"I make reports on properties, on financial ventures, for the firm I'm
with, Benson & Honaton. They're brokers. When they are asked to
underwrite a scheme--"

"Underwrite? I never heard that word."

The boy laughed.

"You'll hear it a good many times if our acquaintance continues." Then
more gravely, but quite parenthetically, he added: "If a firm puts up
money for a business, they want to know all about it, of course. I tell
them. I've just been doing a report this afternoon, a wonder; it's what
made me late. Shall I tell you about it?"

She nodded with the same eagerness with which ten years before she might
have answered an inquiry as to whether he should tell her a fairy-story.

"Well, it was on a coal-mine in Pennsylvania. I'm afraid my report is
going to be a disappointment to the firm. The mine's good, a sound, rich
vein, and the labor conditions aren't bad; but there's one fatal
defect--a car shortage on the only railroad that reaches it. They can't
make a penny on their old mine until that's met, and that can't be
straightened out for a year, anyhow; and so I shall report against it."

"Car shortage," said Miss Severance. "I never should have thought of
that. I think you must be wonderful."

He laughed.

"I wish the firm thought so," he said. "In a way they do; they pay