"I did not think I could afford to have you lose on my suggestion and I
went to cover your loss, when I found five thousand shares of Texas Pacific
transferred on the books of the company in your name. I knew these could
not be yours. I thought the buyer was none other than the man I was after,
and I began hammering the stock. I have been curious ever since to make
sure whether I was right."

"Whom did you suspect, Mr. Gould?" I asked.

"My suspect was Victor Newcomb," he replied.

I then told him what had happened. "Dear, dear," he cried. "Ned Green! Big
Green. Well, well! You do surprise me. I would rather have done him a favor
than an injury. I am rejoiced to learn that no harm was done and that,
after all, you and he came out ahead."

It was about this time Jay Gould had bought of the Thomas A. Scott estate a
New York daily newspaper which, in spite of brilliant writers like Manton
Marble and William Henry Hurlbut, had never been a moneymaker. This was the
_World_. He offered me the editorship with forty-nine of the hundred
shares of stock on very easy terms, which nowise tempted me. But two or
three years after, I daresay both weary and hopeless of putting up so much
money on an unyielding investment, he was willing to sell outright, and
Joseph Pulitzer became the purchaser.

His career is another illustration of the saying that truth is stranger
than fiction.