ns down they pay you a
tremendous amount. It's a remarkable idea."

"It certainly sounds so, as you put it."

"The personal application is this: John M. Hurd owns a trolley system
which ought to be insured for five or six million dollars if it was
insured at all. But it isn't. And it is my life work to make him put
on that insurance, and make him do it in a way that will count--for me,
you understand."

"But how do you expect to convince him?" asked the girl. "If he never
has insured the system, the chances are that he doesn't believe in
insurance, or that he doesn't think the system is likely to burn up, or
that he has some other good reason for not insuring it."

"That's exactly why I'm asking your advice," her companion replied.
"Probably you are correct in all three of your conjectures. What I
want is some way to make him do something that he doesn't believe in
and from which he never expects to get his money back and that he has
some other perfectly proper argument for turning down--and make him do
it, just the same. Eventually he's _got_ to do it--it's a case of
sheer necessity--for me."

"Why don't you ask Isabel? I think I hear her coming."

And Isabel entered, the teakettle boiling in her wake. As she
dispensed the material concomitants, the conversation went on.

"We have been talking about fire insurance and trolley systems," said
Helen. And she summarized Wilkinson's remarks for her friend's
benefit. Isabel listened with interest but skepticism.

"If you really expect father to insure anything, Charlie, I'm afraid
you will be disappointed," she said frankly. "I hope you're not
serious about it."

"Serious! I should think I was! I would naturally be just a little
serious about something on which depended the life, liberty, and
pursuit of happiness of Charles S. Wilkinson, Esquire. It is a matter
of most vital necessity, I assure you--nothing less. And now having
acquainted you with the salience of the situation, I will allow you a
period for reflection undisturbed by pleasantries or philosophic
observations from myself which might conceivably divert the currents of
your minds. Meanwhile _I_ shall devote this period to an intelligent
appreciation of Isabel's compendious and soul-satisfying tea."

The two girls looked blankly at one another.

"My dear Charlie," Miss Hurd said, "it is very painful to have to
overturn the family water cooler on your ambitious young hopes, but are
you