We grew to be constant comrades and friends, and when he returned to New York to take the important post which to the end of his days he filled so completely his office in the Western Union Building became my downtown headquarters.
There I met Jay Gould familiarly; and resumed acquaintance with Russell Sage, whom I had known when a lad in Washington, he a hayseed member of Congress; and occasionally other of the Wall Street leaders.

In a small way--though not for long--I caught the stock-gambling fever.

But I was on the "inside," and it was a cold day when I did not "clean up" a goodly amount to waste uptown in the evening.

I may say that I gave this over through sheer disgust of acquiring so much and such easy and useless money, for, having no natural love of money--no aptitude for making money breed--no taste for getting it except to spend it--earning by my own accustomed and fruitful toil always a sufficiency--the distractions and dissipations it brought to my annual vacations and occasional visits, affronted in a way my self-respect, and palled upon my rather eager quest of pleasure.

Money is purely relative.