It could scarcely have been
otherwise. Jay Gould had the cards all in his hands; and as he bought
and sold, so Edward bought and sold. The trouble was, the combination
did not end there, as Edward might have foreseen had he been older and
thus wiser. For as Edward bought and sold, so did his Sunday-school
teacher, and all his customers who had seen the wonderful acumen of
their broker in choosing exactly the right time to buy and sell Western
Union. But Edward did not know this.
One day a rumor became current on the Street that an agreement had been
reached by the Western Union Company and its bitter rival, the American
Union Telegraph Company, whereby the former was to absorb the latter.
Naturally; the report affected Western Union stock. But Mr. Gould
denied it in toto; said the report was not true, no such consolidation
was in view or had even been considered. Down tumbled the stock, of
course.
But it so happened that Edward knew the rumor was true, because Mr.
Gould, some time before, had personally given him the contract of
consolidation to copy.
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