Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/71

 "curb-stone" brokers. He made money right along. In 1860 he became intimately acquainted with Henry N. Smith, who was then one of the big men in Wall street. Soon the firm of Smith, Gould & Martin was formed and it was prosperous from the start. Gould made a careful study of the railroad situation and became an expert in the manipulation of railroad securities in the speculative market. He paid the closest attention to business, allowing himself few of the social pleasures of which young men are usually fond. He had no small vices, being a teetotaler.

During the war of the rebellion, the firm did a large business in railway securities, and also made a great deal of money speculating in gold. Gould had private sources of information in the field, and he was able to turn almost every success or defeat of the Union army to profitable account.

At last Gould had found his exact niche, the corner in which the railroads were put away. That "corner" was ever after the one in which he found both his labor and his recreation, his fortune bad and good. He was a natural railroad magnate. Almost always he won, and when he did not, it was simply because he attempted schemes that would have seemed to any other man entirely beyond possibility. From this time his history never loses its intense dramatic interest and never goes back to the humdrum life that he had abandoned. From this time, there could be no night in which Jay Gould could sleep in dreamless rest, with no thought of the