Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/198

 No. 80 Broadway, of which he was then a partner, first engaged him in what appeared to be an amicable conversation, but soon resulted in an assault. Selover first struck Gould in the face and then dropped him over an areaway at No. 65 Exchange place, which was seven or eight feet deep. Mr. Gould was a good deal shaken up, but not seriously injured. Selover left to go to his brokers and Gould proceeded to transact his business as usual. He was assisted from the areaway, singularly enough, by George Crouch, who has been identified with several incidents in Gould's career from the days of Erie and Black Friday to the Kansas Pacific criminal prosecution, and who was one-third artist, one-third newspaper man and one-third speculator. The Selover incident created an immense sensation at the time, and the newspapers printed columns about it. Selover became quite a hero, for while there was nothing very courageous in his assault from a physical point of view, as he was more than a match for timid Mr. Gould, yet to attack Gould was considered by many an act of moral bravery. Selover declared that he had attacked Gould because Gould had been guilty of fraud, lying and duplicity. Gould, he said, had made arrangements with him to go short on Western Union, and while he (Selover) was selling accordingly in good faith he discovered that Gould was buying heavily. When he learned of this he determined to punish him the first time he met him, and so he had charged him with the fraud and slapped his face. "I attacked him on my own account alone,"