White Ashes Part 38

"That's most of it nonsense--but what if I did?" asked O'Connor, curtly.

"I am merely here to ask your personal a.s.surance that from now on you will discontinue your active efforts directed especially against my company."

The other man looked at him.

"That's cool enough, I'm sure. And what'll you do if I don't grant your surprising request?"

"If you do not, the Guardian will be obliged to take such steps to meet you as seem advisable. So far we've been entirely on the defensive; but we are going to protect our interests, and if the best way to protect them necessitates a complete change of tactics from the defensive to the aggressive, we shall make that change. And if we do, I give you warning that we can make things unpleasantly interesting for you and your company."

O'Connor laughed, toying with a pencil.

"We don't want to be forced to attack you," Smith continued, "and I admit we would far rather not; but I warn you that if we are unfairly injured, the man responsible will be held personally liable. You understand what 'personally liable' means, don't you?"

The President of the Salamander did not reply for a moment, but Smith saw a flush come into his face when he answered.

"Pshaw! you're talking of things you know nothing about. I haven't injured your company--you've done it yourselves. If you don't like it, being outside the Conference, why in the devil don't you go back? I'll propose the Guardian for membership, myself, and you'll be reinstated within two weeks. I haven't done anything that any business man wouldn't have done. Some agents have decided that they'd rather represent the Salamander than the Guardian; in my opinion that's only the exercise of good judgment. If people prefer to give risks to us rather than you, they've a right to exercise the privilege of their choice. My feeling toward the Guardian is exactly what it has always been. If Mr. Wintermuth thinks he's been unfairly treated or that he has a grievance against me, let him come to me with it himself, and I will be glad to show him that he is wrong. But I don't care to go into the matter any further with any one else."

"That is your answer, then?" Smith asked.

"Yes--it is," the other responded shortly.

Smith turned to the door.

"Sure you've nothing further to add?" he asked, his hand on the k.n.o.b.

"Nothing whatever," said the President of the Salamander, and he turned back to his desk.

"I'm afraid we'll have to fight," Smith reported to his chief.

"O'Connor says," he added, with legitimate malice, "that if you imagine you have a grievance and will come to the office of the Salamander, he will graciously consent to give you a hearing."

Mr. Wintermuth looked up, and a flash of his pristine shrewdness gleamed in his eye.

"You're saying that--putting it that way to get me into a controversy with the Salamander people, Richard," he said.

"Yes," admitted Smith, honestly; "but I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe that eventually we'll have to fight that man on his own ground, and beat him, too, before he'll leave us alone to conduct our business."

"Perhaps that is so."

"Then you'll let me close in on him when it becomes necessary?" the other persisted.

"Possibly," said Mr. Wintermuth, cautiously; and more he would not say.

During the next few days Smith found himself a very busy man. There were a thousand and one matters demanding his attention, for in the three months' regime of his predecessor many things had come to loose ends. All through Conference territory agents had to be rea.s.sured; there were certain legal preparations to be made; definite instructions for a new plan of campaign had to be given to field men and office force. Smith found very little time to consider the two questions which most interested him--of which one was the next probable move of O'Connor and the other the securing of a new reinsurance contract.

To be sure this latter task was officially a.s.sumed by Mr. Wintermuth, but Smith felt reasonably certain that ultimately he himself would have to find the treaty. And this would not be an easy task, unless he should resort to the obvious and fashionable method of consulting Mr.

Simeon Belknap and abiding by his selection on his own terms; and since the market was limited and Mr. Belknap's facilities in these delicate and complicated matters were unique, his services naturally were not cheaply held. Smith, with youthful self-confidence, decided that he himself would make a preliminary canva.s.s of the reinsurance market; and so, when the first rush of new duties had abated, and his legal affairs were safely in the hands of counsel, and the interrupted agency machine of the Guardian was beginning to turn normally once more, he undertook this matter of a new reinsurance contract with all the energy at his command.

The one man in New York, aside from the eminent Mr. Belknap, who was the most powerful figure in reinsurance affairs and who best understood the situation on both sides of the Atlantic, was a solid, silent, almost venerable Teuton by the name of Scheidle. Mr. Scheidle occupied an anomalous position, but one of absolute authority, since he had been for many years the United States Manager of no less than three of the largest foreign reinsurance companies. He was unsociable, apparently uninterested in anybody save possibly himself, and disinclined to be lured by any call or beckoning whatsoever from his William Street office. An outsider would have said that most of his time was employed in crossing the ocean, for it seemed as though the _Journal of Commerce_ reported every few days either his arrival or departure.

Perhaps he reserved his loquacity for his native land, but at all events he exchanged in New York no converse with any one save in the strictest necessities of business; he had no intimates except a few anonymous Teutons as difficult of access as himself. He positively declined to make new friends, and it was evident that he had all the friends he desired to have; and in the same way he declined to consider any new business proposals, as all his companies were long established and all were in possession from numerous treaty contracts of premium incomes sufficiently large to satisfy their conservative manager.

