This single exploit pictures the man.

Everything that Whitney did and was his house, his financial transactions, his Wall Street speculations, the rewards which he gave his friends assumed heroic proportions.

But these things all demanded money.

The dilapidated horse railways of New York offered him his most convenient opportunity for amassing it.
But Whitney had not proceeded far when he came face to face with a quiet and energetic young man who had already made considerable progress in the New York transit field.

This was a Virginian of South Irish descent who had started life as a humble broker's clerk twelve or fourteen years before.