The Triple Goddess Read Online Free PDF Page A

supplicant onto the floor when he had had enough of him. Underwriters, unlike entry boys, were not usually thin on account of their long and extravagant lunches. But in general brokers preferred to stand: in addition to whatever advantage height over their marks afforded them in their negotiations, many underwriters wore infrequently dry-cleaned suits redolent of British Rail and fried food, bathed irregularly and did not often change their shirts, and were not on speaking terms with their toothbrushes.
    Because the rents at Lloyd’s were so high, about a hundred pounds per square foot, every inch of the Floor for all its haphazard nature was used efficiently. In the absence of the round files of waste-paper baskets (and there were no computers) everyone threw their rubbish on the marble floors, so that by the end of the day the brokers were surfing waves of pink blotting-paper torn from oblong blocks, which the waiters distributed to each box for underwriters to blot their inked lines with; and discarded white scraps of paper from the little rectangular wads, punched at one corner, that they hung on loops of string on hooks at the boxes for them to make their jottings on.
    When the market closed by informal consent, for all but negotiations that were already in progress, at four-thirty precisely smoking was permitted. The moment that the second hands of the Room’s clocks moved to the upright there was a rasping of matches, a flickering of lighters, and exhalations of relief and smoke that rose in a pall to the ceiling.
    The trading floors were inaccessible by outsiders and tourists unless some market-affiliated person, having applied for and received permission, were to shepherd them for a few minutes to the section of balcony rail, known as the Gallery, outside the Nelson Room. It was from here that the most comprehensive view over both floors was to be commanded. Even brokers’ clients and Lloyd’s Names—the aristocrats, gentry, farmers and celebrities who came up for the day, with accents ranging from upper-class to shire, muddy boots, and ignorant questions about how their families’ livelihoods and wealth were being hazarded—could only enter the Room when accompanied to the Gallery by their brokers and managing agents.
    Under no circumstances were clients or Names permitted to roam the floor, whether accompanied or not, for fear that they would be horrified, not unreasonably, by some of the business that was being accepted on their behalves, and the unconventional and quirky manner in which much of it was transacted.
    As they took in the maelstrom of trading activity, their escorts would not fail to point out to the visitors in their charge Lloyd’s’ star attraction: the most renowned and successful underwriter of his time, William Goldsack, Esquire, where he sat downstairs at his box being paid court to by broker after broker in quick succession, from a queue that stretched around the room like the coils of a snake. Goldsack wrote a great deal of business very fast and made so much money for his syndicate that it was said he spat krugerrands.
    The Nelson Room, which was located at a corner of the upper, non-marine floor, was a shrine to Vice Admiral of the White [Squadron of the Fleet ] The Right Honourable Horatio, Lord Viscount Nelson, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Baron Nelson of the Nile, Commander in Chief of his Majesty’s Ships and Vessels in the Mediterranean, Duke of Bronte in the nobility of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit, Knight of the Imperial Ottoman Order of the Crescent, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of St Joachim.
    Everyone connected with Lloyd’s of London basked in the reflected glory of the Admiral’s extraordinary successes on behalf of the nation. In the Nelson Room, arrayed in glass cases was a collection of the great man’s household silver, letters, and wartime memorabilia; and a fork