Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/211

 foe—consumption. He had phthisis pulmonaris in both lungs. He battled with the knowledge, and he took no man into his confidence besides his private physician, who became a sort of trained body servant to him, and was always within easy call to watch him when he had acute attacks, and his two elder sons, George J. Gould and Edwin. A very master of silence himself, he imposed silence upon these confidants, and it became their bounden duty to deceive all others as to the giant which had laid its grip upon his life.

And so the story went forth that Jay Gould was afflicted with nervous dyspepsia merely, and every now and then he had a bilious attack which "was not dangerous," a cry which was repeated even when he had entered the shadow of the dark valley. Up to within twelve hours of his death the same cry was repeated. And even after death there were strenuous efforts made for some inexplicable reason to shroud the cause in mystery—a mystery which could have wrought no good to the dead man's peace and that of his surviving family.

But it was not dyspepsia which sent him to the South of France, in the Atalanta, under the watchful eye of his medical guardian, Dr. John P. Munn, whose occupation is gone indeed. It was not dyspepsia which sent him to Florida and Southern California, and El Paso, and the grand resorts of Colorado, nor which caused him not less than two weeks ago to plan a trip to Mexico—for he did not think he was going to die, even then, and no man