The bringing of order out of chaos is one of the most interesting and also one of the most satisfying employments a person can have. Likewise it is usually one of the most exhausting, if the chaos has been really chaos and the order be really order. But the satisfaction of seeing, as the clouds break and the skies clear, the salient outline of the thing appear as it ought to appear is sufficient compensation for all the effort. Even if the work be no more elevated than washing up a trayful of soiled china, a certain thrill is there at the successful completion of the task; and the greater the Augean stable, the purer is the pleasure of him who cleans it.

When in the spring of this, his most eventful year, Smith had taken charge of the slipping, wavering, demoralized Guardian, the stable of Augeas there confronting him would perhaps have dismayed a less enthusiastic and a less determined man. Everything was at loose ends; under the shiftless hand of Gunterson even the fine insurance machine built up by Mr. Wintermuth in his best constructive days had suddenly grown to creak painfully in its joints. The heads of departments, seeing no inspiring or even efficient leadership above them, had become discouraged, and there had been no one to brace their failing spirits. Mr. Cuyler and Mr. Bartels in particular had felt the altered fortunes of the company more keenly than they had felt any business crisis in all their previous experience.

When Mr. Cuyler had witnessed his local business, his pride and his life, the fixed star of his professional soul, begin slipping away, his gloom, as has been told, was not to be lifted. But the case of Mr. Bartels was even more sad. Year after year had that painstaking official made up the current statement of the company's position, to be presented in silence to Mr. Wintermuth on the first business day of every month. Year after year had he carried this balance sheet to his chief and stolidly waited for the word of satisfaction which was always forthcoming, save in exceptional cases. For there had come to be a kind of sacred formula about it, and if that formula failed to materialize, the world was all awry for Mr. Bartels, until another month put matters right once more. And this, so placidly prosperous had the Guardian been, the succeeding month had seldom failed to do.

"Holding our own, Otto?" the President would inquire.

"Poohty good; losses is bad but premiums is up some, too," Mr. Bartels would usually reply; and Mr. Wintermuth, appreciating the impossibility of ever reaching a loss ratio low enough to meet the approval of his Teutonic subordinate, would scan the statement with little fear of the result. And then, after another little exchange of courtesies, this monthly playlet would end.

When the Guardian had first met the rough water, Mr. Bartels had not been able to understand that anything was amiss—that anything could be amiss—with the company whose inconspicuous prosperity had been an axiom of the Street. When, on the first day of February, he had taken off his first summary of January results, a little cloud of puzzled suspicion had gathered in his still blue eyes. After carefully checking his own figures he had rung for Dunham, the chief accountant, and it had been a querulous and angry summons.

"Here, dese figures is all wrong. You have January premiums pretty near fifteen per cent behind last year. Fix 'em."

But Dunham, chill as the Matterhorn, assured the excited little man that the figures were quite correct and that he had checked them twice to make certain.

"But—but—" said Bartels in bewilderment, "we cannot be going backwards like that! We have never gone back like that in January."

"Until this year," incautiously rejoined the other.

"No; nor this year, neither!" cried Mr. Bartels; and only his own thrice repeated checking of the premium sheets would convince him. Shaking a puzzled and resentful head, he at last sought his chief; with a hang-dog air he handed over his statement, and with heavy heart he waited for the President to speak.

Speech was longer than usual in coming.

"Not quite so good?" the President said at last.

"No," said Mr. Bartels. "Rates must be off, I guess?"

"No, Otto," returned Mr. Wintermuth, slowly. "It's not a rate war. It is that we have had to give up some of our agencies in the East on account of the Conference separation rule. I am afraid we shall have to expect a certain decrease for a little while until things get readjusted. But it won't last; you needn't worry about that."

Unfortunately, however, it did last; and not only that, but it became more and more marked with each succeeding month. With the third statement, when the greatest inroads had been made into the Guardian's business, Mr. Bartels became like a living sepulcher. So heavy and sad was the heart he carried in his breast that not all the consoling words of his chief could stir him.

"I have seen agencies whose accounts I have passed for twenty years fall away to almost nothing or nothing at all. From Silas Osgood I get no March account; from Jones and Meers I get none. Every month for fifteen years have I written Jones and Meers to correct their adding; now I write them not at all." And there were many more.

