ABSTRACT
HAVING mastered roughly some of the mysteries and technicalities of the Stock Exchange, we are now able to follow a broker through an average day of his life with some interest. The broker’s office-boy sighs wearily to himself when he hears clerks in other walks of life dilating upon the easy hours enjoyed by the Stock Exchange and its employees. It is true that the office-boy does not have to reach his sphere of labour early enough to sweep out the place and dust the desks ; that is all done for him ; but he is supposed to be on the spot by about half-past nine. Until ten he is pretty well lord of the office, for the Stock Exchange clerks, as a rule, have a very easy time as regards hours. They need rarely get to town much before ten o’clock, except the youngest of the juniors, and the first personage of importance to arrive is he upon whom falls the duty of glancing through the correspondence. Of course, it all depends upon the size of the office, just as it does in other businesses, how this branch of work is organised. In the case of a big firm the letters are carefully sorted, and each department has its proportion 120handed over, one dealing with transfers, another with dividends, and so forth. But a smaller office may be more representative of the general run of Stock Exchange work, and in such a one the correspondence comes into the scope of the chief clerk if the partners are not energetic enough to deal with it themselves.
