TWO unsuspecting young ladies were sitting alone at a table outside the Financial District pub Ulysses, completely unaware that they had become banker prey.

The bankers approached and asked if the empty seats were taken.

“Some people are coming to join us,” they said.

“You’ve got two better-looking dudes than us sitting here?” asked Logan, who works at a bulge bracket bank and carries an Amex Black Card.

The girls, apparently, did not – and we took our seats across from them.

That, ladies and gentleman, is how we bankers roll.

And by “we bankers,” I mean the personas that Amit Chatwani and I adopted for the night: two employees of a famous investment bank. Summertime is ideal for posing as a banker, since many of the real ones are yachting in the Hamptons, etc., and not crowded into swank Manhattan nightclubs, ready to expose a fraud in their midst. Neither Chatwani nor I have ever worked at a bank.

In real life, Chatwani is the writer behind the satirical banker-blog leveragedsellout.com and the author of the book “Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Banker,” out this month. His book’s fictional narrator, Logan, is master of striking the pose.

It’s all about confidence, Logan teaches his readers, and knowing without a doubt that you are at the very top of the New York City food chain. That your paycheck is bigger than A-Rod’s libido, and that money can buy anything – or anyone.

It’s about knowing that even if Wall Street has been tumbling, and Bear Stearns can vanish in the blink of an eye, bankers still make the rules. Because no matter how much money the rest of us may lose in a recession, bankers stand to lose more. That’s why they have no shame in asking a pretty girl why she came all the way down to the Financial District for happy hour.

“To be honest, we’re trying to meet guys,” explains one of our tablemates. “As long as he’s a good guy, I don’t mind if he wants to pay my rent, or take care of me and not mind if I just make $20,000 a year as an artist.”

Neither Chatwani nor I volunteer to pay her rent.

“As bankers, we’re trying to maximize drinks, quality, music, dancing and, of course, girls,” Logan says in the book.

According to Chatwani’s book, there’s no such thing as having a couple of beers and then heading home for the night. Jägermeister is the drink of choice, for the sheer aggressiveness of it. Red Bull cocktails are acceptable, but forget about ordering white wine.

Wearing your company ID badge out to clubs is a good way to make sure the ladies know whom they’re dealing with. After all, girls want to know not only that a guy works for a bank, but a prestigious enough bank to make sleeping with him worth it.

And while Chatwani hasn’t worked as a banker, his first year out of Princeton, he says, he lived with nine investment bankers. He drank with them, ate with them and yelled at them to pick their dirty socks up off the kitchen floor. He was both repulsed and enchanted with his roommates’ lives. More than anything, he became fascinated with their boldness.

Or as Logan declares in the book: “Banker game is unstoppable.

“Genuine self-confidence . . . is a quality all bankers innately possess. We exude a certain magnetism that women just can’t resist.”

Once again putting this theory to the test, Chatwani and I approach another pair of women and introduce ourselves as investment bankers just coming off a 30-hour shift. “What do you think of Mae and Mac?” asks one woman, an architect.

“Who are they?” I answer, scanning my mental database of movie stars and musicians for a match.

Chatwani comes to the rescue. “We get so buried in our own projects that we don’t even have time to read the newspaper.”

Crisis averted! I make a joke comparing this stunning architect to a character in “The Fountainhead.”

“Oh, you read?” she asks.

A bit later in the night, we find ourselves dancing with two fashion designers. The four of us are discussing the possibility of “taking this party somewhere else,” when one girl turns to the other.

“I know these kinds of guys,” she says.

“I know exactly what bankers are after. Let’s go.”

And then they disappeared, leaving us standing there, holding our WaMu debit cards and wondering how things might have turned out if we were holding Amex Black Cards.

BOTTOM LINES

WANT to roll like a banker? Here are 10 key words to keep in mind.

1. Bespoke: Get everything hand-tailored – shirts, boxers and socks.

2. Employed: “The recession?” Yeah, you’ve never heard of it.

3. Late: Happy hour starts at 2 a.m., when you get off work.

4. Posh: You roll in black cars. Cabs are for the masses.

5. Hard: Pound Red Bull, vodka, and Jägermeister, or any permutation.

6. Efficient: Normal people wait in lines at clubs; you buy bottles.

7. Crisp: AmEx Gold is for soccer moms; you rock the AmEx Black.

8. Loud: “I work in finance!” Own it.

9. Proud: Wear your building badge around your neck – it’s bling.

10. Lecherous: After a hard day of M&A (mergers and acquisitions), there’s nothing like bringing home some T&A.