The President of the Salamander was an obliging, disingenuous, rather
weak individual of Mr. Murch's own selection. His name was Wellwood,
and the less said of his character and attainments the better. Mr.
Wellwood's mastery of the conditions of his business had never been
especially deep, and during the past year a swelling penchant for fast
horses, and indeed for acceleration of all kinds, had rather gotten the
better of him. And Mr. Murch, concernedly going over the figures which
showed the present condition of the Salamander's finances, felt a chill
of doubt striking into his usually impassive veins.

"You've been losing money for the company faster than I can make it,"
he said coldly to Wellwood.

"Well, it's been an awfully bad year--losses have been terrific,"
stammered the underwriting executive, anxious to placate the god of his
car.

"They're all bad years with you. Leave these papers with me; I want to
go over them again."

Wellwood slunk out. The presidency of the Salamander, involving as it
did occasional interviews of a nature similar to this with Mr. Murch,
was no sinecure. Mr. Wellwood frequently debated whether it would not
be better to listen to the siren voices of the agricultural weeklies
with their alluring refrain of "back to the soil"; but the facilities
for his favorite dissipations were painfully inadequate in the rural
districts, and besides he was a city man born and bred, and while he
knew how to take hold of a shovel, he would probably have stood askance
and aghast before a scythe. So he hung on, hoping against hope for
something--almost anything--to happen. To be sure his own comparative
incompetence was to blame for the company's underwriting record, but
that was a matter beyond his control.

It was perhaps an hour after Mr. Wellwood's departure when the card of
another caller was brought to Mr. Murch by the efficient office boy.

"Show him in," he said.

A man in a light fall overcoat entered the room, nodding to the
capitalist as he did so, but turning back almost immediately to attend
to the cautious closing of the door.

"Sit down, won't you?" said Mr. Murch, carelessly. He raised his eyes
to the door. "Anybody out there?" he inquired. "I mean any one that
knows you?"

"No," the caller replied.

"Well, it doesn't matter about any one but Wellwood. But it would be
better not to have him know anything about your having been here."

"Why? What do you care?" qu