Finally, when at last it dawned upon Mr. Bartels's Bavarian mind that the Guardian was really in peril and that unless something were done quickly, a large part of the remainder of the agents in the East would follow those already gone, his blind anger and resentment knew no bounds. He could not, however, understand the real facts in the case, and no one ever took the trouble fully to explain them to him. So his impotent rage, lacking a target whereat to aim it, became even blinder. He was like a child, being unjustly punished for some wrong which he had not committed, and which he could in no way comprehend. The thought of facing his chief with a semiannual statement made up of a series of months like these, was more than he could bear. Fortunately he was not to be called upon to do so, for Mr. Gunterson left the Guardian when the fat was all but in the fire, and another turn was given to affairs.

And the year now just closing had been a busy year for Mr. Richard Smith. During the most of it he had worked nearly twelve hours a day, and spent a liberal share of the balance in laying his plans. Now, and only now,—as the year 1913 was drawing to a close,—had he time to draw a full breath and look about him.

His Augean stable, if not wholly clean, was at least free from the more dangerous impurities. The Guardian was not yet, it was true, clear of all possibility of disaster; but the tide had been turned, and with strict care there was no further need to fear shipwreck. In Pennsylvania, in Maryland, in New York,—in short, practically everywhere save in Massachusetts, where the fight was still in the courts,—separation had received its deathblow, while robbed of this advantage the Conference companies could do little or nothing to harm the Guardian. And in justice to them it must be said that none of them apparently manifested any abnormal desire to do so, excepting always the Salamander, whose hostility increased in geometrical ratio with the Guardian's recovery of strength and prestige. Most of the agencies which had been lost under Mr. Gunterson's management were either restored to the company's lists, or else their places had been taken by others of equal or superior quality.

Out in the field the special agents had under Smith's aggressive direction recovered their courage and carried out with striking success the details of his campaign. At the few points where the company's loss record had been consistently bad, Smith either kept the Guardian out altogether or made an appointment on such a basis that the agent's profits would be small unless the company itself made money through that agency. Being free and not bound by Conference restrictions, he was able at many points to improve his company's position. And when, in the early days of the coming January, Mr. Bartels should approach his annual statement, it seemed probable that it would show little diminution in the Guardian's resources. The statement would be helped, too, by the fact that the value of some of the securities owned by the company, chiefly considerable blocks of bank and anthracite railroad stocks, had appreciated very handsomely during the year. And Mr. Cuyler, thanks to the increased conflagration line and to the large business he was securing from his new branch manager, was making a record so good that he could scarcely believe the figures which he himself had compiled.

All in all, the showing would be by no means a discreditable one. It had been a remarkable task; and Smith, now that he came to look back on it, remembering the black days of the reign of Gunterson the Unready, could himself only wonder mildly at the way all these things had come about. In the midst of the satisfaction which he could not help but feel, there was always a genuine sense of amazement at the facile way in which Fate had played into his hand. If he had any doubts, however, no one else confessed to any. Mr. Wintermuth frankly gave to his young underwriter the proper share of credit for the results that had been brought about. All this was pleasant, but it was also earned.

In these months of activity, activity unusual even for Smith, who was customarily a busy man, there had been for him only one personal diversion. This was his growing friendship with Helen Maitland; and to this relationship Smith had by this time come to turn as a lost Arab turns to a chance-discovered oasis. Through the days of Gunterson's administration he had not had heart to write Helen or even to think of her—to his darkened vision she seemed increasingly far away. But this could not last, and when the tide turned, he presently found himself writing to her almost as to another self, and found himself awaiting her letters as filling one of the most vital needs of his life. There was a name for this, but as yet he was not prepared to use it, and if Helen were prepared, certainly no hint of any such readiness showed through her diction.

Because men no longer go abroad, as in medieval times, hewing their way to glory and romance with sword and mace, it is no sure sign that the flower has fallen from romance's tree. Merely because that flower now blooms perhaps more quietly, less flamboyantly than it used to bloom in purple and gold, is no reason to think that it does not bloom at all. The singers of world songs find voice to-day, just as they always have, and no lack of all the panoply of old-time chivalry and war can make a friendship slipping into love less than a beautiful and wondrous thing. It is perhaps in some ways to be regretted that the inspiring bombast of the elder days is no longer in vogue—the grandiloquent arrogance that led a man to tie a lady's ribband to his arm and proclaim on fear of sudden death her puissance of beauty throughout the world. This is perhaps unfortunate; but through added reticence beauty really suffers no wrong.

Smith, although he had not as yet formulated his precise wishes or intentions as regards Helen, still knew that he desired a house professionally in order before he allowed himself to think of another kind of house. The Guardian was his company, and the Guardian must be placed in a haven where storms could come not, before he would feel that his charge was sufficiently relaxed to allow of his dreaming dreams.

