lled for. There are a
few crooked companies in every agreement, concerns that take advantage
of the good faith of the rest--like the Protection of Newark--but after
all, even under present conditions, we're getting about as much
business as we're entitled to, and pretty nearly as much as we're
willing to write. What do you think?"

Smith looked sharply at his superior officer.

"Why do you put it up to me?" he asked. "If the President has decided
to get out, that settles it--out we go."

"Oh, he hasn't absolutely decided. I thought I'd tell you about it, in
case he asked you what you thought."

"I see," replied the General Agent, thoughtfully, and said no more.

"Well?" queried O'Connor, expectantly, after a moment.

"If he asks me, I'll tell him what I think. Is that all, sir?"

"Yes, that's about all."

The Vice-President, gazing a trifle uneasily at Smith's departing back,
somehow felt that he could not flatter himself on having done what he
wished toward the covering of his tracks. But, as it chanced, Mr.
O'Connor's elaborate mechanism for befogging his trail was entirely
wasted, for the President, so far as could be learned, said not a thing
on the subject to anybody. He took home the papers O'Connor had left
him, and studied them, presumably alone, for several days. He did not
seek to cross-examine O'Connor's witnesses. From something that
gentleman had said, he had gained the impression that outside parole
evidence would probably be prejudiced, and he felt that the documents
in his possession were sufficient to govern his verdict. He conceived
that here was a matter for calm, deliberate judgment, for the exercise
of the critical, judicial faculty, which he felt he possessed in a high
degree. This was not precisely vanity; it was rather the long habit of
undisputed dicta. He felt that here was an excellent opportunity for
justifying his reputation for independence of decision and action.

So Mr. Wintermuth, pondering in silence for nearly a fortnight, left
his Vice-President stretched on the rack of uncertainty without a
glance in his direction. To all the tentative efforts O'Connor made to
reopen the subject, his chief returned a curt refusal. There was
nothing to do but to wait, and O'Connor, with increasingly bad grace,
waited.

Not until the close of the second week was his suspense ended, and then
not by any intimation from headquarters. Mr. Wintermuth had acted
overnight, and had g