Ordinarily these meetings were simple in the extreme, being merely ratifications of what the President had done and approvals of what he said he purposed to do. To the somewhat bored group of representative financial figureheads around the table Mr. Hurd would read a sheet of figures telling how many million miles the company had carried one passenger during the previous month--such reports are always reduced to absurdities--and would inform them of such plans as he chose to intrust to their confidence, and would then suggest the declaration of the usual dividend. To this the directors would unanimously assent. Then they punctiliously received each man his golden eagle, and a motion to adjourn closed the ceremony. To-day had come an astonishing innovation in procedure. Instead of suavely instructing them what they should vote to do, Mr. Hurd was behaving in a most oddly uncharacteristic fashion. He was asking their advice. This amounted to a _bouleversement supreme_ of the usual order of things, and it was no wonder that there was disquietude among his hearers. "It has been represented to me," he had tersely said, "that if a large fire should involve our Pemberton Street barn and power house, notwithstanding the presumably fireproof construction of those buildings, we should quite likely incur a much larger loss than we would find it convenient to pay at a time when additional financing might be somewhat embarrassing. I am therefore laying before you gentlemen the question of doing what we have never previously done, and carrying fire insurance on our properties. I prefer not to advise you, and suggest an open discussion of the matter." Mr. Hurd sat down; his directors surveyed one another and the situation with concern. Could the old man be losing his grip, or was this merely a transient eccentricity? In the debate which followed the President took no part; only once, in answer to a question by Mr. Jonas Green, much the most penurious man at the table, as to what had brought the question up at the present time, Mr. Green being an enthusiastic exponent of the doctrine of _laissez faire_ when any additional expenditure was proposed, Mr. Hurd made reply:-- "It is represented to me that if it became public knowledge that we carry no insurance, banking and financial institutions generally may come to feel that our conservatism is open to criticism and that they are rating our stock somewhat too highly as collateral. It is intimated that some of us might conceivably be annoyed by requests to substitute in part other collateral or somewhat reduce loans secured by Massachusetts Traction stock." "But so far as the banks are concerned, we're in exactly the same position we've always been. How is the fact we don't insure going to become public knowledge now any more than in the past?" persisted Mr. Green.