White Ashes Part 15

"You have probably seven rooms, with four windows along the street side and four on the court. Well," he finished, laughing, "is that sufficiently visualized?"

"You have told me nearly everything except where we have our piano,"

Helen returned. "I don't suppose your diagram would show that?"

"Well, no. That wouldn't interest us as a rule, and besides, people move pianos so often. We don't try to keep them all located."

Smiling together, and better friends than they had yet been, the two turned from the map of Boston.

"Here," said Smith, "are the other maps of the Eastern Department, from Maine to Maryland, Rhode Island to Ohio. Also Canada--Halifax, Quebec, Montreal. Over at the other end of the room are the Southern cities, Atlanta, New Orleans, St. Augustine--with some of the old Spanish houses still standing. Do you know it strikes me there is something Homeric, something epic, about a map desk. You can turn to any building in any city on the continent, at a moment's notice. I can show you the Old South Church, or Fraunce's Tavern in New York where Was.h.i.+ngton bade his generals good-by, or Montcalm's headquarters at Quebec before Wolfe scaled the heights. Or you can see the Peace Conference Hotel outside Portsmouth, or the Congressional Library in Was.h.i.+ngton, or the new Chinatown in San Francisco, or the great shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Altoona, or even the site of the arena at Reno, Nevada, where Mr. Johnson separated Mr. Jeffries from the heavy-weight t.i.tle of the world."

So engrossed was Smith that he did not notice the almost imperceptible withdrawal of his auditor. Among her Boston friends there was no one who spoke of prize fights; even Charles Wilkinson, whose conversational reservations were certainly few, ignored the prize ring. Smith went unconsciously on, but for his hearer, for the time at least, the spell was snapped. Still, she listened. He told her more of what the maps showed--how they indicated the location and size of the water mains in the streets, of the hydrants, the fire department houses, even the fire alarm boxes--everything, in short, which the fire underwriter desired to contemplate when pa.s.sing on a risk submitted for the company's approval.

By this time they had reached the other end of the big room and were close to O'Connor's office.

"I really must have taken you on a walk of several miles," said Smith, contritely; "and if you are going to let me continue this monologue, I may at least let you sit down. Suppose we go in here; Mr. O'Connor has just left town, and we may as well use his office."

Again Miss Maitland hesitated, although not sufficiently to attract her companion's notice. She was not accustomed to interviews in private offices with strange young men. But she entered, and Smith behind her, and the gla.s.s door closed on them both, shutting out the sound of the clicking typewriters. Helen seated herself with her back to the window.

"Go on," she said. "I want to hear everything."

Smith went on.

Briefly but clearly he sketched the foundations of insurance. How, in more primitive times, when a man's house burned, his neighbors used to provide him with materials and come to help him rebuild; but this proved onerous, and instead a communal fund for the purpose of a.s.sisting fire sufferers was established. The modern insurance company had gradually come to a.s.sume the management of this fund and eventually to undertake the function of insuring against fire. But the people were still the arbiters of the fire cost, and the companies merely barometrically reflected the condition of the community as to fires. When fires are numerous and costly, the price of insurance must advance. Insurance is a tax which the companies collect in premiums from the many and pay out in losses to the few. But the idea remains the same.

"That is interesting," said the girl. "Now will you think me very stupid if I ask you to explain what all the terms mean as you go along? You spoke a moment ago of underwriting: I don't know what underwriting is. I thought big loans and stock issues and things of that sort were underwritten. Is this the same?"

"So they are, but this is another matter. Fire underwriting is a thing all to itself--_sui generis_. Similarly, a fire underwriter is a person like no other--at all events he likes to persuade himself that he is.

And frequently he succeeds."

Smith smiled at his own reflection.

"A fire underwriter, to be a real one," he went on, "should be a chemist, financier, mechanic, lawyer, engineer, and diplomat, and a dash of a clairvoyant, too. He should know everybody's business, including his own. Consider what he is expected to know: there is no cla.s.s of industry which can dispense with insurance."

"Except the Ma.s.sachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction Company," interposed Helen, quickly.

"That is true up to the present time," Smith a.s.sented; "but their wisdom in having done so is not sufficiently proved, and Mr. Charles Wilkinson, whom I met in your uncle's office, is in hopes of being able to change their ideas on that subject. But I have my doubts if he will succeed, from what is said of Mr. Hurd."

"I think Mr. Wilkinson spoke of having met you," the girl said carelessly; which was positive disingenuousness, for she remembered very well indeed. And here she sat, talking to the man whose suggestion, as Charles quoted it, had roused her interest in the business. Helen was not sufficiently Oriental to find anything predestined in this meeting, but it nevertheless seemed a little odd. Abruptly she spoke, to rid her of her own thoughts.

"Mr. Hurd believes in carrying his own risk--isn't that the expression?"

"Absolutely. No life-long fire insurance man could have phrased it more correctly."

"I'm afraid it was mere plagiarism. I think Mr. Wilkinson used it."

"Credit withdrawn," said Smith. "What were we talking about? Oh, yes--about underwriters. Now, the fire underwriter has to pa.s.s upon the danger of every risk whose insurance is offered to his company. The company, of course, makes its underwriting or trade profit--or hopes to do so--by receiving more money in payment of premiums than it has to disburse, after deducting expenses, in losses. It must therefore accept its business as scientifically as possible. It must know how much money to risk--that is, how large a policy to write--on every cla.s.s of risk in the world. When a line on a foundry and machine shop comes in, let us say, from Silas Osgood and Company, the underwriter is supposed to know how much premium, or rate, the risk should pay, and how many dollars the company can safely hold."

