"Well, I'm glad you feel the same way about it, and I'm glad I got it out of my system; but I don't see that it helps things much, does it?" the local underwriter replied. "I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Wintermuth. "It helps me, and possibly the assistance will spread to the whole situation later on." Meanwhile the gentleman who was thus summarily consigned to the infernal regions was doing his vague utmost to cope with three situations at once, any one of which would have been entirely beyond his capabilities to control. New York, Philadelphia, and the Eastern field as a whole,--each was a problem in itself, and each was getting farther and farther out of hand. The Guardian's field men were demoralized, beholding the fine agency plant of their company crumble and melt away while they stood helpless to hold it together. And Mr. Gunterson, when asked for remedies, could reply only in nebulous words of even more crepuscular and doubtful pertinence. New York was admittedly beyond him, and Philadelphia, harkening to siren voices that promised great things, was presently to vote on the separation rule for that city. It is a depressing business, this watching the burning of one's own ancestral house, the sinking of one's proudest ship of all the fleet. It was altogether too much for Mr. Wintermuth. For nearly a week he was missing from the office, and no man at the Guardian knew of his whereabouts. With the decline in volume of the company's business, the amount of routine work in the office became unbearably, demoralizingly light. The map clerks loafed and the bookkeepers joked with one another. Smith found time hanging heavy on his hands; but by Mr. Gunterson's orders he stayed at his desk, although he could have done much, had he been permitted to go out among his agents in the field, to stem the tide. In the local department the atmosphere was charged with the contagious mourning of Mr. Cuyler, who with funereal face sat contemplating the shrinkage of his business. For with the loss of his branch manager and his two best brokers, there was a deficit in his premium returns which he could not overcome. And certainly his melancholy countenance did not attract business; it was a bold placer indeed who tried with quip and banter to secure Mr. Cuyler's acceptance of a doubtful risk. His world was awry, and all who ran might read it. His brow became unpleasantly corrugated, his smile a thing of the past. If Mr. O'Connor had wanted evidence of the success of his local campaign, he could have gained it from one look at Mr. Cuyler.