al irrevocable leap. So February wore
away, and March entered.

James Wintermuth was more disturbed than he had been at any time
covered by what was now a good and had once been a miraculous memory.
His company had so long been his pride, his reliance, his solace, and
almost his gospel that he had grown to think of it as a sort of fixed
star, whose light perhaps might be exceeded by some larger and more
pretentious luminary, but which would nevertheless shine steadily on,
beyond the fear of any cosmic upheaval.

Now he beheld it not only overclouded, but even menaced--beheld its
light in danger of being dimmed if not utterly extinguished. It was
absurd, it was tragic, it was unbelievable--yet it was so. And when he
was confronted with the fact, there crept back into the old gentleman's
heart something of his old fire, as well as a slow, brooding sense of
angry injury against the men or forces responsible for his present
difficulties. His elder resentment was of course against O'Connor, who
was taking advantage in every way of the Guardian's misfortunes; but as
the palpably weakening hold of the company brought him more closely in
touch with its underwriting affairs, as the questionable losses from
Boston and other similar agencies began to arrive in faster and faster
succession, and he clearly perceived the weakness and incapability of
Gunterson's management, his irritation rightly directed itself more and
more against the luckless Vice-President.

One other thing of recent occurrence had shaken--perhaps out of
proportion to its consequences--what little confidence he still felt in
the judgment of his underwriting manager. That related to the attempt
of Mr. Gunterson to inject his advice into the Guardian's affairs
financial. Early in February he had suggested to Mr. Wintermuth the
advisability of purchasing for the Guardian some bonds of an embryonic
steel company then erecting a plant in Alabama. Mr. Gunterson knew
personally some of the people back of this, the bonds seemed remarkably
cheap, and the bonus in common stock made the proposition in his
opinion decidedly attractive. Mr. Wintermuth's investigation of the
concern and its prospectus had quickly convinced him that its officers
were of far more capability in the industry of disposing of what, by a
polite extension of the term, might be called securities than in
manufacturing steel, and a skeptical investing public evidently reached
the same conclusi