I know, of course, that
stockbrokers wear very shiny top-hats, which they remove when they
sing "God Save the King," as they invariably do in a crisis. When
they go out to lunch, the younger ones leave their top-hats behind
them, and take the air with plastered polls; and after lunch is over,
young and old alike have a round of dominoes before placing threepence
under the coffee-cup and returning to business. If business is slack,
they tell each other jokes, which get into the papers with some such
introduction as, "A good story going the round of the Stock
Exchange." Probably it was going the round of the nurseries in 72,
but the stockbrokers have been so busy making Consols go up and down
that they have not been able to listen to it before. Anyway, the
careful man always avoids a good story which is going the round of the
Stock Exchange.
But apart from these minor activities of the City, the financial world
has always been a mystery to me. To this day I do not understand why
Consols go up and down.
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