probable move of
O'Connor and the other the securing of a new reinsurance contract.

To be sure this latter task was officially assumed by Mr. Wintermuth,
but Smith felt reasonably certain that ultimately he himself would have
to find the treaty. And this would not be an easy task, unless he
should resort to the obvious and fashionable method of consulting Mr.
Simeon Belknap and abiding by his selection on his own terms; and since
the market was limited and Mr. Belknap's facilities in these delicate
and complicated matters were unique, his services naturally were not
cheaply held. Smith, with youthful self-confidence, decided that he
himself would make a preliminary canvass of the reinsurance market; and
so, when the first rush of new duties had abated, and his legal affairs
were safely in the hands of counsel, and the interrupted agency machine
of the Guardian was beginning to turn normally once more, he undertook
this matter of a new reinsurance contract with all the energy at his
command.

The one man in New York, aside from the eminent Mr. Belknap, who was
the most powerful figure in reinsurance affairs and who best understood
the situation on both sides of the Atlantic, was a solid, silent,
almost venerable Teuton by the name of Scheidle. Mr. Scheidle occupied
an anomalous position, but one of absolute authority, since he had been
for many years the United States Manager of no less than three of the
largest foreign reinsurance companies. He was unsociable, apparently
uninterested in anybody save possibly himself, and disinclined to be
lured by any call or beckoning whatsoever from his William Street
office. An outsider would have said that most of his time was employed
in crossing the ocean, for it seemed as though the _Journal of
Commerce_ reported every few days either his arrival or departure.
Perhaps he reserved his loquacity for his native land, but at all
events he exchanged in New York no converse with any one save in the
strictest necessities of business; he had no intimates except a few
anonymous Teutons as difficult of access as himself. He positively
declined to make new friends, and it was evident that he had all the
friends he desired to have; and in the same way he declined to consider
any new business proposals, as all his companies were long established
and all were in possession from numerous treaty contracts of premium
incomes sufficiently large to satisfy their conservative manager.

Thi