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Then, sneering, he replaced the offering in his purse and enjoyed the discomfiture of the unlucky intercessor, and the approbation of his hangers-on.

The exchange-brokers were loquacious and busy after another manner than that of the high priests of finance and commerce. Spruce and stylish, they whirled and rushed about, wormed and crept into crowds, gathering gold as they hovered. They were the sacred dancers, and their pantomime was a part of the ritual.

With a less dizzy locomotion, clad more soberly and more stiffly, the stock brokers moved about, shuffling sheafs of certificates carelessly rolled in pocketbooks or old newspapers, and scrawling their memorandums on the back of an obliging customer.

Clad in lounging suits, merchandise-agents stored a quantity of packages of samples in their pockets. One made a little heap of Cheribon beans in the palm of his hand so that the grocer whom he hoped to catch and overreach could smell them from a distance. Another tried to persuade a customer of the superiority of his tobacco, Kentucky or Maryland, and ended by saddling another timid customer, who only wanted a single hogshead, with the whole crop.

Each specialty, each article had its own location. No one would have suspected the order lurking beneath this apparent confusion; the number of divisions, classifications, subdivisions. Refiners, distillers, importers of oil or rubber, customs-house brokers, insurance brokers occupied, from January first to