If the new member chooses, he may become what is known as a “two-dollar broker,” with a roving commission, executing orders for members in any part of the room at $2 per hundred shares. The “two-dollar man,” as he is termed, is a hard worker above his fellows. He labors for a minimum wage; he must work every day or forego his revenues, for he cannot delegate his orders to any one else and receive a commission for these vicarious services. He takes big risks, because he has many orders from many different houses; the least inattention means loss. I have known one of these two-dollar men to lose $10,000 on a mistake on a 500-share order from which his commission was but $10. He is supposed to be a mine of information concerning floor gossip; his value to the houses that employ him lies quite as much in his ability as a newsgatherer as in his skill as a broker. He is on the jump every minute. The one redeeming feature of his business is that he has no office responsibilities, and none of the burdensome--and sometimes painful--duties that attend the stockbroker’s relations to his clients. There are perhaps fifty “odd-lot” brokers on the floor, and a member may, if he pleases, take up this branch of the business. It has to do with the buying and selling of fractional lots of securities, on which no commission is charged because the peculiar nature of this business enables the broker to trade against his commitments as they arise, and thus obtain compensation for his services in the resultant profit. In a small way the odd-lot broker, like the specialist, resembles the London jobber. One of the houses that confines its operations to this “odd-lot” business has nine partners, seven of whom are members of the Exchange; another has seven partners with six board-members. The fact that two such houses should have a million dollars invested in memberships, to say nothing of the large sums employed as capital, speaks eloquently for the volume of business they are called upon to handle. This business, which includes fractional lots of securities from one to a hundred shares, is one of the most important on the floor, since it represents, very largely, the purchases and sales of an army of small investors all over the world. To such customers, very properly, the Stock Exchange gives the best it has, safeguarding their interests with quite as much care as it bestows on the greatest of market operators. The handling of all the odd-lot orders that accumulate in a busy day, the skill required in the office-machinery, the vigilance of the floor expert, and the foresight necessary to conduct the trading operations of the firm make this a most fascinating business.