Part 8

In some amazement, the broker apologized and retired, and Murray began to wonder what would happen to him if Mrs. Tucker ever did get enough of the stock to make her influence felt. Of course, there was little chance of that, but even a small stock-holder could be annoying when so disposed. He began to dream about the Tucker case, and an incidental mention of it in the office would make the atmosphere unpleasant for the day. Every clerk and solicitor understood that it was a dangerous topic. Once the name "Tucker" was mentioned in the ordinary course of business, and Murray had things at a fever heat before it could be explained to him that it was another Tucker. Then came a letter from the West, with a Tucker return card on the envelop. A council of war was held before it was delivered to Murray, and even then a time was chosen when he was absent to lay it on his desk. It was very brief--just an announcement that "the patient" had rallied splendidly after the fatigue of the journey and exhibited "really wonderful vitality for a sick man." No one cared to go near Murray all the rest of that day.

Soon after the first of the following month another missive arrived--a mere formal affidavit, headed "Certificate of Life," and solemnly averring that "Ralph Tucker's heart has not ceased to murmur along in the land of the living." This was followed a month later by a certificate from a physician to the effect that "a restful ranch life is especially conducive to longevity, and Mr. Tucker's health continues to show all the improvement that can be expected in a man who had nothing the matter with him in the first place."

These facetious reports continued to arrive at monthly intervals for a period of nearly a year. Usually they were brief, but occasionally the doctor, who seemed to enter into the spirit of the affair, would go into such details as weight, endurance, appetite, lifting power, respiration and--heart murmur. "The heart," he wrote at one time, "seems to be too well satisfied to murmur now, and the patient was able to sit up and eat a large steak to-day, after which a little gentle exercise--about twenty miles on horseback--seemed to do him some good."

Murray promptly turned this over to the company doctor, and the latter sighed. Almost the only satisfaction in life that Murray had during this time arose from his ability to make the doctor miserable.

"He was not a good risk when I examined him," the doctor insisted, "but he may be a good one now. We can't be certain of results in such a case, and the law of probabilities frequently works out wrong. He could not have done a better thing, under the circumstances, than to go in for a simple, outdoor life. The basis of trouble was there, in my judgment, but it may have been overcome."

"The basis of trouble is still there," declared Murray; "not only the basis of trouble, but the whole blame structure, and it's resting on us. I can feel the weight."

"So can I," replied the doctor disconsolately.

Less than a week after this Tucker telegraphed to know if Murray had changed his mind about disposing of any stock.

"No," was the reply sent back.

"All right," Tucker answered. "I just wanted to give Mrs. Tucker another slice of your company. She has a little of it already."

Investigation showed that the broker had succeeded in picking up a few shares, but hardly enough to exert any considerable influence. Still, it was disquieting to find the Tuckers so persistent.

"I'll bet," said Murray, "that mental worry has put me where you wouldn't pass me for a risk."

"If your wife," returned the doctor, "is anything like Mrs. Tucker I'd pass you for any kind of risk rather than incur her displeasure. They'll begin to take a stock-holder's interest in the affairs of this particular office pretty soon."

"The affairs are in good shape," declared Murray.

"But a real determined stock-holder can stir up a devil of a rumpus over nothing," asserted the doctor. "If she should send all those physicians' reports to headquarters, they would rather offset my report on which he was turned down, and the company would feel that it had lost a good thing. The company will not stop to think that my report may have been justified by conditions at the time."

"And the risk that I thought too big for him then may not seem too big for him now," commented Murray ruefully.

"I'd like to examine him again," said the doctor.

"I don't think it would be safe," returned Murray, "unless you were searched for weapons first."

So the doctor and Murray settled down to await, with some anxiety, the next move in the game, and their patience was rewarded by the receipt of five certificates of health from as many different physicians, each certificate having a message of some sort scribbled across the top. "The patient had to ride a hundred miles to get these," Mrs. Tucker had written on the first. "There were a few shares of this stock in my late lamented uncle's estate," appeared in Tucker's handwriting on the second. "The president of your company is rusticating a few miles from here," Mrs. Tucker asserted on the third. "Better come out here for a few days," Tucker urged on the fourth. "Poor Ralph!" was Mrs. Tucker's comment on the fifth.

"Poor Dave Murray!" grumbled Murray, and he and the doctor started West the next day. "Might as well get this thing settled," he said. "You and I have got to be on harmonious terms with the stock-holders. Besides, there's an early grave yawning for me if I don't succeed in making peace with Mrs. Tucker. I tell you, Doctor, when a woman decides to make things uncomfortable for a man,--well, the man might just as well resign himself to being perpetually uncomfortable."

And yet, no one could have greeted them more graciously than did Mrs. Tucker.

