know... A crook wouldn't stay all his life on the night-watchman's job, believe me."

He noticed that Helen was regarding him keenly and her glance registered indulgent surprise rather than disapproval. Hilmer, too, had grown a bit more tolerant. He felt a measure of pride in the realization that he could make his points so calmly and dispa.s.sionately, putting this rough-hewn man before him on the defensive. But Hilmer's wavering was only momentary; he was not a man to waste time in argument when he discovered that such a weapon was futile.

"Then I understand you don't want the business?"

"Not on those terms."

Hilmer shrugged.

Helen leaned forward and put out a hand. "Let's see!" she half commanded.

Hilmer gave her the blue print and the package of memoranda. She began to unfold one of the insurance forms, bending over it curiously. Fred was puzzled. He knew that Helen was too unacquainted with insurance matters to have any knowledge of the printed schedule she was studying, yet he had to concede that she was giving a splendid imitation of an experienced hand. Her acting annoyed him. He turned toward Hilmer with an indifferent comment on the weather and the talk veered to inconsequential subjects. Helen continued her scrutiny of the forms.

Finally Hilmer rose to go. Helen made no move to return the memoranda.

Fred cleared his throat and even coughed significantly, but Helen was oblivious. Presently Starratt went up to his wife and said, deliberately:

"Hilmer is going ... you better give him back his papers."

She turned a glance of startled innocence upon them both. "Oh!" she exclaimed, petulantly. "How disappointing...and just as I was becoming interested... Why don't you men go have your usual drink? I'll be through with them then."

Hilmer gave a silent a.s.sent and Fred followed him. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. On the way out they met Hilmer's office boy in the corridor. Hilmer was wanted on a matter of importance at the office. He waved a brief farewell to Fred and left.

Fred went back to his wife. She had abandoned the forms and was lolling in her chair, sucking at an orange.

"Hilmer's been called suddenly to his office on business," he said, brusquely. She turned and faced him. "You'd better put those papers in the safe. I'll take them back myself to-morrow. I can't see what possessed you to insist on looking them over, anyway."

She squeezed the orange in her hand. "Well, when we get ready to handle the business I want to know something about it."

He stared. "Handle the business? You heard what I said, didn't you?"

"Yes, I heard," she said, wearily, and she went on with her orange.

He did not say anything further, but the next morning a telephone message put to rout his resolve to return Hilmer's insurance forms in person.

"I've got to go up Market Street to see a man about some workmen's compensation," he explained to Helen. "You'd better put on your hat and take those things to Hilmer yourself."

She did not answer...

He returned at three o'clock. Helen was very busy pounding away at the typewriter.

"Well, what's all the rush?" he asked.