g--more Dutch, to use the time-worn phrase, made
significant to Fred Starratt by his mother. But Helen always made a
point to compliment her on her appearance.

"You look too sweet for anything!" Helen would exclaim, rushing upon
her new friend with an eager kiss.

At this Mrs. Hilmer always dimpled with wholesome pleasure. Well, she
did look sweet, in a motherly, bovine way, Fred admitted, when the
note of insincerity in his wife's voice jarred him.

One day Mrs. Hilmer brought down a hat the two had picked out and
which had been altered at Helen's suggestion. She tried it on for
Helen's approval, and Fred stood back in a corner while Helen went
into ecstasies over it. Even a man could not escape the fact that it
was unbecoming. Somehow, in a subtle way, it seemed to accent all of
Mrs. Hilmer's unprepossessing features. When she left the office Fred
said to Helen, casually:

"I don't think much of your taste, old girl. That hat was awful!"

Helen laughed maliciously. "Of course it was!" she flung back.

Starratt shrugged and said no more. There was kindliness back of many
deceits, but he knew now that Helen's insincerities with Mrs. Hilmer
were not justified by even so dubious virtue.

At the moment when the Hilmer shipyard insurance had been turned over
to Fred Starratt he had at once made a move toward a reduction in the
rate. Having gone over the schedule at the Board of Fire Underwriters,
he had discovered that they had failed to give Hilmer credit in the
rating for certain fire protection. On the strength of Starratt's
application for a change a new rate was published about the middle of
May. Starratt was jubilant. Here was proof for Hilmer that his
interests were being guarded and that it paid to employ an efficient
broker. He flew at once to Hilmer's office.

"Let me have your policies," he burst out.
"I've secured a new rate for you and I want the reduction indorsed."

Hilmer did not appear to be moved by the announcement.

"Better cancel and rewrite the bunch," he replied, briefly.

Fred gasped. This meant that only about a sixth of the premium on the
present policies would be due and payable at the end of the month and
the prospects of a big clean-up on commissions delayed until July.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," he tried to say, calmly. "This
reduction applies from the original date of the policies. It's just as
if they had been written up at the new rate."

Hilmer ripped open a letter that