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THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.

AN ADAPTATION.

BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CHAPTER XVII.

INSURANCE AND ASSURANCE.

Six months had come and gone and done it; the weather was as
inordinately hot as it had before been intolerably cold; and the
Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON stood waiting, in the gorgeous Office of the
Boreal Life Insurance Company, New York, for the appearance of Mr.
MELANCTHON SCHENCK.

Having been directed by a superb young clerk, who parted his hair in the
middle, to "just stand out of the passage-way and amuse yourself with
one of our Schedules for awhile," until the great life-Agent should come
in, the Gospeler read a few schedulistic pages, proving, that if a
person had his life Insured at the age of Thirty, and paid his premiums
regularly until he was Eighty-five, the cost to him and profit to the
Company would, probably, be much more than the amount he had insured
for. It must, then, be evident to him, that, upon his death, at Ninety,
the Company would have received, in all, sufficient funds from him to