"I'm so glad you've come," she said, "and brought the doctor. It is particularly pleasing to have the doctor here, for I want him to see if something can't be done for poor Ralph. I'm sure I don't know what's going to become of the poor fellow. He doesn't sleep any better than a baby, and he can't ride over a hundred miles without getting tired. His muscles aren't a bit harder than iron, either, and his heart beats all the time."

"Mrs. Tucker," said Murray appealingly, "what can we do to make peace with you?"

"Without even seeing your husband again," added the doctor, "I am willing to concede that he will live to be three thousand years old."

"We are beaten," asserted Murray. "You have humbled our business and professional pride. We give Mr. Tucker none of the credit; it all belongs to you. We claim to be the equals of any man, but of no woman. Now, on what terms can we have peace?"

"I did want your insurance company for a sort of belated wedding present," said Mrs. Tucker thoughtfully.

"I'd give it to you if I could," said Murray with the utmost sincerity. "I assure you, that company has been nothing but an annoyance to me ever since you cast longing eyes on the stock."

"Oh, I've become more modest in my expectations," replied Mrs. Tucker cheerfully. "I don't expect much more than we've got now."

"How much have you got?" asked Murray.

"Well, our broker picked up a few shares, and there were some more in the estate of Ralph's uncle, and the president of the company kindly arranged it so that we could get a little more. Such a delightful man he is, too! It was when I heard he had a place in this vicinity, where he came for an outing every year, that I insisted upon Ralph's buying this ranch. I thought it would be nice to be near him--and it was. We're great friends now, although he's only here for a little while in the spring and fall."

"Did--did you tell him about the insurance?" asked Murray.

"What insurance?" asked Mrs. Tucker blandly. "We haven't any insurance. Poor Ralph--"

"Mrs. Tucker," interrupted Murray, "if you say 'Poor Ralph' again, you will see a driveling idiot making streaks across the prairie. I have reached the limit of endurance. All I want is peace, peace, peace, and I'll pay the price for it. Do you want some of my stock?"

"Oh, dear, no," she replied. "We've got it fixed now so that Ralph is pretty sure to be a director next year. We talked it over with the president."

"Does Mr. Tucker still want a policy?" asked Murray.

"Certainly not," said Mrs. Tucker. "If he's going to die so soon, it would be beating the company, and we're part of the company now, so we--"

"Stop it! stop it!" pleaded Murray. "I'll bet you couldn't kill him with an ax!"

"Sir!"

"I beg your pardon, but this is the climax of a year of torment that I didn't suppose was possible this side of the infernal regions," explained Murray dismally, "and I'm just naturally wondering why you brought me out here."

"Oh, I didn't tell you that, did I?" returned Mrs. Tucker ingenuously. "I just wanted to tell you that, now that we're stock-holders to a reasonable amount--Ralph retained a few shares, you know, and holds a proxy for mine--we look at the matter from an entirely different viewpoint, and we think that every reasonable precaution should be taken to avoid poor risks, as you call them. We are highly gratified by the evidence of caution that has inadvertently come under our notice, even if there was an incidental error that baffled human foresight."

The sudden and startling changes of position by this young woman were too much for both Murray and the doctor; they could only look at her in amazement as she calmly commended their course.

"You have brought us all this distance to tell us that!" ejaculated Murray at last.

"Yes."

"Well, it's worth the trip!" he announced, as he recalled the events of the last year.

Then Tucker appeared, big, strong, bronzed, hearty, and shook hands with them. Never a weakling in appearance, his year of outdoor life had made him the embodiment of health. He beamed upon his guests with hearty good nature as he gave them each a grip that made them wince. His wife regarded him critically for a moment.

"Poor Ralph!" she said mischievously, and then she hastily assured them that this was really the last of the joke.

AN INCIDENTAL FAILURE

Adolph Schlimmer's wink was of the self-satisfied variety that plainly says to the person at whom it is directed, "They're mostly fools in this world--except you and me, and I'm not quite sure about you." Adolph Schlimmer was a small man, but he thought he had enough worldly wisdom and sharpness for a giant. "You bet you, I don't get fooled very much," he boasted.

Just now his wink was directed at Carroll Brown, an insurance solicitor.

"How much iss there in it for you?" he asked.

"Oh, I get my commission, of course," replied Brown.

"Sure, sure,"--and again Adolph winked. "You don't need it all, maybe."

"Why not?" asked Brown with disconcerting frankness. "I'm entitled to what I earn."

"Sure, sure," admitted Adolph, somewhat annoyed. "It's vorth something to you to make the money, ain't it, yes? I gif you the chance. It might be vorth something to me, perhaps, maybe."

"Oh, if you want me to divide my commission with you," exclaimed Brown, "we might as well quit talking right here. It would cost me my job, if anybody found it out."

"Who iss to find it out? I bet you, if people could find out things, we'd haf more people in jail than out. Some big men, vorth millions, would haf to live a century to serf their time out. The boss discharges hiss clerk for doin' what he iss doin' himself."

