Mr. Hurd was a thickset man with a firm, clean-shaven jaw and a face furrowed by deep lines, but with eyes that oddly enough looked comparatively youthful and capable not only of appreciating humor, but even of manufacturing it. He appeared to be a man who, by the exercise of his pronounced talent for commercial strategy, could drive, without an atom of pity, his opponent into a corner, but who, after penning him there, could take an almost boyish amusement in watching the unfortunate's futile efforts to escape. The magnate was dressed in a dark cutaway coat with gray trousers, a pear-shaped turquoise pin adorned his black tie, and his dress fully reflected the solid respectability of the directors' meeting from which he had just come. He took up his position, standing with his back to the window, stirring the sugar in the cup of tea which his daughter had given him. His entrance had snapped the tension between his impecunious step-nephew and the painter. "Well, how are you all?" he remarked genially. "Really, Isabel, you have quite a salon. How is the portrait going, Helen?--or should I have asked the artist and not the subject? Glad to see you, Cole--is the fire insurance business good? Do you know, I made quite a lot of money out of insurance last year--had it figured out recently." "In what way, sir?" Cole politely inquired, anticipating the answer. "By not insuring anything," replied Mr. Hurd, with a short laugh. "Hello, Charlie, had a busy day?" As Wilkinson's extreme disinclination for industry of any legitimate sort was well known to all the party, Mr. Hurd's innocently expressed but barb-pointed question brought a general smile, and Pelgram permitted himself the luxury of a suggestive cough. "Well, no, Uncle John," replied the young man addressed, half apologetically. "Physically, to-day has been on the whole rather restful; however, my active mind has been running as usual at top speed," he added. Mr. Hurd felt inclined to concede the activity of his nephew's mind, in so far that he had never known its headlong flight to be delayed by contact with an idea--that is to say, an idea of any particular value. Still, in the presence of the rest he spared his young relative, merely remarking dryly and in a manner intended to create the impression of closing the incident with the honors on his own side, "I dare say if your mind runs long enough, Charlie, it will eventually be elected." This rejoinder had no definite meaning, but that fact in itself made any retort comparatively difficult, and Wilkinson merely helped himself in silence to another sandwich.