It was with this idea that, as the old year was drawing to a close, he approached Mr. Wintermuth with a definite project in view.

"We are not going to have such a bad year, after all," he began.

"I fancy we shall come through pretty well," the President agreed.
"Although it didn't look much like it at the start."

"No," said Smith; "it didn't. But do you know, sir, that in one way we're not making as much of a profit as we should?"

"In what way do you mean, Richard?" inquired his chief.

"Not in the underwriting," replied the younger man. "I'm not going to suggest increasing our lines or opening up any more than we have. But I don't think it would hurt us if we opened up a little financially."

"How so? In what way?"

"Well, our investments are in high-class securities, but they're not liquid enough. We've always bought with the intention of holding what we buy forever. Now, we've got an exceptionally good finance committee; Mr. Griswold in particular is regarded as one of the strongest and shrewdest men in Wall Street."

"Yes; I know he is," Mr. Wintermuth conceded.

"And there's really no good reason why we shouldn't benefit by his judgment. Now, you know as well as any one that the money to be made out of underwriting, pure and simple, is comparatively little. You know that in the long run, even with the most ably managed companies, expenses and losses together just about eat up all the premiums received—that less than a dozen first-class companies doing a national business have an underwriting balance on the right side for the last ten-year period."

"I admit that unfortunately such is the case."

"Therefore the only chance a company has to make money is from the use of money—from the use of its premiums between the time they are received and the time they are paid out in losses. And as this is really our only chance, we ought to take every advantage—and make as much of an investment profit as we possibly can."

"I trust you do not mean to suggest that we use the Guardian's assets for purposes of speculation," Mr. Wintermuth remarked.

"Certainly not—unless it is speculating to take advantage of what foresight and knowledge of conditions our finance committee possesses. I do not suggest buying on margin or selling what we haven't got. But I do suggest that we carry more liquid assets and a bigger cash balance than we have ever done, so as to be able to take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves. Now, take our Ninth National Bank stock, for instance. The Duane Trust Company crowd are trying to buy the control, and the stock's higher than it's ever been. In my opinion the block we hold is worth more to the Duane people than it is to us; I'd let them have it."

"Why, we've had that stock for twenty years!" the President said.

"Well, we've probably had it long enough," said his subordinate, with a smile. "At least I'd like to have Mr. Griswold's opinion on the point. And you certainly will never lose much by getting out of a security at the highest price it's touched in that entire period."

"Perhaps not. I will speak to Griswold about it," said Mr. Wintermuth.

"I am not a financier, and all this is somewhat outside my province," Smith went on; "but I think we ought to follow more closely the trend of modern business methods. We hold far more than we need of solid railroad bonds that net us four per cent on our investment. With very little extra risk I am sure we can secure a good deal larger return."

It was a rather daring speech to make, for four per cent first-mortgage railroad bonds had been Mr. Wintermuth's idea of finance for almost a generation. It spoke well for his confidence in his Vice-President that he did not regard the remark as an impertinence.

"That may be true, Richard," he said mildly, "although I have held to the contrary for twenty years. Still, times change, and to-day you may be right."

"I think I am, sir," returned Smith, respectfully. "At any rate, why shouldn't the question be laid before the directors?"

"We could do that," agreed Mr. Wintermuth, with, it must be confessed, a covert feeling of relief. After all, the assimilation of new ideas is not the most painless of processes, whatever the age of the assimilator.

"There's no meeting before the January one, is there?"

"No. January fifth—dividend meeting. But that's comparatively soon.
I'll lay it before the board at that time."

"Thank you, sir," said his subordinate, rising; "and I think that at least one person present will approve a little more elastic financial policy for the Guardian."

"Mr. Richard Smith?" inquired the President.

"Oh, yes. But I was thinking of Mr. Griswold."

"Well, we shall see," rejoined Mr. Wintermuth; and the conversation concluded.

The year 1914 dawned clear and cold. There had been an almost daily snowfall in New York during Christmas week; and although the street cleaning squad had labored stoutly, a little dusky whiteness still persisted in the less frequented corners of the city. This had come near to being the undoing of Mr. Jenkins, the main reliance of the Pacific Coast accounts and otherwise of considerable importance in the period of stress and toil known as "statement time."

At the beginning of every year comes this period to every company—the time when the accounts department becomes, instead of an active thorn in the company's flesh, the real, essential hub of the whole wheel; the time when the adding machines are never still and the rooms resound with the rustle and stir of a thousand sheets of figures, swung ceaselessly over by practiced and hasty thumbs; when the lights burn late every night for two weeks on end, and the laboring bookkeepers see their families only by cinematographic glances between newspaper and coffee cup in the cold gray mornings.

