Mr. Murch had spent the holiday and the week-end at the country place of a fellow financier. To this retired spot news penetrated with decorum and conservatism. One was in no danger, at Holmdale, of acting on premature information, for all information which reached this sequestered Westchester chateau did so in the most leisurely and placid manner. For this very reason Mr. Murch shunned Holmdale and resorted to many a subterfuge to avoid the acceptance of divers invitations to sojourn beneath the medieval roof of its host, who happened to be a man whom even Mr. Murch hesitated to offend. In the present case, when on returning to New York early Monday morning he learned that one of the most terrible losses in fire insurance annals had occurred without his knowledge, it did not tend to sweeten his temper. He did not go to his own office, but with a grim face started directly for the building of the Salamander. Once within its portals he immediately entered Mr. O'Connor's room. Mr. O'Connor was seated at his desk, with a pile of daily reports before him. "How much do we lose in Boston?" the visitor demanded. The President of the Salamander had been in the building during most of the past twenty-four hours, taking off the lines in the burned district on a special bordereau. Neither the Osgood office nor his special agent could be reached on the long distance telephone; and the newspaper accounts, even thus long after the fire, were still painfully vague and somewhat rhetorically hysterical. They talked much of the "devouring element," and the word "lurid" frequently occurred; but no reporter had been sufficiently practical to bound the burned district or to state specifically what buildings had or had not been spared. Still, they told enough. To the meanest intelligence it was patent that a tremendous catastrophe had taken place, that most of the section from School Street south to the railroad was leveled, and virtually everything therein was totally destroyed--except the fireproof buildings, which were still standing, scorched and shaken, stripped clean of combustible contents, but not fatally damaged. O'Connor had the list in his hand. In his heart now was the calm absence of feeling which marks the man who has abandoned hope. "I should estimate our net liability in the burned district at about $700,000," he said unemotionally. Mr. Murch leaned forward in his chair. "And the net surplus of the company is--?" he asked menacingly. "You know what it is. It's half a million, roughly." "Well, will you tell me what in the devil you mean by putting this company in a position to lose more money than it has clear?" O'Connor, beyond caring now, actually smiled. "Fortunes of war, Mr. Murch. You wanted a leading position in Boston, if you'll remember. I gave it to you." "I didn't want any such position as my present one," rejoined Mr. Murch, in frigid tones. "I didn't either, if you come to that," retorted O'Connor, promptly.