Finally, in determining what branch of the Stock Exchange business he will undertake, a member must consider that numerous and shifty contingent known as “floor traders.” These gentlemen afford an interesting study. They do not accept orders; each man is in business for himself. They entertain no illusions, and they recognize no alliances with each other. Each one follows his own inclinations, and does not permit himself to be moved by tips, or rumors, or gossip, or sentiment. He scoffs brazenly at all forms of “inside information.” His power of observation is keen, and his habit of analysis and deduction is wonderfully developed. In the surging crowd around an active stock he sees things with microscopic eye, and acts with surprising promptness; once his conclusions are reached, speed and agility are relied upon to do the rest. Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, his infinite variety. He is a bull one minute, and a bear the next. He is intent, resourceful, suspicious, vigilant, and ubiquitous. He asks no quarter, and gives none. Now he is sphinx-like, deaf, inscrutable and impenetrable; now exploding with the frenzy of battle. You may stand and chat with him, and he may seem to listen to you. In reality he does not hear you at all. His roving eye is elsewhere, his mind is intent on other things. In the middle of a sentence he may leave you abruptly and go tearing from crowd to crowd like a thing possessed, the incarnation of energy. Visitors in the gallery who look down upon the scene on the floor in active markets, when all the Stock Exchange elements just described are striving at their utmost, come away in wonderment. The scene is one they do not understand. Such tumult is foreign to anything in their experience, and in their failure to recognize the economic forces at work in the animated panorama before their eyes they are prone to form superficial and erroneous opinions. The disorderly nature of the work seems to impress the visitor forcibly, yet the Stock Exchange is perfectly orderly; transactions involving millions come and go without the slightest friction. Nothing could work more smoothly.