Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/217

 *riages was moving up and down the avenue, there was quite a jam in front of the Gould house. Ladies would order their coachmen to stop and would peer inquisitively out of their carriage windows. Pedestrians, too, would linger on the corners for a few minutes to look at the house and comment with each other.

As might have been expected, the "cranks" were on hand. Whenever they began to air their ideas too freely a policeman made them move on. One of these cranks started to expound at length on the singular coincidence that it was on the first Friday in December, one year ago, that the bomb thrower Norcross blew up Russell Sage's office, and that on the first Friday of December Jay Gould had died.

The Rev. Dr. Paxton, in speaking of Mr. Gould's last hours, said: "He had been unconscious for a number of hours, but as the end approached consciousness returned. He opened his eyes, and they wandered around the room where the family was gathered. He clearly recognized them, and at his whispered request they went to his bedside. To each of them in turn he whispered a few words of farewell. Vitality enough for this was vouchsafed him. When he had spoken to the last one he became unconscious again, and in a few minutes more he passed away."

The mystery as to the nature of the ailment which wrecked Mr. Gould's health was one of the features of his last illness. It may be stated as a peculiar fact that his most trusted friends, and even