Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/335

 In the course of his Pacific Mail campaigning Mr. Gould was much more frequently a bear, than a bull. He used to say he had never found but one unerring bull point on Pacific Mail, and that was to report that the company had lost one of its ships. Perhaps his biggest drive at this stock was when he discomfited Leonard Jerome and played smash with the up-town corps of speculators who made up what was a dozen years ago known as "the Fifth Avenue Hotel party."

Just after that famous clean-out Leonard Jerome went abroad. In the course of his meanderings he came upon the famed Temple of Karnak.

"There, Mr. Jerome," quoth a companion, "are the most remarkable ruins in the world."

"No; oh, no; don't tell that to me," answered Leonard Jerome feelingly; "you ought just to have seen Pacific Mail last summer!"

Mr. Gould did not have any of that quality which descriptive persons call "presence." No stranger would have ever been impressed by any mere look at him that he was much of a man. He was courteous always. In public he was never known to get mad, or, indeed, even to say a rude thing, except it be on one occasion, when, with more or less quietness, he remarked to an ambitious young gentleman who more recently became a figure in Wall street:

"You make me feel very sorry that I am so busy. If I had time I'd really enjoy taking a day off to send you to State prison."