White Ashes | Page 9

or a storekeeper has a busy corner of two Southern streets where passers-by congregate on market day, he gets the representation of a fire company or two, and from time to time sends in a risk to the head office, whose underwriters go nearly frantic in endeavoring to decipher the hidden truth in the dusty reports of these well-intentioned amateurs.
But it is not so in New England. In New England fire insurance reaches its proudest estate. It is a profession, and to its true votaries almost a religion. Its sons have, figuratively speaking, been born with a rate book in one hand and a blank proof-of-loss clutched tightly in the other. And in the mouth a silver spoon or not, as the case might be, but in any event a conclusive argument for the superior loss-paying ability and liberality in adjustment of the companies they respectively represent. They are fire insurance men by birth, education, and tradition--they and their fathers before them. Four generations back, Silas Osgood's family had been supported by the staid old English public's fear of fire. Three generations in Massachusetts had been similarly preserved from the pangs of hunger. Likenesses of all four were hanging on the wall of Mr. Osgood's office; as to identity the first two were highly questionable, but their uniforms in the old prints showed up fresh and bright. In those old days gentlemen only, men of education and station, whose judgment and courage were beyond question, were intrusted with the responsibility of fighting the flames. It is hard to say why this important and exciting work should no longer attract the same sort of men to its service.
Hanging beside the four generations were the commissions of the fire companies locally represented in the Osgood office. Stout old companies they were, too, for the most part; one of the older ones was well in the second century of its triumph over fire and the fear of fire and the ashes thereof; this was a foreign company which Osgood held for old sake's sake. The other commissions bore American signatures, most of them well known and well esteemed. On the wall right above where Smith sat was the gold seal of his own company, the Guardian, and against the seal the inexplicable hieroglyph which served Mr. James Wintermuth for his presidential signature. Then there was the great white sheet with the black border which set forth to all the world by these presents that Silas Osgood and Company were the duly accredited agents of the Atlantic Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut. The narrow placque of the old Birmingham Indemnity of Birmingham, England, looked like a calling card beside the Atlantic's flamboyant placard.
Smith, seeing Mr. Osgood's look fixed for a moment on the parchment above his head, said inquiringly, "How long is it that you have represented the Guardian in Boston?"
The older man smiled reflectively and turned his eyeglass in his hand as he spoke.
"It was the year after the big fire when I first took the Guardian into my office. You are a close enough student of the game to know that that was just about forty years ago."
Smith nodded.
"Before Richard Smith was born. But I remember the date. Who appointed you as agent?"
Mr. Osgood pointed to the scrawl at the foot of the framed commission.
"My old friend, James Wintermuth," he said. He paused a moment. "I can almost see him now as he looked when he came to call on me--in the old office farther down the street. Tall and quick-tempered, and you can imagine how strong in the fingers he was in those days! I recall I used to keep my glove on when I shook hands with him. He was a fine young chap, was James. Perhaps a little too hasty for us conservative New Englanders, but--" He broke off, a half-smile on his lips.
Smith remained silent.
"It's a fault you young New Yorkers are apt to have," the Bostonian presently went on. "Most of you are a trifle aggressive for us over here--just a bit radical."
The other laughed good-naturedly.
"I myself should say that my honored chief had lived down his radicalism long ago. It's lucky for Silas Osgood and Company that there is a little of it left somewhere in the company, for the President convalesced from his attack of radicalism in eighteen eighty-five or thereabouts and has never been threatened with a relapse or a recurrence. You may criticize us, sir, but you will have to admit that unless there was a little radicalism in my own department, the Guardian would never have accepted the lines and the liability in this down-town district that you have sent us and are sending us now. I hope I'm conservative enough, but with all due respect to Mr. Wintermuth, what he