"Mr. Richard Smith?" inquired the President. "Oh, yes. But I was thinking of Mr. Griswold." "Well, we shall see," rejoined Mr. Wintermuth; and the conversation concluded. The year 1914 dawned clear and cold. There had been an almost daily snowfall in New York during Christmas week; and although the street cleaning squad had labored stoutly, a little dusky whiteness still persisted in the less frequented corners of the city. This had come near to being the undoing of Mr. Jenkins, the main reliance of the Pacific Coast accounts and otherwise of considerable importance in the period of stress and toil known as "statement time." At the beginning of every year comes this period to every company--the time when the accounts department becomes, instead of an active thorn in the company's flesh, the real, essential hub of the whole wheel; the time when the adding machines are never still and the rooms resound with the rustle and stir of a thousand sheets of figures, swung ceaselessly over by practiced and hasty thumbs; when the lights burn late every night for two weeks on end, and the laboring bookkeepers see their families only by cinematographic glances between newspaper and coffee cup in the cold gray mornings. This time was now come; and the Guardian's men, under the silent but none the less strenuous urging of Mr. Bartels, had begun the grind which could end only when the annual statement of the company was in the printers' hands with proof initialed and approved by Otto Bartels, Secretary. And this, taken in conjunction with the cold weather and heavy snowfall, had fairly undone the honor and the reputation of Mr. Jenkins. For the unusual cold and the night work together had betrayed him into potations even beyond his wont, the slippery pavements had proven very baffling to his dignified tread--and the snowy signet upon the back of his topcoat spoke to a delighted office all too plainly that at last the alcoholic equilibrist par excellence had fallen. This, however, embarrassing as it was to the individual in question, did not seriously delay the work of the department, which was well under way by the time the directors came together in their private office, to declare the semiannual dividend which for many years the Guardian had undeviatingly paid. A trial balance, from gross figures, had been drawn off, so that the President was able to report with reasonable exactitude on the condition of the company. The dividend was promptly declared, and this was followed by a more or less informal discussion among the gentlemen around the big table. "The increase in our surplus seems due mostly to the rise in value of some of our securities," Mr. Whitehill commented; "but the underwriting showing is much better for the last six months than for the first. I think our friend, Mr. Smith, is to be congratulated; and at the same time I want to ask what he thinks of our prospects for the coming year."