" One day, the financier had to dictate a contract, and,
coming into Mr. Cary's office, decided to dictate it then and there. An
hour afterward Edward delivered the copy of the contract to Mr. Gould,
and the financier was so struck by its accuracy and by the legibility of
the handwriting that afterward he almost daily "happened in" to dictate
to Mr. Cary's stenographer. Mr. Gould's private stenographer was in his
own office in lower Broadway; but on his way down-town in the morning
Mr. Gould invariably stopped at the Western Union Building, at 195
Broadway, and the habit resulted in the installation of a private office
there. He borrowed Edward to do his stenography. The boy found himself
taking not only letters from Mr. Gould's dictation, but, what interested
him particularly, the financier's orders to buy and sell stock.
Edward watched the effects on the stock-market of these little notes
which he wrote out and then shot through a pneumatic tube to Mr. Gould's
brokers. Naturally, the results enthralled the boy, and he told Mr. Cary
about his discoveries. This, in turn, interested Mr. Cary; Mr. Gould's
dictations were frequently given in Mr. Cary's own office, where, as his
desk was not ten feet from that of his stenographer, the attorney heard
them, and began to buy and sell according to the magnate's decisions.
Edward had now become tremendously interested in the stock game which he
saw constantly played by the great financier; and having a little money
saved up, he concluded that he would follow in the wake of Mr.
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