Young Cowperwood would not have been admitted at all, as either a broker or broker’s agent or assistant, except that Tighe, feeling that he needed him and believing that he would be very useful, bought him a seat on ’change—­charging the two thousand dollars it cost as a debt and then ostensibly taking him into partnership.  It was against the rules of the exchange to sham a partnership in this way in order to put a man on the floor, but brokers did it.  These men who were known to be minor partners and floor assistants were derisively called “eighth chasers” and “two-dollar brokers,” because they were always seeking small orders and were willing to buy or sell for anybody on their commission, accounting, of course, to their firms for their work.  Cowperwood, regardless of his intrinsic merits, was originally counted one of their number, and he was put under the direction of Mr. Arthur Rivers, the regular floor man of Tighe & Company.

Rivers was an exceedingly forceful man of thirty-five, well-dressed, well-formed, with a hard, smooth, evenly chiseled face, which was ornamented by a short, black mustache and fine, black, clearly penciled eyebrows.  His hair came to an odd point at the middle of his forehead, where he divided it, and his chin was faintly and attractively cleft.  He had a soft voice, a quiet, conservative manner, and both in and out of this brokerage and trading world was controlled by good form.  Cowperwood wondered at first why Rivers should work for Tighe—­he appeared almost as able—­but afterward learned that he was in the company.  Tighe was the organizer and general hand-shaker, Rivers the floor and outside man.

It was useless, as Frank soon found, to try to figure out exactly why stocks rose and fell.  Some general reasons there were, of course, as he was told by Tighe, but they could not always be depended on.

“Sure, anything can make or break a market”—­Tighe explained in his delicate brogue—­“from the failure of a bank to the rumor that your second cousin’s grandmother has a cold.  It’s a most unusual world, Cowperwood.  No man can explain it.  I’ve seen breaks in stocks that you could never explain at all—­no one could.  It wouldn’t be possible to find out why they broke.  I’ve seen rises the same way.  My God, the rumors of the stock exchange!  They beat the devil.  If they’re going down in ordinary times some one is unloading, or they’re rigging the market.  If they’re going up—­God knows times must be good or somebody must be buying—­that’s sure.  Beyond that—­well, ask Rivers to show you the ropes.  Don’t you ever lose for me, though.  That’s the cardinal sin in this office.”  He grinned maliciously, even if kindly, at that.

Cowperwood understood—­none better.  This subtle world appealed to him.  It answered to his temperament.

There were rumors, rumors, rumors—­of great railway and street-car undertakings, land developments, government revision of the tariff, war between France and Turkey, famine in Russia or Ireland, and so on.  The first Atlantic cable had not been laid as yet, and news of any kind from abroad was slow and meager.  Still there were great financial figures in the held, men who, like Cyrus Field, or William H. Vanderbilt, or F. X. Drexel, were doing marvelous things, and their activities and the rumors concerning them counted for much.