reaty that he incidentally arranged with Mr. August
Schroeder made a very satisfactory termination of the treatment. It
was a masterly contract--for Mr. Wintermuth--and its acceptance by Mr.
Schroeder only showed that his experience with American business was
very limited or that the waters had sapped his vitality to a degree
more than was perceptible. It allowed the Guardian to do almost
everything it pleased, restricted it not at all, never protested any
action however unexpected, waived every possible right and privilege,
paid a liberal commission and a share of the profits besides--in short,
it was an ideal treaty and one which was the admiration of those few
privileged characters who knew its merits. Nevertheless it had also
proved to be a good contract for the Karlsruhe, for such business as
the Guardian ceded had paid a modest but unfailing return to its
Teutonic connection year after peaceful year.

One can therefore only faintly conjecture Mr. Wintermuth's surprise and
genuine anguish upon receiving, one bright April morning, a
communication in German, which, being translated by Mr. Otto Bartels
with something more than his customary stolidity, proved to read,
stripped of all superfluous verbiage, substantially as follows:

"The managing director of the Karlsruhe, in accordance with the
conditions of the contract, hereby gives six months' notice of the
termination of the reinsurance arrangements now existing between the
Karlsruhe and the Guardian."

When, the following day, Smith returned, Mr. Wintermuth's first
greeting was silently to hand him this letter. The younger man, with a
little assistance from the President's recollection of Bartels's
translation, managed to decipher the tangled German, and sat for a long
minute without speaking.

"Why do you suppose they're canceling? And why didn't we get this
through their London managers, I wonder?--they're the people we've done
business with for the last ten years," he said at length.

"What difference does it make?"

"None, perhaps. Still, it strikes me as rather odd. Almost as though
some one had planned that this should look as though it emanated from a
point less in touch with William Street than London is."

"Then you think--?"

"Who else could it be but O'Connor? And these German underwriters are
perfect babes in the wood--they're just idiotic enough to cancel a
profitable contract merely to take on an experimental one with a bigger
premi