s to-day is transacted mainly on borrowed money. Jones, who
keeps a corner grocery store, hasn't enough money to buy groceries
because his customers don't pay him until the end of the month. So he
goes to White and Company, who are wholesale grocers, and buys his
stock on credit. But do you suppose White and Company would let him
have those groceries if it were not for insurance? Certainly not;
that's their only protection. If Jones's store burned with that stock
before it was sold, and there was no insurance, who would lose? Not
Jones--White and Company could force him into bankruptcy, but that
wouldn't collect their bill. As I said, trade would be impossible,
except cash trade and that in the grip of interests so vast that the
ordinary run of fire losses wouldn't count."

"I never thought of that before," the girl remarked.

"Would the cotton grower ship his cotton north to the New England mills
or to Liverpool if he couldn't insure it in transportation? No; he
wouldn't dare take the risk. His cotton would remain on his plantation
until some venturesome buyer came, paid him cash, and carried it away
with him. We should go back to the commercial dark ages."

"You have crushed me, Mr. Smith," Helen said with a smile. "I will
admit that insurance is indispensable."

"I was in hopes that you would admit it, not because you were crushed,
but because you saw."

"I think I'm beginning to see," she answered.

The underwriter regarded her a little doubtfully; then a whimsical
smile crossed his lips, making him singularly youthful and--Helen
noted--singularly attractive. By a sudden change of thought he turned
toward the window.

"A seaport city is a wonderful thing," he said. "Here come the keels
of the world, bringing the tribute of the seven seas. It is a fine
place to work, Miss Maitland, this down town New York within sight of
the water and the water front. Even if you seldom get time to look at
it, you have the feeling that it is there. There is never a minute,
summer or winter, night or day, when those keels are not bringing
argosies home to these old docks. Merely to walk along the shore front
is as though one were in touch with all the world."

"I've seen some of it in Boston," said the girl; "but Boston is not the
port it used to be."

"There are places in the world, they say--Port Said is one of them and
the Cafe de la Paix in Paris is another--where all things and all
people come soon or