The Triple Goddess Read Online Free Page B

hundred per cent of his order was complete.
    In the village that was Lloyd’s each underwriter was nothing on his own. But when massed together with dozens of other syndicates pooling their expertise and financial backing, all of which came from the net worth of private individual, not commercial, investors including the underwriters themselves they had the clout of a mighty institution. Underwriters were expert in sussing out the merits of a risk as it went round the market. Each knew his position in the food-chain, and that he would be visited at a certain stage in a placement according to the classes of business that he wrote, his syndicate’s size, and the esteem in which he was held by his peers.
    The most respected syndicates were conspicuous by their absence from a slip, and the most difficult question a broker could be asked, by underwriters who looked to others to guide them in their decisions, was why so-and-so was not on it. The assumption was that he had turned the thing down, or had been holding out for a higher rate, or that he considered it a certain loss-maker. Another tell-tale sign of difficulty in the placement was if weak syndicates were in an unduly prominent position.
    Underwriters who were nonetheless prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, or were less than gung-ho about the deal on offer, might express their caution by writing a small or “watching” line, otherwise known as “giving the thing a tickle”. This earned them the right to see the renewal twelve months later, and assess from the updated information and loss experience whether or not they had been right to be wary. If not, they might increase their line; if so, they would come off altogether and admonish themselves for not heeding their instinct.
    Underwriters were devious: if they did not wish to be seen by the rest of the market to have supported a contract, they would pencil their participations in minuscule writing in the bottom corner of the last panel of the slip; or scribble a promised line on a piece of paper for collection at the end, when all the other lines were down and no one would know that they were on board. Or they would offer a line “to finish”, which meant that they only got to see the risk again if the market consensus was that it was “a go” and the broker needed their support to complete his order.
    Brokers were treated to numerous displays of histrionics. Underwriters would hum and ha and suck their pencils, haruspicate, scry, and consult everything from actuarial tables to crystal balls and astrolabes in their attempts to pick winners, come up with rates, or determine whether those that they were being offered were adequate. Those who blustered did not always write the biggest lines, and there was the occasional mouse who could roar when he felt moved to do so. In a market where billions of dollars...the majority of business was American...of the world’s most volatile risks were traded, most underwriters enjoyed their jobs and the sociability of their environment, and did not have trouble sleeping at night. In the midst of discussing the biggest contracts they would trade gossip with the brokers, tell dirty jokes, make luncheon arrangements, shoot rubber bands at their neighbours and look innocently away, and shoot paper darts at the checkerboard soundproofing panels in the ceiling in an attempt to make them stick in the holes.
    Brokers’ pranks were common: childish things like nailing a fish to the bottom of another underwriter’s desk drawer and seeing how long it took him to trace the smell; and telling another in an underwriter’s queue ahead of him that he was being called from the rostrum, in order that he might steal his place.
    Although most brokers stood as they went through their spiels, sometimes they would sit on a flap that could be raised from the bench at the underwriter’s side. This afforded the risk-taker the opportunity to nudge, with a squelch of his buttocks, the