“I never looked at in that way,” returned Wentworth thoughtfully, “but you’re right, Dave. The policy will have a sacredness that no stock can possess. To touch it, to risk any part of it in business, would seem like taking money out of the baby’s bank. Still,” he added whimsically, “a game in which you have to die to win never did appeal to me very strongly.” “A game in which you are sure to win when you die is better than a game in which you are likely to lose twice,” retorted Murray, “or one in which you have to live to win, so long as life is something over which you have no jurisdiction. With insurance you win when you lose, but with stocks you may lose both ways and leave nothing but a reputation for selfish improvidence. Of course, I am looking at it from the family, rather than the personal, point of view.” “Surely,” acquiesced Wentworth. “I am thinking of the little woman and the baby.” He settled back in his chair and smoked dreamily for a few moments, his thoughts evidently wandering to the home that had given him so much of happiness during the last eighteen months. And Murray was silent, too. The affair was as much one of friendship as of business with him. It had been largely a joke when he had first declared that he would write a policy on Wentworth’s life, although he believed implicitly that every man should have insurance and should get it when he is young enough to secure a favorable rate. At that time Wentworth had no one dependent upon him, but Murray had kept at him in a bantering way, telling him that he would surely have need of insurance later and that he had better prepare for it while the opportunity offered. Then, when celibacy seemed to have become a permanent condition with him, he had married, and thereafter, while still treating the subject lightly and humorously, Murray had conducted a campaign that was really founded on friendship. No one knows better than a man who has been long in the insurance business of the tragedies resulting from procrastination and neglect; no one can better appreciate how great a risk of such a tragedy a friend may be running. So Murray, jolly but insinuating, was actuated by something more than purely business interest when he made whimsical references to his long campaign in the presence of Mrs. Wentworth and incidentally, apparently only to tease her husband, described some of the sad little dramas of life that had come to his notice. And he had won at last. “Get the application ready,” said Wentworth, suddenly rousing himself, “and let me know when your doctor wants to see me.” That evening Wentworth told his wife that he had arranged to take out a twenty-five-thousand-dollar policy, and she put her arms around his neck and looked up at him in an anxious, troubled way. “You don’t think I’m mercenary, do you, Stanley?” “Indeed, I don’t, little woman,” he replied, as he kissed her; “I think you are only wise.”