Villiers Touch Read Online Free PDF

doors. There were virtually no women in the place—the Street was one of the few masculine preserves left in the world. He had a brief vision of Diane, talking archly: That’s probably what’s wrong with it .
    A group preceded him into the visitors’ gallery; the young girl-guide spoke briskly, identifying the shirtsleeved men on the crowded floor below: floor traders, two-dollar brokers, commission house representatives, odd-lot dealers, specialists—“You are looking at the men who do the actual physical trading of listed stocks.” Not true, Hastings thought—not physical. No stock certificates passed these portals. Here it was all word-of-mouth—trading on faith, always assuming the stock certificates which were traded here did, in fact, somewhere, exist.
    It was getting on toward ten o’clock. The floor men began to coagulate around the eighteen trading posts. No one ran: the milling crowd must be protected. No one smoked: paper must be safeguarded—the slips on which orders from a few dollars to a few millions were jotted in cryptic symbols, as vital as certified bank checks. But these restrictions would not observably reduce the frenzied bedlam that was about to erupt.
    Precisely at ten o’clock the gong on the south wall sounded its brassy doomsday clang.
    The New York Stock Exchange was open for another day’s pandemonium.
    All noise and confusion, traders clustered at their posts, licked pencils, hurtled their voices against the babble. By the end of the day the floor would be ankle-deep in paper. Overhead, giant boards signaled floor brokers by number on turning metal flaps. Thump, slap. Roar . Trades were made in seconds; the words “We buy from you” were enough to bind a transaction—not even a handshake was needed.
    He moved along the rail, looking for Herb Capps’s bald head in the foaming sea below: Herb Capps, floor specialist in Northeast Consolidated Industries stock. Finally Hastings spotted him, at a post near the west wall.
    Hastings went downstairs, flashed his identification to the guard, and went onto the floor. He went across like a swimmer pushing against the current; he came up to Capps’s station just as a floor broker approached:
    â€œHow’s NCI quoted, Herb?”
    â€œThirty-two to 32 ⅝ .”
    â€œPut me down for an odd lot—fifty shares at 32½.”
    â€œMight be a few ahead of you on the list at that price.”
    â€œHow many?”
    Capps glanced past the broker and grinned at Hastings. “You know I can’t give that out, George. There’s an SEC hawkshaw breathing right over your shoulder.”
    The broker turned and shook hands with Hastings. Then he looked at his watch. “I’ve got a buy order too, five hundred shares at the market. You said 32 ⅝ ?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œOkay. We buy from you five hundred.”
    Capps nodded his bald head; the broker and Capps checked each other’s badges before they separated to send word to their customers. Hastings waited for Capps to return.
    The transaction was completed; if the market’s ticker machinery wasn’t jammed, the trade would appear on the tape within a minute or two, and a new market would be established in NCI stock—up an eighth over the previous close.
    Capps came back, amiable and unperturbed by the thunder around him. Hastings said, “NCI’s started to move in the past couple of weeks—what do you think?”
    â€œIt keeps me busy.”
    â€œDo you see anything behind it?”
    â€œNot that I know of. From down here you don’t see much anyway. I just execute orders, you know?” Capps was friendly and smiling, but there was something vaguely defensive in his answers; he wheeled to meet a new broker who came up to trade. Hastings watched Capps flip pages in his notebook while the broker talked in characteristic clipped phrases. The floor specialist’s