"What do you mean?" asked Sternberg, slowly. He was large and bald, and had a dead-white, soft-looking, pock-marked face, while Bloom was short, black, and untidy. "Well, I mean for one thing, the Guardian gets thrown out of the Osgood agency. They're on the street. Why shouldn't we get 'em?" "Sure! Why not?" Sternberg rejoined with enthusiasm. "We've got to get some one else in here before long or we'll be up in the air. I'm afraid we've been salting some of our people too hard. It sort of jarred me when the Spokane left us. We've got to do something pretty quick. Now, how will we get at Gunterson? He don't know us." "And a blame good thing he don't," said McCoy, with perfect frankness. "A swell chance we'd have of landing the Guardian if we'd had the Elsass-Lothringen! There's no use of talking--we've been writing too freely. We must cut out the skates. Now, let's get together and land Gunterson." "That's all right, too. But if we cut out the skates, what'll we have left? Anyhow, the main question is how'll we land Gunterson?" Sternberg persisted. The mind of this large man moved as slowly as a house in a small town being transported from one lot to another by one mule, a rope, and a windlass. McCoy's mind more resembled the agile and evasive flea. "I bet my cousin Billy Gallagher knows him. Come to think of it, Billy was special agent up here for the Florida Fire and Marine at the time Gunterson was running them. We can square Billy all right, and I believe Billy can put it over." "It looks like a cinch to me," said Bloom, lighting a cigarette. "It is," said McCoy, briefly. It was. And so it came about that in the forenoon of the following day a solemn trio of men, two Hebrews and an Irishman, were bowing a polite welcome to the distinguished Vice-President of the Guardian of New York, who, in company with his friend Mr. Gallagher, now an independent loss adjuster, had honored them with a call. Mr. Gunterson confessed that he was considering a change in the Guardian's Boston representation; he had not gone so far as to commit himself, but he was looking around--of course among the few agents with whom non-Conference companies predominated. It had been agreed by the trio that McCoy should do the talking for the firm, and McCoy came from an island where the art of persuasive conversation is far from extinct. "Well, Mr. Gunterson, I want to say right off the reel that Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy would like very much to take on the Guardian. The Guardian's got a good name, and its policy sells well; and in the last few weeks, especially--" he threw out suggestively. "What's the last few weeks got to do with it?" inquired the innocent and obliging visitor.