"One per cent.?" he asked, in some surprise, and the other nodded.
"How much?" he asked.
The underwriter tapped the slip of paper before him.
"Ten thousand pounds at 5s. per centum," he said. "I can do that." He initialled the slip, and the man passed on.
He went the round of the room, stopped to exchange a joke with an acquaintance, then descended the stone stairs.
Back to his stuffy little office went the broker, with little thought that he had been engaged in any unusual variety of business. In his private room he found his client; a thick-set man with a straggling beard, who rose politely as the broker entered, and removed the cigar he had been smoking.
"You have finish'?" he said, with a slightly foreign accent, and the broker smiled.
"Oh, yes!"—a little pompously, after the manner of all Lloyd's brokers—"no difficulty about the Taglan, you know. Mail ship, new steamer, no risks practically on the Cape route; rather a bad business for you; you'll lose your premium."
He shook his head with a show of melancholy, and took a pinch of snuff.
"I have a dream," said the foreigner hastily, "ver' bad dream. I have belief in dreams."