embarrassed, had you not made it. Now, I repeat, we are
ready to talk business. And I have your promise to listen to my plan."

It did not occur to the magnate that he had made no such promise, until
Wilkinson was well launched; after that, he forgot about it.

"Did any one ever call to your attention, sir, the fact that the
statistics show that the fire losses on traction schedules in the
Eastern states exceed the insurance premiums on those schedules by
nearly thirty-five per cent?"

Mr. Hurd shook his head shortly.

"I did not know it."

Wilkinson did not know it either, but it could not be disproved, and
served excellently as a gambit.

"And I am not interested in other traction companies' fires," added his
uncle.

"No, of course not. But the law of average works in the end. Your
properties are subject to exactly the same conditions and hazards as
others, and in the end the Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction
Company will incur more in losses than it would ever have to pay in
premiums. In the long run the average wins. So far you have been
surprisingly fortunate, and that is another reason why you should begin
now to insure. The law of average is perfectly inexorable, and every
year of low losses brings you nearer the big losses that are bound to
come. You've been gambling, and now is the time to play safe."

"Perhaps, my boy," Mr. Hurd replied with amusement, "you believe these
things that you quote so glibly. Perhaps not. Let us assume that you
do. Therefore let me ask you this: if the insurance companies pay more
losses than they get in premiums on traction schedules, why don't they
cut off this loss by ceasing to insure them? Hey?"

"Oh, lots of them do," Wilkinson returned easily. "A few of the others
may have had a streak of luck for a few years, just as you have had,
but the rest take it all in the day's work, think that the rates may go
up on account of the bad record of the class and then it would be an
advantage to have the business on their books, or else they try to make
it up on other better paying classes. And besides, they have the use
of the money which is paid in premiums during good years when losses
are light." Not for nothing had he listened to the painstaking
explanations of Cole, and whatever his eccentricities, Charlie had a
native shrewdness hardly second to that of old John M. himself.
Perhaps the older man was thinking of this when he next spoke.

"Then it ha