the price they
were willing to pay. The sales always took place at 11 o'clock on
Tuesdays in the Commercial Sale Room in Mincing Lane, that narrow street
off Fenchurch Street, where the air is so highly charged with expert
knowledge of the world's produce, that it would illuminate the prosaic
surroundings with brilliant flashes if it could become visible. On the
morning of the sale samples of the cacaos are on exhibit at the
principal brokers. The man in the street brought into the broker's
office would ask what these strange beans might be. "A new kind of
almond?" he might ask. And then, on being told they were cacao, he would
see nothing to choose between all the various lots and wonder why so
much fuss was made over discriminating amongst the similar and
distinguishing the identical. He might even marvel a little at the
expert knowledge of the buyers; yet, frankly, the pertinent facts
concerning quality, known by the buyer, are fewer and no more difficult
to learn than the thousand and one facts a lad must have at his finger
ends to pass the London Matriculation; they are valued because they are
inaccessible to the multitude; only a few people have the opportunity of
learning them, and their use may make or mar fortunes. The judgment of
quality is, however, only one side of the art of buying. We have to add
to these a knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the various markets
of the world, a knowledge of stocks and probable supplies, and given
this knowledge, an ability to estimate their effect, together with other
conditions, agricultural, political and social, on the price of the
commodity. The room in which the sales are conducted is not a large one,
and usually not more than a hundred people, buyers, pressmen, etc., are
present. Not a single cacao bean is visible, and it might be an auction
sale of property for all the uninitiated could tell. The cacao is put up
in lots. Usually the sales proceed quietly, and it is difficult to
realize that many thousands of bags of cacao are changing hands. The
buyers have perfect trust in the broker's descriptions; they know the
invariable fair-play of the British broker, which is a by-word the world
over. The machinery of the proceedings is lubricated by an easy flow of
humour. Sometimes a few bags of sea-damaged cacao or of cacao sweepings
are put up, and a good deal of keenness is shown by the individuals who
buy this stuff. It is curious that a whole crowd of busy people