is
field. Take your time, make the best appointment you can, and then
give your agent a free hand--that's the only way to get a liberal
income and make money too."

To these sage but scarcely original observations Sternberg and Bloom
gravely assented.

"In case you found a place for us in your office, what kind of an
income do you think we might expect?" Mr. Gunterson asked.

"Well, we wouldn't take you at all unless we could satisfy you,"
replied McCoy. "And I swear I don't quite see how we could take on
another company just now. How much are you getting now from Osgood?
Well, if we couldn't do better than that, we'd rather pass you
up--although I don't know of any company that looks better to me than
the Guardian under its present management. How about it, Jake?"

Mr. Bloom considered deeply.

"New business of the class this office writes is hard to get," he said
thoughtfully. "It don't fall off the trees into your lap. But we
might do it if we gave up a couple of our smaller companies. If we
threw out the German National and the Spokane Fire, we might do
something."

The two companies named had removed their policies and supplies from
the office only the previous day, their respective special agents,
after an underwriting experience too painful to describe, having
descended in grief and rage upon their Boston representatives when
patience had ceased to be a virtue and self-preservation had become the
salient motive.

"There's thirty thousand apiece, easy--say sixty thousand the first
year. Yes, we could let them two go, and if you were in any kind of
way liberal--if you wrote a fair line in the congested district--we
could guarantee you sixty thousand, and I believe we'd make it
seventy-five."

Mr. Gunterson calculated this with deliberation. It was a great deal
more than the Guardian had been receiving from Silas Osgood and
Company; it sounded too good to be real.

"What kind of a record have you had?" he asked cautiously.

"Record? Well, good for some of our companies and not so good for
others. We've had some pretty hard knocks, but we don't write
practically nothing but first-class business, and of course we write
pretty good-sized lines; and when some sprinkled risk or a brick
apartment house or a wool storage warehouse makes a total loss, it hits
us pretty hard. Still, if you keep on taking on the best business,
you're bound to make money in the long run. I suppose we turn down two
t