THE FLOOR TRADER AND THE SPECIALIST 219 
permitted on the trading floor itself, since they must always 
remain inside the new hollow stock posts; they, of course, are 
never permitted to buy or sell securities, or to exercise any of 
the prerogatives of Stock Exchange membership. The spe- 
cialist’s clerk simply assists his employer with the mechanical 
and clerical side of the work. The clerk, for example, sorts out 
incoming orders for the specialist to execute, arranging buying 
orders by 4s below, and selling orders by 14s above, the cur- 
rent price. Market orders and also orders limited at prices 
close to the current price are turned over at once to the spe- 
cialist himself. The clerk, however, can keep a loose-leaf book 
in which buying orders limited at prices considerably below the 
market, and selling orders limited at prices considerably above 
the market, can be systematically inscribed. When the spe- 
cialist has made a purchase or sale as agent for another mem- 
ber, from his memorandum of sale his clerk inside the post can 
speedily make out a binding report of the transaction, check it, 
and dispatch it to the giver of the order. 
Sometimes, in an unusual rush of business, both the spe- 
cialist and his clerk or clerks may have all they can do to keep 
up with the work. For such emergencies, the Stock Exchange 
now provides a special force of its own floor employees solely 
to assist the specialists; these Stock Exchange employees move 
about from post to post, wherever trading activity is most 
intense, and relieve pressure on the specialist and his clerk or 
clerks by sorting out the orders which come to him. The 
specialist’s clerk sometimes has a direct private telephone con- 
nection with the specialist’s office, which enables misunder- 
standings or confusion in regard to his work to be quickly 
rectified. The Stock Exchange employees who assist special- 
ists, like other Exchange floor employees, are always in uni- 
form with “Specialist” marked on their sleeves ; the specialists’ 
own clerks within the stock posts are in ordinary civilian attire. 
Undoubtedly these new facilities thus placed at the elbow 
of the specialist to facilitate his work have greatly increased