He proceeded to tell her of a visitor at Aunt Belle’s,
a young man home on leave from the Indian army and
recently married, with whom he had got into conversation
on the subject of insurance and had most ably helped.
The young man had a certain policy in view. Mr.
Sim-cox had put an infinitely better before him.
“If he had come to me before his marriage when
he was first taking out a policy in his wife’s
favour, I could have saved him and gained her hundreds,
literally hundreds,” said Mr. Simcox. “He’d
made a most awful mess of the business. As it
was I helped him very considerably. He was very
grateful, devilish grateful. He went straight
to an agent of the office I recommended and did it.”
“There must be hundreds like him that would
be grateful,” said Rosalie.
“Thousands,” said Mr. Simcox. “Tens
of thousands. Every single soul who insures,
you may say.”
“Who got the commission?” said Rosalie.
“The agent, of course,” said Mr. Simcox.
“Oh,” said Rosalie.
“Why?” said Mr. Simcox.
“Nothing,” said Rosalie. “Only
’oh ’.”
There’s much virtue in an If, says Touchstone;
and there’s much virtue in an “Oh”—a
wise, a thoughtful, a speculative, a discerning “Oh”
such as that “Oh” pronounced by Rosalie
to Mr. Simcox’s information that agents, and
not he, drew the commissions for the insurance policies
which, out of his knowledge and experience, he had
advised. There followed from that “Oh”
its plain outcome: her suggestion to Mr. Simcox
of why not make a business, a real business, of expert
advice upon insurance, and (out of the make-believe
intercourse with schools) a business, a real business,
of expert advice upon schools? And there shall
follow also from that “Oh” a sweeping
use of the intention that has been mentioned to tell
only of her life that which contributed to her life.
We’ll fix her stage from first to last, then
see her walk upon it.
This was her stage: Her suggestion was adopted.
It has, astonishingly soon, astonishing success.
Advice upon insurance, advice upon schools, commissions
from each, are found wonderfully to work in together,
each bringing clients to the other. Aunt Belle’s
swarms of friends, their swarms of friends, the swarms
of friends of those swarms of friends, and so on,
snowball fashion, are the first nucleus of the thing.
It succeeds. It grows. Real offices are taken.
“Simcox’s.” Advertisements,
clerks, banking-accounts. Appearance of Mr. Sturgiss,
partner in Field and Company—“Field’s”—the
bankers and agents. Field’s is a private
bank. Its business is principally with persons
resident in the East, soldiers, civil servants, tea
planters, East India merchants. Field’s
is in Lombard Street. (Lombard Street!) Later
Field’s opens a West End office. Field’s
is frequently asked to advise its clients and their
wives on all manner of domestic matters,—schools
