"Yes. What you mean is this. I've had charge of the underwriting of the Guardian for seven years. Many of its best agents look on me as the company; the Guardian is just a name, but the man they do business with is F. Mills O'Connor, and I'll guarantee that a lot of the best of them will keep on doing business with me, no matter with what concern I'm associated. Now the Guardian has as fine a class of big city business on its books as any company of its size in the field, and I'll bet that in the big cities, where you've lost your money, its business is not only better but larger than the Salamander's. In New York and Boston and Philadelphia you couldn't beat it to save your life. What you want to know is whether I can get equally good stuff for the Salamander, and I want to tell you that I can. And in some pretty important places I can get the identical business, you understand. You want to know how I'm going to get it. Well, what I just told you about a lot of agents keeping on with F. Mills O'Connor is one factor, but there are several others, and I'd rather not mention them until I take charge. But you need have no fear that they cannot be successfully utilized. Do I make myself clear?" Mr. Murch smiled a deprecatory smile. "Quite," he said. "In fact, you put it a little more bluntly than I had expected." "Well, then, if you want to ratify this arrangement at the next meeting of your board, it will be all right with me, and moreover I'll guarantee you personally that within a year the Salamander will be taking over the Guardian's business in at least three of the principal cities of the United States." "The next meeting is on Monday," said Mr. Murch. "Very well. Ratify it then, but keep it strictly under cover for two months. If I hear from you that the deal has gone through, I'll start laying my wires. This is the first of October. Don't let anything out until the first of December. Then I'll resign, and come to the Salamander the first of the new year--possibly before that." "How so?" "Oh, I've a notion that when I resign, Mr. Wintermuth will say that I needn't remain the customary thirty days; I fancy he'll let me out at once." A smile, none too pleasant, crossed the lips of the Guardian official. Business was business, of course, and a man was entitled to use his personal influence to advance himself; but he scarcely relished the idea of practically looting the company for which he had worked for a good many years. O'Connor's fiber was not of the tenderest, but he had his intervals of conscientiousness, when his brain saw the correct ethics, even if his hand did not always follow. Mr. Murch got up from his chair. "I'll call you on the phone Monday, after our meeting," he said. "I shall be at the office until five." They parted.