Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/206

 and asked him to accompany him to a private room. Mr. Gould declined. Marrin struck him in the face, saying: "If you have no time to see me, take that!" Mr. Gould quietly continued his lunch. Mr. Marrin was summoned before a magistrate and compelled to give $500 bonds.

It was his habit to have duplicated reports from corporation officers before the originals were presented. He was now and then cheated, but not often. On one occasion a leading editorial severely animadverting on him and Fisk was shown to him before any considerable part of the paper's edition had gone to press. He handed the party who brought him the paper $10,000 in greenbacks and the edition appeared without the disturbing criticism. His enemies were numerous, not that he hated any one himself, but his operations necessarily involved men of small means and often ruined them outright.

Congressman John B. Alley is said to have remarked of him at twenty-four: "I won't go into anything with that lad. He is the only person I ever saw who inspires me with fear." Vanderbilt said, "His face is a scoundrel's." He was often accused of "milking the street," "forcing quotations," "washing," and "covering his shorts," but on the other hand, when he agreed to enter a pool he acted squarely with his associates unless he caught them at treachery, and then he quietly waited for an opportunity to pay them off. He was a special partner in several firms of brokers and carefully concealed from each his operations with the others.