"Let me finish," he said. "I have known your former chief, Mr. Wintermuth, considerably more than half my lifetime. When I resign the Boston agency of the Guardian, it will be either at his request or because my day in the insurance world is over and I can no longer give the company a sufficient business. That is all. And now, Mr. O'Connor, I do not ask you to leave my office, but I hope you will never come into it again so long as I am here." The President of the Salamander got to his feet, and his eyes narrowed. "All right, Mr. Osgood," he said. "Don't worry--I won't stay where I'm not wanted. But my offer was made in good faith, it would have been advantageous to your firm, and I'm sorry you turned it down. I wanted to give you a chance, in a way that I admit would have been a good thing for me, to keep your own office organization intact--for the impression seems to be gaining ground that the Boston Board will pass a separation rule, and in that event you will have to give up the Guardian agency, anyway." The Bostonian turned back to his desk. "That is too remote a contingency for me to discuss with you," he replied, somewhat curtly. "Good-day, sir." "Good-day, Mr. Osgood," said F. Mills O'Connor. He paused at the threshold. "I don't believe you've heard the last of this yet," he remarked, as he closed the door behind him. It is a common saying with regard to any especially clever criminal: what a great man he would have made of himself if only he would have applied all this cleverness to legitimate ends! This is probably untrue in nine cases out of every ten, and perhaps in even a larger ratio, for the successful crook is successful only along crooked lines; his mind will work only in forbidden channels; it needs the spice and flavor of the illicit to stimulate its brilliancy. Let him address himself to a legitimate problem, ethical or commercial, and his efficiency evaporates--or rather it is non-existent. Although not a criminal, F. Mills O'Connor was, to a limited degree, a demonstration of this fact. Mr. O'Connor had been competent but never particularly clever along strictly legitimate lines; it was always and only along ways just a little devious, a little tricky, a little sophistical, that his acumen mounted above the ordinary. His greatest successes with the Guardian had always been gained by methods which had been kept secret from his chief, for Mr. Wintermuth's keen sense of business honor would have prevented the fruition of every one.