time Vanderbilt assured a friend that he would "carry" one thousand
shares of New York Central stock for him. The market price rose to
$115 a share and then dropped to $90. A little later, before setting
out to bribe an important bill through the Legislature--a bill that
Vanderbilt knew would greatly increase the value of the stock--the
old magnate went to the friend and represented that since the price
of the stock had fallen it would not be right to subject the friend
to a loss. Vanderbilt asked for the return of the stock and got it.
Once the bill became a law, the market price of the stock went up
tremendously, to the utter dismay of the confiding friend who saw a
profit of $80,000 thus slip out of his hands into Vanderbilt's.
[Footnote: These and similar anecdotes are to be found incidentally
mentioned in a two-page biography, very laudatory on the whole, in
the New York "Times," issue of January 5, 1877.]

In his personal expenses Vanderbilt usually begrudged what he looked
upon as superfluous expense. The plainest of black clothes he wore,
and he never countenanced jewelry. He scanned the table bill with a
hypercritical eye. Even the sheer necessities of his physical
condition could not induce him to pay out money for costly
prescriptions. A few days before his death his physician recommended
champagne for some internal trouble. "Champagne!" exclaimed
Vanderbilt with a reproachful look, "I can't afford champagne. A
bottle every morning! Oh, I guess sody water'll do!"

From all accounts it would seem that he diffused about him the same
forbidding environment in his own house. He is described as stern,
obstinate, masterful and miserly, domineering his household like a
tyrant, roaring with fiery anger whenever he was opposed, and flying
into fits of fury if his moods, designs and will were contested. His