"Are those the figures you have there?" inquired the President, glancing at the list on his subordinate's desk. "No. I sent that list with the daily reports to the loss department. This is another one--even more interesting on some accounts. This is a list of the lines we didn't get." "Ah! You mean--?" said Mr. Wintermuth. "These are the lines that we have lost since we went out of the Osgood office." "Indeed! What is the total?" asked the other man, with interest. "I haven't quite finished, but I should say it would come close to $350,000." "Which I suppose the Salamander got. I don't like to rejoice in other men's misfortunes, Richard, but there is a certain element of justice in that," said the older man, gravely. "What interests me is, how much more than that they got," Smith returned. "Don't forget that Cole is clever, but not the careful underwriter Mr. Osgood is, and that O'Connor was out to make a record for premium income. If the Salamander's loss up there is less than $600,000, I shall be surprised." "Their surplus isn't as much as that, is it? That will impair them." "On the first of January their surplus was a little less than half a million." "Oh, well," Mr. Wintermuth returned, "I suppose they'll assess their stockholders. That man Murch will probably get up an underwriting syndicate to handle it." "But suppose he doesn't. Suppose they decide to reinsure and quit. Murch has the reputation of being a bad loser," said Smith, slowly. His chief looked at him. "Let them reinsure, then. But how does that affect us?" he said. "Why shouldn't we reinsure them?" said the Vice-President. "What!" exclaimed Mr. Wintermuth. "What's that you say?" "I say," returned Smith, "that the Salamander is far more likely to reinsure than to stand a heavy assessment. And we want that business of theirs. We have a little score to settle with the Salamander, sir." "Yes, yes," admitted the President. "O'Connor has treated us very badly; still, it has worked out very fortunately for us. And at any rate," he added, "I do not believe in allowing personal animus to govern one's business acts or policy." It was a sounding phrase, although not quite new. "Neither do I," said Smith, promptly; "but this is more than an act of poetic justice. Of course there's a certain satisfaction in finding that one of the packages stolen from us contained a bomb which blew up the burglar--but how much more appropriate it would be if the same explosion hurled the rest of the stolen property into the hands of the original and rightful owners. And besides that, the Salamander business is well worth putting on our books--and there's a lot of it." "Yes. Too much, in fact," said his chief. "Our resources are not sufficient to permit our taking on such a load."