"And," continued the woman anxiously, "do you make any inquiries as to the origin of the fire?"
"Certainly," was the prompt reply.
"Oh!" and she turned to leave the office, "I thought there was a catch in it somewhere."
"I say, Jones, I want to insure my coal-yards against fire. What would a policy for $20,000 cost?"
"What coal is it? Same kind as you sent me last?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't bother insuring it if I were you. It won't burn."
When the agent brought Mrs. Tarley her fire-insurance policy he remarked that it would be well for her to make her first payment at once.
"How much will it be?" she asked.
"About $100. Wait a minute and I'll find the exact amount."
"Oh, how tiresome!" she exclaimed. "Tell the company to let it stand and deduct it from what they will owe me when the house burns down."
INSURANCE, LIFE
"I wish you would tell me," said the agent, who had been a long time on Mr. Snaggs' trail, "what is your objection to having your life insured?"
"Well, I don't mind telling you," replied Snaggs. "The idea of being more valuable dead than alive is distasteful to me."
"What's the matter, old man? You look worried."
"Well, to be honest with you, I am. You know, I took out some life insurance last Thursday."
"Yes," replied the sympathetic friend, "but what has that to do with the wobegone expression on your face?"
"Well, the very next day after I had it written my wife bought a new cook-book. Possibly it's all right, but it certainly looks suspicious."
MR. MANLEY--"Well, my dear, I've had my life insured for five thousand dollars."
MRS. MANLEY--"How very sensible of you! Now I sha'n't have to keep telling you to be so careful every place you go."
"How much life insurance do you think a man ought to carry?"
"Enough to keep his family from want, but not so much as to make them utterly impervious to grief."
HEWITT--"My wife is a cheerful sort of companion."
JEWETT--"How is that?"
HEWITT--"I told her that I had taken out a twenty-year endowment on my life, and she said, that she hoped I wouldn't mature before the policy did."
Two insurance agents--a Yankee and an Englishman--were bragging about their rival methods. The Britisher was holding forth on the system of prompt payment carried out by his people--no trouble, no fuss, no attempt to wriggle out of settlement.
"If the man died tonight," he continued, "his widow would receive her money by the first post tomorrow morning."
"You don't say?" drawled the Yankee. "See here, now, you talk of prompt payment! Waal, our office is on the third floor of a building forty-nine stories high. One of our clients lived in that forty-ninth story, and he fell out of the window. We handed him his check as he passed."
A colored recruit said he intended to take out the full limit of Government insurance, $10,000. On being told by a fellow soldier that he would be foolish to pay on so much when he was likely to be shot in the trenches, he replied: "Huh! I reckon I knows what I's doin.'
You-all don't s'pose Uncle Sam is gwine to put a $10,000 man in the first-line trenches, do you?"
_See also_ Salesmen and salesmanship.
INTERVIEWS
A Boston business man has the following schedule of time for interviews hung over his desk:
Book agents--three seconds.
Unclassified bores--thirty ditto.
Golf associates--one hour.
Friends to make a touch (It takes time to explain why you are broke)--five minutes.
People to pay bills--no limit.
Employees wanting increase of salary--one minute.
My wife--never too busy.
Poor relations--always out.
An answer to the query why some United States Employment Service examiners go mad might be found in the following questionnaire filled out by an applicant applying to the Service for employment: