Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/286

 kept to himself as much as possible. He was an able lawyer, and certainly had sufficient knowledge to have made the will."

In spite of Mr. Gould's great interests his executors found his affairs in very trim shape. Something less than two years ago, in conversation with Mr. Connor and Mr. Morosini, Mr. Gould remarked:

"If I should die to-night my affairs are in such shape that my executors could straighten everything out in less than forty-eight hours after my death."

Many different estimates have been made of the amount of the fortune of Jay Gould, but nothing has ever been told by him, nor did the will reveal anything definite about it. Little difference does it make whether it was $70,000,000 or $170,000,000, so long as it was the greatest that ever one man accumulated in his lifetime.

Mr. Gould never intended that anybody should know while he was living, and he saw that his wishes were carried out in the matter. Sixty millions is the figure most frequently mentioned, but generally as a minimum, with a round hundred millions as the other limit.

The New York Tribune published the following estimate of his fortune the morning after his death, and it is probably as accurate as any that can be made without access to the will and the records themselves:

"There is considerable divergence in the opinions of men who are acquainted with Mr. Gould's affairs as to the value of the estate which will fall to his