"Does Uncle Silas write policies? I thought the companies themselves did that." "No. Mr. Osgood has a young man in his office--his name is Reed--who does nothing else. And every time a policy is written by Mr. Reed and signed by Mr. Osgood or Mr. Cole and delivered to the assured, this peculiar document, the daily report, is made up and sent in to this office. It is really a complete description of the policy which has just been written." "But there must be thousands!" "Of course. One for every policy every agent issues. We get more than two hundred a day in this office." "That's why Uncle Silas said I ought to go to a home office to see things properly. That's what he meant--it's the center of everything. I begin to understand." Smith, glancing at her, perceived that there was no question of her interest now. "Here they come, the daily reports," he continued, "and we open them--dailies from Chicago, San Antonio, Butte, Lenox, Jersey City, Tampa, Bangor. Dailies in English, a few in Spanish, quite a number in French, for a few of our Canadian agents speak nothing else. This current of dailies flowing through this office, never ceasing day in and day out, year after year, is like the current of the blood tending back to the heart, like the response of the nerves to the pulse-beat, reporting at the brain, bringing news of the body's health, even down to the fingers' ends. And we sit here, like a spider in a web, drawing all the world." "What do they tell you?" asked the girl, absorbedly. "Everything;--or nearly all. Is a trust in the making? We know of it here, when we see the ownership of scattered factories change to a common head. Is prohibition gaining ground in the South? We can tell by the shut-down endorsements on brewery and distillery policies and by the increasing losses on saloons whose owners can make no further profit. Is there a corner in wheat or coffee or cotton? We follow the moves in the struggle by the ebb and flow of insurance in the big warehouses and elevators and compresses. Is the automobile market overstocked? Our rising loss ratio gives the reply. Are hard times coming? We can tell it when the merchants begin to cut down their insurance, which means their stocks as well, buying what they need from day to day. Is the panic over? We learn it by a rush of new dailies, buildings in course of construction, new and costly machinery introduced in factories, increased insurance all along the line." "It sounds almost uncanny," said Helen, slowly. "Can you really learn all these things in this way?"