The Judge’s club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and imposing.  It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days; lean and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into business, and those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest.  To see them now, dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you would have had a hard time to guess that they had ever been lean and hungry heroes.  They were diplomats and statesmen, bishops and lawyers, great merchants and financiers—­the men who had made the city’s ruling-class for a century.  Everything here was decorous and grave, and the waiters stole about with noiseless feet.

Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen of it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war; and about the recent election and the business outlook.  And meantime they ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the Judge coughed and said, “And now I have a matter of business to talk over with you.”

Montague settled himself to listen.  “I have a friend,” the Judge explained—­“a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a lawyer to undertake an important case.  I talked the matter over with General Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea to lay the matter before you.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Montague.

“The matter is a delicate one,” continued the other.  “It has to do with life insurance.  Are you familiar with the insurance business?”

“Not at all.”

“I had supposed not,” said the Judge.  “There are some conditions which are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it mildly, are not wltogether satisfactory.  My friend is a large policy-holder in several companies, and he is not satisfied with the management of them.  The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am concerned, is that the company with which he has the most fault to find is one in which I myself am a director.  You understand?”

“Perfectly,” said Montague.  “What company is it?”

“The Fidelity,” replied the other—­and his companion thought in a flash of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens!  For the Fidelity was Freddie’s company.

“The first thing that I have to ask you,” continued the Judge, “is that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous.  My position is simply this:  I have protested at the meetings of the directors of the company against what I consider an unwise policy—­and my protests have been ignored.  And when my friend asked me for advice, I gave it to him; but at the same time I am not in a position to be publicly quoted in connexion with the matter.  You follow me?”

“Perfectly,” said the other.  “I will agree to what you ask.”

“Very good.  Now then, the condition is, in brief, this:  the companies are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the law, belongs to the policy-holders; but the administrations of the various companies are withholding these dividends, for the sake of the banking-power which these accumulated funds afford to them and their associates.  This is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and a most dangerous condition of affairs.”