And now will the reader kindly imagine that four or five years more have
sped by; and that Mrs. Robert van Rensselaer is a mother of two
children, and a proud and majestic social queen,--_a grande
dame_,--wearing serenely the crown of her exalted station; and that Mr.
van Rensselaer is more than ever a power in the financial circles of the
country, a man able to make governors and senators by the signing of his
pen. His affairs have prospered steadily, fortunes springing up at his
command like fruit trees beneath the hand of a Hindoo conjurer. He has
organized a great corporation of the rivals of his Company for the
preventing of ruinous competition; and he has done other things that
have left Wall Street equally aghast.
I should venture upon this portion of my hero's career with great
trepidation, feeling dubious of my ability to conduct him safely amid
the labyrinths of "the street"; but fortunately this story has been told
by experts as to whose authority there can be no question, and I avail
myself of the opportunity to quote from their narrative. The language of
them is somewhat technical, to be sure; but every branch of human
science has to have a vocabulary of its own, and the seeker of knowledge
has to master it. All van Rensselaer's life in these days was Wall
Street life, and it is necessary to give some idea of what manner of
life that was.