“He purchased and took with him a second-hand suit of clothes and a wig,” explained Albert. “He cut off his whiskers and mustache, so that he appeared as a man who had neglected to shave for a week—a pretty good disguise in itself, for father was always neat and clean. The clothes he had worn went overboard with a weight attached, which accounts for the splash, and he himself raised the cry of ‘Man overboard!’ After that he kept out of the light, and he had little difficulty in slipping ashore while we were hunting his state-room. His mental distress was real, for he was leaving all he held dear and condemning himself to exile.” “Well,” commented Murray, “I guess the circumstances would have fooled any one, for his whole previous life made him about the last man who would be suspected of anything of that sort.” “And now,” said Albert, “my brother and I are prepared to make a cash settlement with you on any basis that you deem satisfactory.” AN INCIDENTAL DISCOVERY The applicant for insurance was nervous and ill at ease, but that alone was not sufficient to make Dave Murray suspicious. A man taking out his first policy is very often nervous—he dreads the physical examination in many instances. He may think he is all right, but he fears the possibility of some serious latent trouble. If there is anything radically and incurably wrong with the average man, he prefers not to know it. He may not say so, but he does. He goes before the medical examiner with the fear that he may learn something disagreeable. “I’m fairly contented now,” he says to himself, if he happens to be practical enough to put his thoughts into words, “but life will be a haunting hell to me if I learn that I am not a good risk. That will mean at least the probability of an early death. It will not change conditions, but it will seem to bring death nearer.” These thoughts do not come to the very young man, but they do come to the man who has passed, or is passing, the optimism of youth. In the words of Dave Murray, “One of the great annoyances of the life insurance business is that the very young man is too well and strong to want to be insured, and the man of middle age is afraid of learning that he is not as well and strong as he thinks he is. We have to fight optimism first and cowardice later. Theoretically, the ‘risk’ ought to be caught young, but, practically, it is easier to catch him when he has begun to appreciate the responsibilities of life. The optimism is more difficult to overcome than the cowardice.”