Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/293

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

He has not his father's slow-moving anger so easily set aside for future use when an enemy was to be crushed. Instead, the young man is apt to flare up and show his hand to his own detriment.

When it comes to the fighting to hold his own against competition, which will be necessary in all of the properties left by the multi-millionaire, George will be met by a warfare entirely different from that directed against Gould senior. The fact that all the wealth, so to speak, is left in one pile, simplifies the war for its possession, and from this time on George Gould will be one of the best watched, best courted and very soon best hated men in America. His training has been a very narrow one. He has not studied finance in any large school. Schooling of any sort has been distasteful to him, and while not positively illiterate, he has no taste for books even on financial questions, but has a tremendous head for figures and loves plenty of bustle in his work.

The lack of charitable bequests did not surprise Wall street, but there was no dearth of comment on the matrimonial board into which four of the children have been constituted, with the two Mrs. Goulds as ex-officio advisory members. Bets were offered that if the other members of the household attempted to act as a committee of the whole when an engagement was to be announced, that in some shape the intervention of lawyers would be necessary, and all the possibilities of this selection of bride and bridegroom by arbitration were discussed. As it stands now, an obstinate love match without