This time was now come; and the Guardian's men, under the silent but none the less strenuous urging of Mr. Bartels, had begun the grind which could end only when the annual statement of the company was in the printers' hands with proof initialed and approved by Otto Bartels, Secretary. And this, taken in conjunction with the cold weather and heavy snowfall, had fairly undone the honor and the reputation of Mr. Jenkins. For the unusual cold and the night work together had betrayed him into potations even beyond his wont, the slippery pavements had proven very baffling to his dignified tread—and the snowy signet upon the back of his topcoat spoke to a delighted office all too plainly that at last the alcoholic equilibrist par excellence had fallen.

This, however, embarrassing as it was to the individual in question, did not seriously delay the work of the department, which was well under way by the time the directors came together in their private office, to declare the semiannual dividend which for many years the Guardian had undeviatingly paid. A trial balance, from gross figures, had been drawn off, so that the President was able to report with reasonable exactitude on the condition of the company. The dividend was promptly declared, and this was followed by a more or less informal discussion among the gentlemen around the big table.

"The increase in our surplus seems due mostly to the rise in value of some of our securities," Mr. Whitehill commented; "but the underwriting showing is much better for the last six months than for the first. I think our friend, Mr. Smith, is to be congratulated; and at the same time I want to ask what he thinks of our prospects for the coming year."

"Well, from the underwriting viewpoint," Smith answered, "there is no reason why this year should not be better than last, and several reasons why it should; but if you will pardon the presumption of my going outside of my own department, I think our chance for an increased profit lies more along financial than insurance lines."

"Mr. Smith thinks," said Mr. Wintermuth, "that there has not been a sufficient flexibility in our investments—that we could do better with a larger cash balance and more liquid—or easily liquidated—assets."

"And so we could," said Mr. Griswold. He leaned forward with more interest than he had yet shown. "I have felt for some time," he continued, "that our management of our resources was substantial and safe, but—without wishing to reflect on our President, whose conservatism has been a tower of strength to us—I have also felt we were financially just a little old-fashioned."

"What would you suggest that we do?" inquired the President. "My mind is entirely open on the subject."

"Let me see the statement," said Mr. Griswold. He regarded it carefully through his glasses. "Well," he said, "there are several items on this, representing securities of which I advised the purchase. This Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad and this Ninth National Bank."

"Ninth National—that's the bank the Duane crowd is trying to buy, isn't it?" asked another director.

"Yes. It's higher now than it has been for twenty years," said Mr.
Wintermuth.

"And a great sight more than it's worth," Mr. Griswold commented. "If it were mine, I'd get out at the present price. And I'd get out of Schuylkill and Susquehanna, too. I don't want to be quoted on this, you understand, but there's no reason for its selling at 160 except the expectation of an extra dividend, and in my opinion all this talk of an extra dividend is just rubbish. I believe if we sold what we have to-morrow, we could get it back within six months, if we wanted, at 135."

The gentlemen around the table were visibly impressed, as Mr. Griswold's reputation for sagacity in such matters was more than metropolitan.

"Well, I move that the Finance Committee be empowered to recommend the sale of any of our securities," said another well-intentioned director. "And that on their recommendation the securities be sold," he added somewhat lamely.

"The Finance Committee doesn't need any such resolution passed," said Mr. Griswold, with a laugh. "If I'm not greatly mistaken, it's always had such powers. But I'm glad to learn that it is now the desire of the directorate that we should use them."

It was only a few days after this that Smith, having stopped on his way home to see a Pittsburgh man who always put up at the Waldorf, met Mr. Griswold in the lobby of that hotel.

"Well, our Ninth National stock is sold," remarked that gentleman, casually. "Four ninety-two."

"Good!" said the underwriter. "I think we're well out."

"So do I," returned the other. "By the way, did you notice the market to-day?"

"No."

"Closed weak. Schuylkill and Susquehanna off two points and a half."

"Too bad we didn't get out of that, too," said Smith. "I remember you said it was too high."

"It still is," returned the financier, dryly. "But we got out. We sold every share we had, at the opening, this morning."

Smith looked at him.

"You mean—?" he asked.

"I mean that a good big cash balance is often a handy thing to have. And just now I'd rather have cash than stocks. I don't mean there's going to be a panic, or anything like that, but everything's very high. They may go some higher, but they'll certainly go a good deal lower. And I don't think that we'll have to wait very long. Good-night—glad to have seen you."

"Good-night," replied Smith, thoughtfully.