efore it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated
himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There
was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office
which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without
the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one
after the other. Then his confidential clerk came in with a number of
papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the oracle was speaking
all the time, but he took no notice of its remarks--still it went on,
as if knowing that sooner or later he would be drawn towards it; and
so he was, and passed the tape through his fingers, pausing here and
there; and so throughout the day that little chattering fetish
dominated him and every one that entered the room. Men came in, and
while waiting, or in a pause in conversation, would be drawn to see
what was on its tongue. There is nothing more striking about business
in New York than the ease and rapidity with which business is carried
out. There had been a bad break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to
have some if it came to a certain figure. All the morning down, down,
it toppled. Within a few seconds of the time a deal was made from the
centre of the Stock Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office.
It dropped to his price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy
me 5000 sugar at 92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message,
and I am holding the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on
his private wire to the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has
already his number on the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately
available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the
reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min.
35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the
telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and
so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it
would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all
the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators
suddenly go on strike.

A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the
building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during
it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much
time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at
during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a