This was the man that Smith, after careful deliberation, set himself to ensnare. But unfortunately, the more extended became his researches, the more impregnable appeared the cloudy barriers which Mr. Scheidle had raised between himself and the English-speaking world. At the end of a week of consistent effort Smith found himself precisely where he was when he began.

And then, just as his chances of success seemed faintest, the whole scroll suddenly unrolled itself before him. A chance inquiry of Mr.

Otto Bartels provoked an answer of gutturals not especially euphonious in themselves, but which fell with vast and soothing solace on Smith's troubled sense.

"Sure do I know him," said Mr. Bartels. "Except when he goes to Germany, with him I play pinochle on Tuesdays always."

Smith surveyed him, speechless.

"To-day is Tuesday," he said at last. And for the next half hour he proceeded to explain to Mr. Bartels exactly what it was that Mr.

Scheidle now had a chance to do for his old friend with whom for so many years he had played his nocturnal pinochle on Tuesdays always.

"You'd have saved me a lot of trouble if you'd ever said you knew Scheidle," Smith remarked after the explanation was concluded.

"I would have said if any had asked," replied Mr. Bartels, simply.

However, the same commendable reticence being a characteristic of all his human relations, there really was no cause for Smith's criticism.

Mr. Bartels, moreover, now that he knew what he was expected to do and had his duty set plain before his methodical feet, advanced along the desired way in a most encouraging manner, and with considerable celerity. So successful was he in his negotiations with Mr. Scheidle that not long afterward he was able to bring Smith the most welcome of tidings.

"He says that one of his companies has a treaty with the Majestic of Cincinnati, and he has lost money by it. The Majestic gives him bad business. He will perhaps cancel this contract, and that leaves a place for another."

"The next time I want anything, I'll come to you first," said Smith, cheerfully. "Now I'll go and see the chief and ease his mind--and also find out what terms he is willing to make with Scheidle."

Mr. Wintermuth proved to be no stickler for terms; his anxiety to replace the lost treaty was too great. And Mr. Scheidle, after a.n.a.lyzing and studying the results of the business which the Guardian had ceded to the Karlsruhe, made a very fair offer. And so the Imperial Reinsurance Company of Stettin, with a.s.sets nearly twice as great as the once lamented Karlsruhe, agreed to pay as much commission to the Guardian as the Karlsruhe paid, on an almost equally liberal form of agreement.

It was only a short time after this matter had been so satisfactorily arranged that Smith met one morning at the office door the gloomy face of the once optimistic and combative Cuyler. The mind of the young Vice-President had been so cheerfully inclined by the events of the last fortnight that he had almost forgotten there still was depression in the world.

"For heaven's sake!" he said, stopping the disconsolate one, "you don't mean to say that you start in a pleasant day feeling the way you look?"

"Yes, of course I do, and why shouldn't I?" returned the misanthrope.

"Business all shot to pieces; the only chance of getting back the brokers we've lost is to open up a little and fire off a few roman candles, and the old man won't let me do that; and no sign of a good branch manager. What more do you want?"

He eyed Smith so hostilely that the younger man, for all his regard for the veteran, felt inclined to laugh.

"Well, that sounds pretty bad," he agreed; "but absolutely nothing warrants a face as sad as yours. Those are simply a number of misfortunes that may be overcome, but your face implies a regular catastrophe. I don't see how a broker dares to tackle you; I wouldn't, if I were a broker."

"Oh, it's all very well to be cheerful, if you can," retorted the other, gloomily; "but I've been a good many years building up this local business, and I admit I can't take much enjoyment in watching it float out the door and disappear down the street."

"No, one would hardly expect you to," Smith conceded. "But cheer up, just a little. I've been waiting for the directors' meeting to tackle the local situation, and you know they meet to-day."

This was the first directors' meeting since that at which Smith had been chosen Vice-President. Had there been in the minds of those who had voted for him any doubt of his dynamic force and ability to cope with the situation before him, that doubt must have been dispelled by the brief but satisfactory report upon what had been done, presented to them by Mr. Wintermuth. Upon the conclusion of this there was a pause, and Mr. Whitehill spoke.

"That's a good statement, and I think our Vice-president is to be congratulated on taking hold of things in such an energetic and business-like way. We shall of course ratify the action Mr. Smith has taken on these matters; and now I want to ask Mr. Smith what he thinks our prospects are and what he has in mind for the immediate future."

There were two things Smith wanted, neither of which could he get alone and unaided; and accordingly he went to the point with the utmost directness.

"I believe that we have pa.s.sed a kind of crisis and that things are fairly well started, gentlemen," he said. "I see no reason why the Guardian should not go on and continue to be the successful underwriting inst.i.tution it has always been, and certainly I shall try my hardest to make it so. I am very much obliged to Mr. Whitehill for his expression of confidence in me. Now, there are two things which you gentlemen can give me and for which I ask you to-day. One is authority to double our liability on Manhattan Island, and the other is an uptown branch manager."