Mr. Wintermuth interrupted him. "Herbert, ask Mr. Smith if he will not step this way for a moment, please." To the man from Maine the General Agent said: "You'll excuse me for a minute?" And Darius Howell, with astonishing definiteness, replied: "Sure--go ahead." Smith found his two officers awaiting him by the open map. From the expression on O'Connor's face he suspected that that gentleman had discovered something not displeasing to him, and unconsciously he found his own shoulders squaring themselves as though for a conflict. "We have here," began the President, slowly, "a loss at Providence on a risk which Mr. O'Connor seems to think we should not have written." "Where is the risk, sir?" Smith asked quietly. "Here. Here is the daily report. It is approved by you. . . . Probably there is something about the risk which does not appear on the face of it. Do you remember the circumstances?" Smith looked the daily report over carefully. It certainly showed the risk, just as plainly as the map also showed it, to be a mattress factory, a class prohibited by the Guardian, and there were Smith's own interwoven initials. Then, suddenly, at the sight of the hieroglyph, he remembered. "Why, you passed this line yourself, Mr. O'Connor," was on his lips to say. But he did not say it. For by the cold light in the eyes of the Vice-President he knew that course useless. "I remember the risk," he said, addressing himself to Mr. Wintermuth. "It was a direct line of our local agents, and they were very anxious to have us take a small amount. It was accepted as an accommodation, and I reinsured one half, as you see, sir. Is it a bad loss?" "Reported total," replied the other, turning over the telegram. "My boy, you're usually so careful, I don't understand how you came to put through such business. You ought at least to have referred it to Mr. O'Connor or myself." Smith glanced again at the Vice-president, but that gentleman remained silent, and the General Agent again swallowed what was on his tongue to utter. "Yes, sir, I should have done so," he substituted. Mr. Wintermuth continued: "We cannot write such risks as that and hope to make an underwriting profit. They say I am a believer in 4 per cent bonds--perhaps I am, but I am _not_ a believer in 4 per cent mattress factories." The old gentleman softened his criticism with a smile. But to Smith, feeling rather than seeing the half-hidden satisfaction of the Vice-president, the President's kindly manner proved of little comfort. For Smith and O'Connor knew that the line in question had been submitted to O'Connor, and that in view of the competition of several very liberal companies in the Providence agency, the Vice-president had authorized its acceptance. With his wonted caution, however, he had refrained from putting himself on record, other than orally. "Reinsure half, and put it through, Smith," he had directed; and Smith had done so.