hension about her health?" inquired the gentleman at the desk,
with some degree of asperity to be detected in his tone by one as well
acquainted with him as was Charlie. "I understood from my clerk that
you came on business."

"And so I did," said the unruffled Wilkinson, "although I always
endeavor that business and courtesy shall not necessarily exclude one
another."

The financier looked sharply at the young man; but he felt that he was
scarcely in a position to take offense at such a commendable statement.

"My business," continued the visitor, "deals with one of the best
single pieces of business you ever did for the Massachusetts Light,
Heat, and Traction Company."

"Is the loss finally closed up?" said Mr. Hurd, curtly.

His son-in-law stood dramatically before him; he slipped his left hand
into the inner breast pocket where reposed the documents with which his
coup was to be made.

"Mr. Hurd," he said impressively, "you permitted me to place the
insurance on your trolley system because I convinced you that it ought
to be insured. Do you recall what I said about the conflagration
hazard in the congested district of Boston? Well, I won't repeat it,
but until I called it to your notice you had never given it serious
consideration. And even after the schedule was placed, you said that
another year you would not carry insurance. You may also recall that
you withheld your consent to a certain marriage, which I proposed to
contract with a member of your family, and which--"

"Stick to the matter in hand," suggested the traction magnate, tartly.

"I am doing so, because the point I want to make is this. On both
these matters, if you'll pardon my saying so, you were equally wrong.
You were afraid that as a son-in-law all my entries would be on the
wrong side of your ledger. Well, I don't believe I'll overdraw my
account with you for some little time, Mr. Hurd, for I hand you
herewith--as we say to our stenographers--to the order of the
Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company, checks and drafts to
the amount of three hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred and
eighty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents, in payment of the loss on
your Pemberton Street car barn and power house and a few minor items.
Here they are, and, to use a colloquialism, I want to rub them in. Not
to glorify my own acumen or to minimize yours,--you showed good
judgment to insure your property,--but to prove to you that you m