Word: mercantile
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Every seat in the columned auditorium at Madrid's Club Mercantil had been taken, but still the people came. Mink-coated ladies and threadbare scholars jostled for places behind the doors, crowded onto the balcony overlooking the hall. They waited patiently for the wiry little man with unruly white hair to step to the gold desk on the dais. When he did, they burst into cheers. They clapped and shouted so long that they seemed almost hysterical. The little man smiled, slowly raised his arms for silence. Then he began to speak...
...everywhere, they are determinedly late for dinners and parties, but they also have their own private jibe at punctuality: in all of thin-aired La Paz there is no dependable timepiece. The city (almost due south of Bar Harbor, Me.) has only two public clocks: one, on the Banco Mercantil, seldom runs; the other, on the Congress Building, keeps time erratically because it has been shot up so often in Bolivia's revolutions. Radio programs often begin & end according to the announcer's wristwatch...
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