1.   From the point of view of other firms, Salomon mortgage traders were cheap at any price.

2.   It was the first and last time that management capitulated in the face of a departing mortgage trader.

3.   Just as some people are mean drunks, mortgage traders were mean gluttons.

4.   Mortgage traders were the sort of fat people who grunt from the belly and throw their weight around, like sumo wrestlers.

5.   Of course, the most curious of all former Salomon Brothers mortgage traders is Howie Rubin.

6.   The mortgage trader who could predict the behavior of the homeowners made huge profits.

7.   The mortgage traders deeply resented the corporate and government traders.

8.   The mortgage traders offset the losses with profits they had squirreled away for a rainy day.

9.   A mortgage trader for the firm has already been dismissed in the incident, said Charles Perkins, a Prudential spokesman.

10.   Maurice Perkins, Chicago head of sales at Salomon Brothers Inc., is leaving to join a New York hedge fund run by two former Salomon mortgage bond traders.