"It's against the law," argued Brown. "It's a rebate on premiums and is prohibited."

"Sure, sure," conceded Adolph again. "But you got to do something to make business, ain't it? I gif premiums and I get discounts. There don't nobody fool me very much."

"Well, I'm taking no chances with either my job or the law," announced Brown, "even if I wanted to sacrifice part of my legitimate commission. I'm offering you a policy in a first-class company on the same terms that we give them to all others, and that's the best I can do. If you're looking for an advantage over your neighbors, you'll have to go elsewhere. The very first rule of straight business is to treat all alike."

"Sure it iss," returned Adolph. "Look at the railroads and the big shippers." Again he winked wisely. "I bet you, your boss ain't such a fool as you. Make the big money when you can, but don't run avay from the little money. I gif you a chance for the little money because I'm smart; some other feller let you haf it all because he issn't."

Therein lay the measure of Adolph. It was beyond his comprehension that any man should treat all fairly: some one surely was "on the inside," and his first thought in any transaction was to make a quiet "deal" with some interested party that would give him a trifling advantage over others. He was shrewd in a small and near-sighted way, and he had an idea that all men, except fools, looked at things as he did. He believed there was "graft" in everything. That being the case, it was the duty of a sharp man to get a share of it, even if, as in this instance, it only lessened his own expense somewhat. So Adolph Schlimmer went to see Brown's boss, who happened to be Dave Murray.

"I get me some insurance," he announced.

"All right," returned Murray agreeably. "You look like a good risk."

"Risk?" repeated Adolph. "No, _nein_. I'm a sure thing."

Murray laughed.

"That's bad," he said banteringly. "Sure things are what men go broke on in this world; they're the biggest risks of all." Then, explanatorily: "I mean you seem to be in good physical condition, so that our physician is likely to pass you."

"You bet you," returned Adolph, "but it's my vife what counts. If I die, I leaf her the money; if she die, she leaf me nothing."

"Oh, you want to get a policy on your wife's life," said Murray thoughtfully, not favorably impressed with the other's commercial tone. "How much?"

"_Zwei_ t'ousand dollars."

"Not very much," commented Murray. "A man of sense would prefer a good wife to two thousand dollars any day. Is she a worker?"

"You bet you, yes," replied Adolph earnestly. "If she die, I looss money on her at that price. I figger it all out. She safe me the wages uf a clerk and a cook and some other things. I count up what she safe me and what she cost me and she's vorth fifteen dollars a week easy in work and ten dollars a week in saving. I can't afford to looss that. I insure the store and the stock, and now I insure this. I watch out for myself pretty close."

Murray was both disgusted and amused. Such a character as this was new to his experience, but the risk might be, and probably was, a perfectly good and legitimate one.

"Well, you bring your wife in," he said after a moment of thought, "and I'll talk to her."

"Sure," said Adolph. Then he winked in his wise way. "I safe you the commission. What iss there in it for me?"

"What?" exclaimed Murray.

"I haf a talk with Brown," explained Adolph. "It's vorth something to him to get the business, but he don't make it vorth nothing to me to give it."

"If he did we'd discharge him."

"Sure, sure," returned the imperturbable Adolph. "We got to watch the boys or there won't be nothing left for us. So I safe the commission for you. What iss there in it for me?"

"Not a damn thing!"

"You play it that way with the fool," advised Adolph complacently. "It's a bully bluff for the feller that don't know how things was done in business. Then we go splits, yes?"

The ignorance and effrontery of the man so amazed Murray that he forgot his indignation for a moment and undertook to explain.

"There is no commission on business that comes to the office," he said.

"Sure!" laughed Adolph, again resorting to that sagacious wink. "You let the company make it, yes? I stay home, you send man to tell me get insured, I say yes, man get paid--ain't it so? I come here to get insured, and you give that man's pay to the company, the men vorth millions--oh, yes, sure!" Adolph laughed at the absurdity of the thing. "Iss there anything in my eye?" he asked suddenly.

"You sit down there!" ordered Murray, for Adolph was now leaning familiarly over Murray's desk. "I ought to kick you out, but I'm going to tell you a few things. Sit down and keep still. I'm several sizes bigger than you are and it's my turn." Murray spoke so aggressively that Adolph promptly returned to his seat. "Now, to begin with, you make a mistake in judging everybody else by yourself; there are a lot of decent people in this world. A good many may worship the almighty dollar, and that's bad enough, but God help the few who get down to worshiping the almighty cent. A good many keep a lookout for graft, but you are the first one I ever saw who seemed to think everybody was crooked."

"No, _nein_; only business--"

"Keep still! You insult everybody you try to do business with by acting on the assumption that he is in your class. You have absorbed some of the tricky commercialism that is prevalent these days, and you've got the idea that there isn't anything else--not even common sense. You would break the law for a trifle. What you propose is morally wrong, but we won't discuss that, because you can't understand it."

