stereotyped question if I had ever previously been rejected for life
insurance. My friend replied for me--no. I, however, in spite of his
protests stated fully the conditions of my previous examination, which
the doctor assured me did not constitute an official rejection, and the
application was filled out. In the conversation that ensued, the doctor
said that it was safer to await the expiration of the seven years, and I
being still indifferent, except to my friend's interest, accepted the
apologies of the several people concerned for the trouble I had taken
and let it go at that.

Four years later, in 1896, after the attack of appendicitis which I
described in the December, 1904, instalment of "Frenzied Finance," again
my good friend the agent came to me and used the incident of my narrow
escape from death to impress upon me once more the desirability of
having a large policy of life insurance. Those who have read the
"System's" disclaimer, will remember that I had been blacklisted since
1892. There were the usual consultations with high officials of the
corporation, and when all preliminary bargains had been arranged, I
underwent a thorough examination in New York. This time, the seven-year
term having expired, I was pronounced a perfect risk. But my latest
illness had brought me up against another waiting rule, and once more
the subject was abandoned after the usual expressions of regret and
good-will. Since 1896 my connection with life-insurance companies has
been about the same as that of a molasses barrel with the industrious
flies in summer.

The interviews of 1892 and 1896 are both matters of record. My position
in each instance was well understood, and several insurance officials
who know the facts as well as I do have, since the publication of the
company's statement, come to me and offered to back up my assertions
with their own. American manhood is certainly not extinct when men are
willing to sacrifice their careers to set a wrong right.

The manner in which the great companies have met my rejoinder to
President McCall will afford my readers an excellent illustration of how
the "System" goes after a man who has excited its antagonism.

A few days after the publication of the December issue of _Everybody's
Magazine_, containing my fac-simile of President McCall's letter to
policy-holder DeRan and his two letters to me, the Life Insurance
Underwriters met and "resoluted" that I had applied for insurance i