"But I thought you said Uncle Silas sent you the risk. Doesn't he also determine the amount the company takes?"

"The amount for which the policy is issued; but he is merely the agent.

He exercises his best judgment, but the home office underwriter is the court of last resort. Generally speaking, the agent secures the business and offers it to the company for its acceptance. If, when it comes, the underwriter feels that the rate of premium is not commensurate with the hazard, he writes the agent, 'Rate too low: please cancel.' And there is where his diplomacy comes in. The agent, who must now get back the policy from the a.s.sured, must not be offended, or his more desirable business will be placed in some rival and more liberal company. If, on the other hand, the rate of premium seems adequate, but the amount at risk is too great, the underwriter reinsures or cedes a part of his line to another company, paying it a proportionate part of the premium, and holds only what he thinks safe. And here is where his judgment is needed. The company has what it calls its idea of line--which means that it doesn't want to lose more than a certain amount, say five thousand dollars, in any ordinary fire. . . . I'm not boring you?"

"Oh, no," said Helen. "I'm following it all."

"Well, then, what the underwriter is supposed to do is to decide, from the kind of risk he is asked to insure, how much the Company can write, and still not be liable for a greater loss than five thousand dollars in any ordinary fire."

"How can he do it?"

"By knowing his business. When he pa.s.ses on a foundry, for example, he ought to know, first, the fire record of foundries in general; second, what rate of premium they ought in general to pay; and third, what the dangers, or, as we call them, hazards, are. By looking at the map he must be able to tell where the fire is most likely to start--where, in other words, fires usually do start in foundries. Probably it will be the cupola charging platform or the core ovens. Then he can closely tell from the construction of that particular foundry, considering also the protection, extinguis.h.i.+ng appliances, public water pressure, nearness of the fire department, and fifty other considerations, how much of the whole plant would burn--probably. If only half, then he feels safe in writing ten thousand dollars on the risk, since only half of it is likely to be destroyed by one fire."

"I don't see how you can tell."

"Well, most companies have quite elaborate line sheets to a.s.sist their underwriters in determining how much to hold on various cla.s.ses of risks, but between you and me, you _can't_ tell surely. But you do the best you can, and the ablest underwriter is the man who tells the closest. A really good underwriter should know the hazards of all the ordinary risks in the world, and be able to tell you offhand what is the danger point in a brewery, a playing-card factory, a paper mill, a public school, a shovel works, a Catholic church, a chemical laboratory--every sort and kind of risk. Of course he has surveys, made by inspectors, to help him, showing details the map fails to show, such as the location of your piano, and where the hazards lie and how they are cared for. But inspectors are fallible, and he must _know_--everything."

"You make my head whirl," Helen said. "To know everything! It sounds colossal. Do you know everything?"

Smith laughed.

"No," he replied. "Decidedly not. I'm afraid I know only a very small proportion of what I ought. But the big men of the business do. There is one man who I verily believe is perfectly familiar with every kind of risk in the United States. If there is a chemical process he doesn't know or can't find out about, I'll eat the thing myself. He knows every explosive mixture, every fulminate, every sort or manner of dust, paste, or grease which burns or explodes of itself."

"But that one man must be a genius! What does the average man do?

Doesn't he need some one to help him in all this? It sounds like such a terrific undertaking to keep track of so many things. Doesn't it make your own head swim at times?"

"Well," said Smith, "of course there are a thousand and one things in the nature of aids to the underwriter--things whose proper action he doesn't directly control, although he has to keep a father's eye on them to see that they don't run amuck."

"Such as what?" asked the girl.

"The inspectors I spoke of, for one thing; the map makers who make the pretty brown buildings in Deerfield Street; the rate makers who go around applying schedules to buildings, and from the various hazards of construction, occupancy, and exposure fixing the rate which the schedule brings out; the stamping bureaus that check the rates as the agents send through the business. And then there are the field men, called special agents, who travel from agency to agency, appointing and discontinuing agents, straightening out difficulties, adjusting losses, and making themselves generally useful. All these the underwriter has to help him, as well as information such as building inspections by cities, police regulations, fire alarm systems, munic.i.p.al rules and vagaries of all sorts--oh, a category of things as long as one's arm, which of course an underwriter doesn't actually himself supervise, but whose accuracy he must be able to estimate--and often repair if they get out of order and cease to run smoothly."

"But--" said the girl, slowly.

"But what?" Smith asked.

"But isn't it awfully technical, this business? I had an idea that fire insurance was done princ.i.p.ally by clerks writing endlessly in large books. That's what they always seem to be doing in Mr. Osgood's office.

And now you tell me it's like this. This is absolutely different from what I thought it was, and it seems incredibly difficult, but--"

"Well, but what?" demanded her companion.

"Well, then--it seems to me a little dry. Or perhaps not exactly that, but a little too scientific, too technical. Not so vivid, so vital--"

She stopped short at the expression of Smith's face.

CHAPTER IX

"Not vital!" he exclaimed, getting out of his chair and facing her.

"Not vital! Really, Miss Maitland, what can you call vital? Fire insurance is as vital as anything in the world of business to-day--or in any world that I know anything about." He paused, and some of the indignation went out of his eyes. "I beg your pardon," he said more gently. "I had thought I was making you understand."