Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/345

 rear platform, panting and dripping. The last glimpse we caught of him was as the train entered the prison tunnel. Then, supported on either side by the railroad men, he was making frantic plunges in his efforts to thrust his streaming legs into his trousers, as the platform reeled and rocked beneath him."

It was once suggested to Mr. Gould that he had been fairly successful in life, and the inquirer wanted to know if Mr. Gould wouldn't tell the secret of it.

"There isn't any secret," said Mr. Gould. "I avoid bad luck by being patient. Whenever I am obliged to get into a fight I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first."

Any student of the history of Mr. Gould's career in the corporation world will appreciate how again and again he found this quality of patience a prime investment. He never seemed to be in a hurry about anything. One of his enemies has remarked that during the last twenty years Jay Gould spent $1,000,000 hiring lawyers and paying court fees to accomplish nothing except to have lawsuits postponed.

And now the great man is dead. For days after his demise the public press was full of tales of his career. On every editorial page have been resumes of his life, and judgment upon him, either for or or against. Much has been found to say of him that was good, and much that was evil. As a fitting close to this biography, it is good to quote from the New York World, which has published much of