the Augean stable,
the purer is the pleasure of him who cleans it.

When in the spring of this, his most eventful year, Smith had taken
charge of the slipping, wavering, demoralized Guardian, the stable of
Augeas there confronting him would perhaps have dismayed a less
enthusiastic and a less determined man. Everything was at loose ends;
under the shiftless hand of Gunterson even the fine insurance machine
built up by Mr. Wintermuth in his best constructive days had suddenly
grown to creak painfully in its joints. The heads of departments,
seeing no inspiring or even efficient leadership above them, had become
discouraged, and there had been no one to brace their failing spirits.
Mr. Cuyler and Mr. Bartels in particular had felt the altered fortunes
of the company more keenly than they had felt any business crisis in
all their previous experience.

When Mr. Cuyler had witnessed his local business, his pride and his
life, the fixed star of his professional soul, begin slipping away, his
gloom, as has been told, was not to be lifted. But the case of Mr.
Bartels was even more sad. Year after year had that painstaking
official made up the current statement of the company's position, to be
presented in silence to Mr. Wintermuth on the first business day of
every month. Year after year had he carried this balance sheet to his
chief and stolidly waited for the word of satisfaction which was always
forthcoming, save in exceptional cases. For there had come to be a
kind of sacred formula about it, and if that formula failed to
materialize, the world was all awry for Mr. Bartels, until another
month put matters right once more. And this, so placidly prosperous
had the Guardian been, the succeeding month had seldom failed to do.

"Holding our own, Otto?" the President would inquire.

"Poohty good; losses is bad but premiums is up some, too," Mr. Bartels
would usually reply; and Mr. Wintermuth, appreciating the impossibility
of ever reaching a loss ratio low enough to meet the approval of his
Teutonic subordinate, would scan the statement with little fear of the
result. And then, after another little exchange of courtesies, this
monthly playlet would end.

When the Guardian had first met the rough water, Mr. Bartels had not
been able to understand that anything was amiss--that anything could be
amiss--with the company whose inconspicuous prosperity had been an
axiom of the Street. When, on the first day of February,