-raw, unashamed
contraveners of accepted theories and notions--and for that very
reason he liked her. And his thoughts continued to dwell on her,
notwithstanding the hectic days which now passed like flashes of light
in his new business venture. For this stock exchange world in which
he now found himself, primitive as it would seem to-day, was most
fascinating to Cowperwood. The room that he went to in Third Street, at
Dock, where the brokers or their agents and clerks gathered one hundred
and fifty strong, was nothing to speak of artistically--a square
chamber sixty by sixty, reaching from the second floor to the roof of a
four-story building; but it was striking to him. The windows were high
and narrow; a large-faced clock faced the west entrance of the
room where you came in from the stairs; a collection of telegraph
instruments, with their accompanying desks and chairs, occupied the
northeast corner. On the floor, in the early days of the exchange, were
rows of chairs where the brokers sat while various lots of stocks were
offered to them. Later in the history of the exchange the chairs were
removed and at different points posts or floor-signs indicating where
certain stocks were traded in were introduced. Around these the men who
were interested gathered to do their trading. From a hall on the third
floor a door gave entrance to a visitor's gallery, small and poorly
furnished; and on the west wall a large blackboard carried current
quotations in stocks as telegraphed from New York and Boston. A
wicket-like fence in the center of the room surrounded the desk and
chair of the official recorder; and a very small gallery opening from
the third floor on the west gave place for the secretary of the board,
when he had any special announcement to make. There was a room off the
southwest corner, where reports and annual compendiums of chairs were
removed and at different signs indicating where certain stocks of
various kinds were kept and were available for the use of members.

Young Cowperwood would not have been admitted at all, as either a broker
or broker's agent or assistant, except that Tighe, feeling that he
needed him and believing that he would be very useful, bought him a seat
on 'change--charging the two thousand dollars it cost as a debt and then
ostensibly taking him into partnership. It was against the rules of the
exchange to sham a partnership in this way in order to put a man on the
floor, but brokers did i