Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1877 — An Insurance Agent Oatcheeked. [ARTICLE]

An Insurance Agent Oatcheeked.

Only once since the first syllable of recorded time has a peaceful, law-abiding citizen got ahead of alife-insuranceagent. It is needless to remark that he was a Chicago man. He was naturally mild and inoffensive, but much meditation on the wrongs the race have suffered at the cheek of the canvasser had turned the . milk of human kindness in his bosom into gall, and he planned a deadly revenge. He selected as the victim who should expiate the wrongs of his kind a full-sized canvasser who stood at the veiy top of his nefarious profession, who was, in fine, a head and cheek over his rivals, and dropped him a line, stating that he thought of insuring his life, and containing a Macedonian cry to come over to his office and take his application. The canvasser smiled in fiendish glee, and, hastily cramming his pockets with tables of expectations of life, rates, tontines, survivals of the fittest, annual reports, and other deadly weapons, hurried over to the avenger’s office. Thfe avenger had dodged out, leaving a notice that he would return at S :15, and, as soon as he had seen the canvasser read It and make an entry in his memor-andum-book, he just went back to his office and remained there peacefully till five, when he locked up and went home. The canvasser arrived a few minutes later, and roosted on the steps till the janitor turned him out and closed the building. After three days of this work the avenger relented so far as to admit the doomed agent to his presence, and they occupied two days in discussing the subject in all its ramifications, inspecting the certificate of 'die Secretary of State, ciphering out the annual reports to see if the four and one-half per cent, rest was adequate to reinsure the policies, finding out the percentage of expenses, and generally auditing the books of the company. By this time the agent knew every knot in the staircases and floor by sight, and people who saw him going in and out so frequent ly thought he had an office in the building. Then the avenger made out an application for a $5,000 policy for life, with participation in the profits, premium payable quarterly. The canvasser thought he had him now, but he hadn’t, for the avenger kept the medical examiner traveling between the company’s office and his own for nearly two weeks, till his feet were blistered and his boots half worn out He would make an appointment with the doctor for'ten a. m., put the clock forward twenty minutes, and skip over to the doctor’s office, meeting him on the road, and leave a note to say he had waited until 10:20, and seeing nothing of him had gone to his (the doctor’s) (mice, but missed him there. At last he gave the doctor a chance, and before they could make out the policy, went up to Minnesota to spend Christmas with his girl’s friends. From there he wrote to the agent that on mature deliberation he had made up his mind to take a SIO,OOO fifteen-year endowment policy on the tontine plan, if it was net too fate- The agent, who knew his commission would be doubled, smiled away back to his ears, and kad the policy canceled and another one prepared. The avenger returned to Chicago on the 12th of January, and kept the agent’s time fully occupied till the 7th of February before the policy was ready few delivery. Then he discovered dial they had made a mistake of a year m. his age, and that carried him along to the fflth. Then he told the agent that, in view of the disclosures of the rottenness of the Eastern companies, ne didn’t think it prudent to insure in aDy of them till the fullest investigation had been made and he was satisfied of the security of the agent’s institution. “ However,” said he. “ 1 have put you to a lot of trouble, so let me pay yon what your commission would have been,” and he took out a roll of greenbacksu The agent was unable to speak for nearly three minutes ; then, being deceived by the meek and lamb-like appearance of the avenger, he angrily declared that there existed a contract between the avenger and the company, anU if there was any law in the land— “ See here, my friend,” observed the avenger, as he put the money back into his vest-pocket, “I made you a fair offer. I might throw you out of that window; yon would be killed and I would be triumphantly acquitted and probably nominated for Mayor or Congressman, but I will not. I simply touch this button, at which, thanks to the wondrous power of electricity, a police officer starts from the A. D. T. Co.’s headquarters with a pistol in one hand and a club in the other, and his coat-tails standing straight behind hies imsa the wedocity of his passage. 1 give you in charge for trespass; you pass the night in the deepest dungeon beneath the station-moat, and to-morrow are fined twenty-five dollars and costs, or fifty-three days.” “Not much,’’ hissed the agent, “ for before the Magistrate I will tell the whole story and cover you with shame as a swindling trickster. ” “ Scarcely, ’ ’ replied the avenger, “ for you will be publishing to the universe the fact that you were overreached, circumvented and taken in; your character for shrewdness will be utterly destroyed; you will be unable to obtain employment anywhere, and, finally, will perish miserably peddling combined canopeners, lid-lifters and toasting-forks up on the West Side.” The baffled agent saw that this was the truth, and skipped out, turning on the avenger as he went a look of malevolence, while the avenger calmly proceeded to figure out the extent of his victory as follows: Time of agent, 263 hoars, at $1 an hour, during which he walked 32D>£ miles and climbed 16}4 miles of stairs $263 Time of doctor, 42 honn, at same rate 42 Clerical labor in drawing-up policies.. 3 KTn.mina.tinn fees to surgeon 10 Mental worry of agent 500 Total SBIB And all this keen Intellectual pleasure, extending over a period of nearly three months, cost him no more than the trouble of signing JAis name two or three times and three or four hohrs of friendly conversation ! —Chicago Tribune.

Chocolate Caramels. —Two cups of sugar, one of molasses, one of milk, one spoonful of butter, one of flour, half a pound of Baker’s chocolate. Butter your saucepan, put In sugar, molasses and milk, boil fifteen minutes; add butter and flour, stirred to a cream, and boil five minutes longer, then add the chocolate grated, and boil until quite thick. Butter tin flat pans, and pour in the mixture, half an inch thick, and mark it in squares before it gets hard in cooling.