Cuyler's
viewpoint. And then, the flood-gates open, the local secretary would
come into his metropolitan own. Certainly, if the Guardian's line in
Boston was safe, its liability in New York was small indeed. But the
Boston business had always shown a profit, and James Wintermuth and
Silas Osgood had grown up together in the insurance world; and so for
the present the Boston line would stand. And it was impossible to
satisfy Mr. Cuyler,--he was continually moaning about the restrictions
under which he labored,--and so it was likely that nothing would be
done in New York, either. James Wintermuth was a conservative man.

One could have told it at his first glance about the President's
office, on the top floor of the Guardian building. In the first place,
the office, although it was located in the sunniest corner of the
building, preserved nevertheless a kind of cathedral gloom. Dark
shades in the windows reduced the light across Mr. Wintermuth's
obsolete roll-top desk to never more than that of a dull afternoon. No
impertinent rays of the sun could further fade the faded rug which
clothed the center of the room. On the wall hung likenesses of the
former heads of the company, now long since in their graves. Over the
desk was an old print of the Lisbon earthquake; the germaneness of this
did not at once appear,--in fact, it never appeared,--but the picture
had always hung there, and in Mr. Wintermuth's opinion that was ample
cause and justification.

Only in the corner, almost out of sight behind the desk, was the room's
single absolute incongruity. There the surprised visitor saw, reposing
quietly in its shadowy retreat, a hundred pound dumb-bell. This was
the President's sole remaining animal joy, the presence of this
dumb-bell. He rarely touched it now, although the colored janitor's
assistant scrupulously dusted it each morning, but it was an agreeable
reminder of the days when the old lion was young and when his teeth,
metaphorically speaking, were new and sharp. For years it had been his
custom to lift this ponderous object three times above his head before
opening his mail in the morning--and he would never hire a field man or
inspector who could not do likewise.

Now, of course, these trials of strength were over for Mr.
Wintermuth--and what he no longer did himself he asked none other to
do. But there the relic lay, a substantial memorial of Spring in the
veins. Once in a while, at long interval