rheard one end of a conversation conducted from Mr.
Bennington Cole's private phone in the office of Silas Osgood and
Company.

"Yes--this is Mr. Cole."

"Yes--I know who is speaking."

"Yes--I presume I could come over. Young's Hotel, did you say?"

"I understand. Room forty-three. I'll be there in about twenty
minutes."

In twenty minutes room forty-three saw Mr. Cole being suavely greeted
by Mr. O'Connor, and then it proceeded to furnish the scene for a
little drama of business intrigue that would have been very interesting
to an audience of law-abiding Conference companies who believed in
living up to their pledges.

In the course of this undivulged conversation it developed that Mr.
O'Connor was satisfied with what had just gone before; that Mr. Osgood
had done exactly what both O'Connor and Cole had expected he would do,
making it possible for Cole, by the proper playing of his cards, to
succeed almost immediately to the management of the Osgood agency, and
that aided thereto by the fact that the scrupulous Mr. Osgood would
doubtless hesitate to interfere in any way with any act of his
successor, the fuse was all laid for the introduction of the Salamander
into the Osgood office by means of the passage of a separation rule in
Boston at the very next meeting of the local board. The interview must
have been a satisfactory one, for Cole's step, as he walked back to
Kilby Street, was buoyant, and Mr. O'Connor bore himself as a deeply
satisfied man.

Among the local agents in Boston there had never been any marked
sentiment either for or against the adoption of a separation scheme.
Some of the agents believed in it and some did not; but as most of the
principal offices represented, with a few unimportant exceptions, only
Conference companies, it had never been really a vital issue up to the
time Mr. O'Connor came to Boston for the Salamander. By what means he
contrived to bring the agents into line will never be known.
Undoubtedly the time was precisely ripe, and he had the very
influential cooperation of many of the strongest Conference companies.
At all events, however he went to work, that way proved efficacious.
The passage of the rule through the Board was assured. After its vote
on the coming Wednesday, no agent in Boston representing a Conference
company could, at the expiration of thirty days, continue to represent
an outsider.

The effect that such a rule would have on the local interests of t