The Best Policy

“Oh, no,” replied Murray, with a peculiar smile; “merely a mistake. But, if you will put yourself in that man’s place, you will see how the mistake could happen. He was carrying twenty-five thousand dollars of insurance, and he wasn’t worth twenty-five cents at the time, owing to some recent reverses. He was ill, but was not considered dangerously ill. Still, he was depressed, believing apparently that he would not recover and knowing that he had not the money for the next premium. If he died before a certain date there would be twenty-five thousand dollars for his wife and children; if he died after that date there would be comparatively little. Now, in imagination, just assume the problem that confronted that man on a certain night: twenty-four hours of life for him meant a future of privation for his wife, if he did not recover and prosper, while immediate death for him meant comfort for those he loved. Picture yourself contemplating that prospect while lying weak and discouraged in the sick-room, with various bottles – one labeled ‘Poison’ – within reach. A poison may have medicinal value when properly used, you know, but what more natural than that you should make a mistake in the gloom of the night while the tired nurse is dozing? It is so easy to get the wrong bottle – to take the poison instead of the tonic – and it solves a most distressing problem. A drop of the poison is beneficial; a teaspoonful is death; and the tonic is to be taken in large doses.” Murray paused a moment to let the terrible nature of the situation impress itself on Ross. Then he added quietly: “We paid the insurance, although the timeliness of the accident did not escape comment. The same mistake twenty-four hours later would not have had the same financial result. Now, do you understand why I would not care to put fifty thousand dollars on the life of Tucker, even if he were physically satisfactory? Unexpected reverses may make any man worth more dead than alive, but we seldom contribute knowingly to such a condition of affairs. It isn’t prudent. While the average man is not disposed to shorten his life to beat an insurance company, it isn’t wise to put the temptation in his way unless you are very sure of your man.”

“Well, we needn’t explain that to Tucker,” said Ross.

“No,” returned Murray. “We can put the whole thing on the basis of the physician’s report.”

“I wish you would break the news to him,” urged Ross. “You can do it with better grace, for you were not instrumental in getting him to put in his application. He’ll be up here to-day.”

“Oh, very well,” returned Murray. “I’ll see him when he comes.”

Though the task was far from pleasant, Murray had been long enough in the business to take matters philosophically. One must accustom oneself to the disagreeable features of any occupation, for there is none that is entirely pleasurable.

Tucker, however, did not make this interview disagreeable in the way that was expected: instead of becoming discouraged and depressed, he became indignant.

“What’s that?” he cried. “You don’t consider me a good risk?”

“I am sorry to say,” returned Murray, “that our physician does not report favorably on you.”

“Oh, he doesn’t!” exclaimed Tucker. “Well, that’s a good joke on the doctor, isn’t it?”

“What!”

“You’d better discharge him and get a man with some sense.”

“I thought,” said Murray dubiously, “that it might seem rather hard on you.”

“Hard on me!” ejaculated Tucker. “Hard on the company, you mean! You’re letting a little two-by-four doctor steer you away from a good thing. Why, say! I’m good for as long a life as an elephant!”

“I’m sure I hope so.”

“It’s robbery – plain robbery – for that doctor to take a fee from you for making such a report on me. I’ll show him up!”

“How?” asked Murray curiously.

“By living!” declared Tucker. “It’s going to give me infinite pleasure to report to you from time to time and show you one of the healthiest men that ever was turned down by an insurance company. He can’t scare me into a decline – not any! And, say! he looks to me like a young man.”

“He is.”

“A young man in fine physical condition.”

“He is.”

“Well, I’ll go to his funeral, and I’ll be in prime condition when he’s put away! You tell him that, will you? I’ll be walking when he has to be carried.”

Now, this was rather annoying to Murray. It was preferable to the despair that overwhelmed some men in similar circumstances, but it seemed to him that Tucker was overdoing it.

“Anyhow,” said Murray resentfully, “we would not care to put fifty thousand dollars on your life, for it’s more than a man in your position ought to carry. You’ll never be worth as much alive as you would be dead, with that insurance.”

“Oh, I won’t!” retorted Tucker sarcastically. “Well, now, instead of making the girl I am to marry a present of a policy on my life, I’ll just make her a present of your whole blamed company in a few years. You watch what I do with the money you might have had!”

“You are about to marry?” asked Murray with interest. “It’s a serious matter, in view of the physician’s report.”

“Marriage is always a serious matter,” asserted Tucker. “I don’t have to have a doctor tell me that. But he can’t scare me out with flubdub about heart murmur, for I know the heart was murmuring, and the prospective Mrs. Tucker does, too. She’ll interpret that murmur for him any time he wants a little enlightenment.”

Murray laughed when Tucker had gone. The man’s indignation had been momentarily irritating, but there was something amusing about it, too.

“He’s going to live to a green old age, just to spite the company,” mused Murray. “It’s a matter of no great personal interest to him, but he’d like to make the company feel bad. If a man could order his life as he can his business affairs, there would be mighty little chance for us.”

Meanwhile, Tucker was hastening to the home of Miss Frances Greer.

“I’ve come to release you,” he announced cheerfully.

“But I don’t want to be released,” she returned.

“Of course not,” he said. “I didn’t suppose you would. But you might just as well know that you’re getting a poor risk.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Why, I wanted to put fifty thousand dollars on my life, as a precaution for the future, and the fool of an insurance doctor turned me down.”

“What do I care about the doctor!” she exclaimed.

“Not a thing, of course.”

“Or insurance!”

“Still less.”

“And,” she said happily, “you’re a good enough risk for me.”

Then they went into executive session and decided that insurance doctors didn’t know anything, anyway. But they did not forget Dave Murray, and they did not let Dave Murray forget them: he heard from them indirectly in the most annoying ways. His wife informed him less than a week later that she had met Miss Greer at a reception.

“A most extraordinary girl!” his wife remarked. “I can’t understand her at all. She asked me in a most ingenuous way if I ever had noticed any indications of heart murmur about you.

“‘Never,’ said I.

“‘Not even in the engagement days when he was making love?’ she insisted.

“‘Not even then,’ I answered, bewildered.

“‘He couldn’t have been much of a lover,’ she remarked.”

Murray laughed and explained the situation to his wife. But Murray would have been better pleased if the two women had not met, for he had no desire to have this case perpetually present in the more intimate associations of life. However, he had to make the best of it, even when he was invited to the wedding, to which his wife insisted that he should go. She had discovered that the bride was related to an intimate friend of her own girlhood days, and the bride further showed flattering gratification in this discovery. She was especially gracious to Murray.

“I want to ask you a question,” she told him.

Thereupon Murray made heroic efforts to escape before she could find a suitable opportunity, but she beckoned him back whenever he got near the door.

“Mama,” she said finally, for this happened during the wedding reception, and her mother stood near her, “I wish you would take charge of Mr. Murray and see that he doesn’t run away. I have something very important to say to him before Ralph and I leave.”