Читать книгу The Ball of Fire онлайн

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“All right,” cheerfully acquiesced Howard, and, still retaining her hand, he went over with her into the blue room, and seated her on the couch, and sat beside her, and crossed his legs. “We made up our monthly report just before I came. Our rate of increase is over ten per cent. better than in any previous month since we began. Three more years, and we’ll have the biggest insurance business in the state; that is, except the big outside companies.”

“Isn’t that splendid!” and her enthusiasm was fine to see. She had been kept posted on the progress of the Midwest Mutual Insurance Company since its inception, and naturally she was very much interested. “Then you’ll branch out into other states.”

“Not for ten years to come,” he told her, smiling at her woman-like overestimate. “The Midwest won’t do that until we’ve covered the home territory so thoroughly that there’ll be no chance of further expansion. My board of directors brought up that matter at the last meeting, but I turned it down flat-footed. I’m enterprising enough, but I’m thorough. The president has thrown the entire responsibility on my shoulders, and I won’t take any foolish risks.”