s, Smith, in whom the old man
had a sort of shamefaced pride, would eye the thing respectfully.

"Put it up, Richard," Mr. Wintermuth would direct; "I used to do it
every morning for twenty years." And Smith--with considerable
effort--would put it up.

"I'd never have let you go to work for the Guardian, when you came and
struck me for a position, if you hadn't been able to do that, my boy,"
said the President, reflectively.

And Smith would listen patiently to the oft-told tale. He was
sincerely fond of the old autocrat, and able to bear with his growing
acerbity better than he could have done had he not known the real
spirit of the man. During the past year or two it seemed to Smith that
his chief was showing his age more plainly than ever before. He was
still under sixty-five, but he was coming to live more than ever in the
past, and was growing more and more impervious to the new ideas and new
methods which modern conditions constantly brought.

"The greatest trouble with the old man is," as Cuyler was heard to say
on one occasion, "he has the 4 per cent bond habit."

It was perfectly, true. What was safe and what was sure appealed more
strongly to James Wintermuth with the passage of every year. Not for
him were the daring methods of those companies who employed their
resources in tremendous plunges in and out of the stock market, not for
him the long chances in which most of his competitors gloried. The
Guardian was doing well enough. Its capital of $750,000 was ample; its
surplus of $500,000 very respectable; its premium income of a million
and three quarters perfectly adequate, in Mr. Wintermuth's opinion.
And the stockholders, receiving dividends of 12 per cent per annum,
lean years and fat alike, never audibly complained.

In appearance the Guardian's President upheld the best traditions of
the old school from which he sprang. Above middle height, his erect
figure gave him still much the air of a cavalier. His acute black eyes
and trim white mustache made him certain to attract notice wherever he
went--a fact of which he was not wholly unconscious. Even now, when
gradually, almost imperceptibly, the springiness was fading from his
step, he seemed a strong and virile man. His directors, most of them
his contemporaries and whose insurance knowledge was limited to what
they had learned on the Guardian directorate, trusted and believed in
him with absolute implicitness. Any act on behalf of the