"I don't like--"

"Keep still! I'm doing you a favor, but I've got to tell you first what a libel you are on the average human being. The law that you want to break was made for the protection of just such financially insignificant people as you. It prohibits giving rebates in any form on insurance premiums and provides that the acceptance of such a rebate by the policy-holder shall invalidate his policy, and that the giving of such a rebate by a company or any of its agents shall subject the company to a fine. Do you understand?"

"Sure; but who iss to know?"

Murray was discouraged, but he had set out to drive a lesson home to this dull-witted fellow who thought he was smart, and he valiantly held to his task. He could feel nothing but contempt for the man, but he had become rather interested in convincing him how foolish he was. Besides, Murray was a bitter opponent of the rebate evil in all lines of business--every one knows how it fosters monopoly--and he attacked it whenever and wherever he could.

"If rebates on insurance premiums were not unlawful," he asked, "do you think people of your kind are the ones who would get them? Well, hardly. The millionaires, the rich men, the men who take out the big policies, would get them, and you little fellows would pay the full price, just as you do wherever else the rebate evil exists. This law was made to protect you, and you want to break it down. Well, I suppose there are others just as bad. The men for whose benefit a law is made frequently insist upon playing with it until they drop it and break it, and then they wonder why the splinters won't do them as much good as the original law." Having warmed up to a subject that interested him, Murray was talking for himself now. Adolph could understand in a general way what he meant, but many of the remarks were entirely beyond his comprehension. "Look at it in another way," Murray went on. "As a speculation, the insurance rebate is a mistake. The man who gets or accepts a rebate is taking a risk. 'Well,' he argues, 'so is the man who buys wheat or stocks or undeveloped real estate of problematical future value.' Quite right; but when you speculate you want to be sure that your probable or possible profits bear a fair proportion to the risk and your possible losses. It's all right to make a secured loan of one thousand dollars at five per cent., but when you put your thousand into a scheme where there is a chance of losing every cent of it, you also want a chance of making a good deal more than the legal rate of interest. Russell Sage is said to look as closely after the small profits as the large, but Russell would shy away from an investment--a real safe _investment_--that promised only a ten cent profit on five dollars; and if it were a _speculation_, where he might lose the whole five, he would want to see a possibility of winning at least half as much. The man who accepts an insurance premium rebate is going into a speculation--a flimsy, cheap speculation, with a chance of loss so entirely out of proportion to the slight advantage he gains over other policy-holders that no man with a grain of sense would consider it for a moment. To secure a discount on his premium he risks his whole policy. Why, in your case you would put a two-thousand-dollar policy in danger to save a few miserable dollars. It isn't cleverness, it isn't shrewdness, it isn't business, it isn't sense; it isn't anything but damn foolishness. Do you understand?"

"Sure," answered Adolph. "If we iss found out, I looss the policy and you looss a fine. We both looss."

"That's it exactly."

"Vell, if we both looss by telling, who iss going to find it out?" demanded Adolph triumphantly. "You bet you, I take the chance. Go ahead with her."

Murray leaned wearily back in his chair.

"You'd better get out of here," he said. "This company wouldn't issue a policy in which you had any sort of interest on any terms. I was curious to discover if I could not stir up just a glimmer of business sense in you, and my curiosity is satisfied. You seem to me like a man who would risk all his money to win a fly-speck, if he thought he was going to win it by some underhand deal. Get out as quick as you can! But I tell you again, don't fool with rebates!"

Adolph stopped in the doorway.

"You got to haf the whole commission, yes?" he remarked with accusing bitterness. "I take you for a hog."

Then he disappeared very suddenly, for he feared Murray would pursue.

Here again was the measure of Adolph. In spite of Murray's explanation, he could see nothing except a chance to win by saving a part of the commission. He could not comprehend that he was running any unusual risk or doing anything that another would not do, if the other had the sense to see the chance. In fact, he was fully convinced in his own mind that Murray was merely talking for effect and really desired the whole commission for himself. This made him the more determined to gain this small advantage for himself--partly because his little business world was made up of such devious methods, and partly because it would be an evidence of his own cleverness.

Now, occasionally a solicitor for a company of high standing, acting on his own responsibility, will divide his commission in order to get some one to take out a policy. If he is trying to make a record, the temptation is considerable. If the policy is large, his half of this commission may be more than his whole commission in most other cases. He does this secretly, but he is inviting three kinds of trouble: his own discharge, a fine for his company, and a loss for the policy-holder. These three things will follow discovery, but he takes the chance. And there are irresponsible or unscrupulous companies or agencies (so it is said) that will tacitly approve such a course in some instances, taking the necessary risk in order to get business. Of course, no first-class or reliable company will sanction or even tolerate such methods.