Suppose the defaulter has sold £100 stock to A at 95, and the hammer-price is 93, A must sell the stock back for £93, and rank as a creditor to the estate for the difference of £2. Suppose the defaulter has also bought £100 stock from B at £95, and the hammer-price is 93, B must buy the stock back for £93, and hand over the difference of £2 to the estate. In this way all outstanding bargains are cleared out of the way, and the Official Assignees, in their administration of the estate, have merely to pay as big a dividend as they can on the differences out of the debtor's assets. Supposing the defaulter to be a jobber, and an outsider has sold £100 stock to him, through a broker of course, at 95. As it has fallen to 93 the jobber owes the outsider a difference of £2, and that outsider should in theory rank as a creditor for the amount. He would not, of course, lose any part of his stock, which he does not deliver, but his attempt to sell the stock has been rendered ineffective; and even if he was operating as a Bear, he has to rank as a mere creditor for the profit he would have pocketed had the jobber with whom he was dealing not failed. The outsider trusted his broker rather than the jobber of whom he knew nothing, and may feel it a hardship that his order has not been executed, or that he does not receive straight away the profit which he has made. To his mind the credit of the Stock Exchange and all connected with it have sunk to a low level. For such reasons as these, especially if the client is a good one, the broker, in practice, usually deems it expedient to bear the loss himself, and to hand over the profit. Outsiders are not often allowed to suffer by reason of failures of members of the Stock Exchange. In the case where it is a broker and not a jobber who fails, the clients stand to be affected still less by the failure. The bargains open are between the clients on the one hand and the jobbers on the other, the broker being a mere agent or intermediary. The bargains are completed in the ordinary way without the further intervention of the broker, or another broker is selected to complete them. Cases have arisen in which the client has actually tried to turn the failure of his broker to his own advantage by declaring, when prices have moved against him, that the bargain is off altogether, or by claiming that the transaction should be closed at the hammer-price, when that price happens to be in his favour. Litigation has arisen over these points and does now arise; in fact, the state of the law as regards the relationship existing between outside clients and the Stock Exchange when its members fail cannot be said to be very clearly defined. One decision has abrogated another, and it can scarcely be said that any of the many intricate questions that arise have been settled definitely enough to carry conviction to the minds of dissatisfied and litigious clients.