The knowledge that this was probably the most perilous point in his passage would have caused Wilkinson to hurry past with all possible speed, but his uncle interrupted him with a grim laugh. "That need give you no concern, my young friend," he said curtly, "for the company does not carry any insurance." A trace of Mr. Wilkinson's normal impudence returned momentarily to his tone when he replied:-- "My dear sir, didn't I say that I had made a long preliminary investigation of this? You can scarcely hold my intelligence at so low a figure as to think that I didn't know _that_ fact. That's why I'm here--because I _do_ know it." It may have been the effect of the return to the normal in his step-nephew's tone, or it may have been merely Mr. Hurd's business method, which expelled his next remark from sardonic lips. "Then you need but one more fact to make your knowledge of the subject complete, and that I will now give you. Not only does my company carry no insurance, but it never intends or expects to. Is there anything else this morning?" Charlie smiled calmly, unmoved. "Now we are ready to begin, sir. You have disbelieved in insurance so strongly and so long that such a remark was exactly what I expected you to make. In fact, I should have been not only surprised, but positively embarrassed, had you not made it. Now, I repeat, we are ready to talk business. And I have your promise to listen to my plan." It did not occur to the magnate that he had made no such promise, until Wilkinson was well launched; after that, he forgot about it. "Did any one ever call to your attention, sir, the fact that the statistics show that the fire losses on traction schedules in the Eastern states exceed the insurance premiums on those schedules by nearly thirty-five per cent?" Mr. Hurd shook his head shortly. "I did not know it." Wilkinson did not know it either, but it could not be disproved, and served excellently as a gambit. "And I am not interested in other traction companies' fires," added his uncle. "No, of course not. But the law of average works in the end. Your properties are subject to exactly the same conditions and hazards as others, and in the end the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company will incur more in losses than it would ever have to pay in premiums. In the long run the average wins. So far you have been surprisingly fortunate, and that is another reason why you should begin now to insure. The law of average is perfectly inexorable, and every year of low losses brings you nearer the big losses that are bound to come. You've been gambling, and now is the time to play safe." "Perhaps, my boy," Mr. Hurd replied with amusement, "you believe these things that you quote so glibly. Perhaps not. Let us assume that you do. Therefore let me ask you this: if the insurance companies pay more losses than they get in premiums on traction schedules, why don't they cut off this loss by ceasing to insure them? Hey?"