the very man is here at hand."

"I've already told you that I can assist you no further," said Cole.
"I've given you the idea. You'll have to do the rest, yourself."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you," Wilkinson rejoined coolly. "I meant a man of perhaps not better, but certainly rather broader, experience. I shall go for advice to Mr. Silas Osgood."

And he opened the door and disappeared through it before Cole could voice a protest. He would have much preferred that the senior partner know nothing of the scheme unless it should take concrete form by its success. If Wilkinson by any chance should secure the traction company's insurance, the business should properly be handled by the firm of Silas Osgood and Company, and not by Bennington Cole individually. However, the mischief was already done, for he could hear Charles' cheerful voice greeting the two men in the other office. Rather reluctantly he followed.

He found Wilkinson sitting easily on the arm of a chair, talking rapidly and confidentially to Mr. Osgood, who regarded him with indulgence but wonder, as one who might come suddenly on a charming lady lunatic.

"I don't think I know your friend," Wilkinson was saying, sotto voce, in Mr. Osgood's ear. Then, as Cole entered, Smith rose to shake hands, and the introduction was made.

"Mr. Smith, General Agent of the Guardian of New York—Mr. Wilkinson."

"Delighted to meet you, Mr. Smith." He turned to the elder man. "Mr. Osgood, I've come to see you on a matter of business—an important matter upon which I wish your advice. And I not only wish it, but I need it, as you will appreciate when I tell you that my occupation for the next few weeks, months, or years—as the case may be—will consist in endeavoring to extort a little money from Mr. John M. Hurd."

Cole coughed.

"A most expressive cough, my dear Benny, and the interpretation is
clearly that there is no innovation about such a battle of wits. But,
Mr. Osgood, there is a difference." He looked inquiringly at Cole.
"By the way, is there any reason why we should not speak freely before
Mr. Smith?"

"Mr. Smith is a Company man; he will do nothing to disturb your plan," said Cole. "Go ahead, now you've started."

Wilkinson proceeded.

"I am about to take charge of insuring all the properties of the
Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company, John M. Hurd,
President," he announced.

Mr. Osgood permitted himself a slight smile.

"My dear young friend," he said, "you have given yourself a life sentence at hard labor."

Wilkinson sat down.

"All the better reason why I need assistance," he rejoined. "I need everybody's assistance. But only to get started. When I'm started properly I can look after myself."

"My boy," said the veteran underwriter, kindly, "I have known John M. Hurd since he was thirty years old. I knew him when what is now the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company consisted of two cars, four horses, and three miles of single track. And he never carried a dollar of insurance then, and he never has since. I have seen the brightest brokers in Boston go into his office and come out in anywhere from three to twenty minutes; and not one of them ever got anything at all for his pains. Better give it up, my boy; you'll save yourself more or less trouble, and the result will be the same."

The young man laughed.

"There's one point of dissimilarity that I see already," he replied. "The time of the brightest brokers in Boston is valuable; mine is not. Really, you're not very encouraging, but I didn't expect you to be. I know my step-uncle, and I'm prepared for a stiff and extensive campaign. All I'm asking for is a detonator—something to start the action, you know, or something novel in the way of an explosive. Perhaps an adaptation of one of those grenades that the Chinese pirates throw when they want to drive their victims suffocating into the sea. I realize that there isn't much use engaging Uncle John with ordinary Christian weapons; he's practically bomb-proof."

"I am afraid," said Mr. Osgood, slowly, "that I am not very expert in the manufacture of noxious piratical chemicals. You will have to seek your inspiration elsewhere."

Smith turned to Wilkinson. Heretofore the representative of the
Guardian had taken no part in the conversation.

"Would you mind stating, without quite so many figures of speech, just what you want?" he asked quietly.

"Certainly. What I want is something, some handle which will get me
John M. Hurd's attention just long enough to make him listen to me. If
I can get him to listen, I stand a chance."

"You say he carries no fire insurance on any of the trolley properties?" the New Yorker inquired thoughtfully.

"No," replied Mr. Osgood. "He has a small insurance fund—perhaps thirty or forty thousand dollars. He pays into this each year a part of what his insurance would cost him, and out of this fund is paid what losses the company sustains. And we must confess that so far the scheme has worked well. His losses have been much less than he would have paid in premiums to the companies."

"A fund—yes. That is all well and good, unless there is a great
congestion of value at some single point, or at a very few points.
Tell me, how much value is there in that main car barn on Pemberton
Street—the new one next to the power plant?"

"Probably over a half a million dollars—at night, when the cars are all there," said Cole.

"And with the power house almost a million, then?"

"Almost," Cole agreed.

Smith rose and walked over to the window; the others watched him in silence. "What kind of people hold the stock of the traction company?" he asked suddenly.

"I fancy Mr. Hurd himself swings a very big block," Cole answered. "And his directors have a good deal. It's easily carried—the banks up here will loan on it almost up to the market value."

Smith still looked thoughtfully out the window.

"And I presume the directors and other stockholders take advantage of that fact?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes," Mr. Osgood replied. "We have a lot of it as collateral for loans in the Charlestown Trust Company, of which I am a director."

"And is it actively traded in on the Exchange?" the New Yorker continued.

"No. Odd lots mainly, from time to time. But the price is remarkably steady. It is regarded about as safe as a bond."

Smith returned to the seated group.

"Gentlemen," he said, "banks do strange things at times, but they are usually grateful for information when it is of value. They have probably never taken the trouble to find out whether the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction was properly protected against a fire—by which I mean a big fire; they probably have assumed that it was. If it were to become known in financial circles that their insurance fund was forty thousand dollars and that they stood to lose one million dollars if there were a big fire in Pemberton Street to-night, how many of those borrowers do you think would be asked by the banks to reduce their loans or to substitute in part other collateral of a less speculative sort? It might even affect the price of the stock on the Exchange rather unfortunately. Some of those directors might have an unpleasant half-hour."

He paused. Wilkinson's face