In 1877 Mr. Keene started on a voyage for Europe for the good of his health, and made a friendly call in Wall Street to see how business was transacted there. He found the speculative attraction irresistible. Mahomet had come to the mountain and was held by its magnetic power. Although Mr. Keene had been a grand success in California, he had a good deal to learn when he came to Wall Street. He soon discovered that California tactics would not do here. He began to sell “short,” but found the market failed to yield to the touch of his bearish wand as it had done in San Francisco. When he sold ten thousand shares of a certain stock the decline, instead of being a slump, as he expected, was only an insignificant fraction, and the market soon reacted. Mr. Keene quickly discovered that he was throwing water into a sieve, and stopped sacrificing his California gold so lavishly. A pool was then formed by Mr. Keene and Jay Gould to put down Western Union. Keene and Selover sold the stock in large blocks, but it was absorbed by some party or parties unknown as fast as it was thrown out. It was gravely suspected that Mr. Gould was the wicked partner who was playing this absorbing game behind the scenes. Major Selover brooded over the matter so seriously that his suspicions began to take tangible form and “body themselves forth” in violence. The Major and Keene met one morning at the rear entrance of the Stock Exchange, in New street, and interchanged intelligent glances on the subject, after the fashion of those passed between Bill Nye and his companion at the card table with the Heathen Chinee. Selover walked down the street with blood in his eye, and meeting Mr. Gould on the corner of New street and Exchange Place, caught him up by the collar of the coat and a part of his pants and dropped him in the area way of a barber’s shop. The little man promptly picked himself up, went quietly to his office, and made a transaction by which Selover lost $15,000 more. This was his method of retaliation. Mr. Keene next went into the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph pool, and was again fortunate. It has been frequently asserted that he lost heavily in this deal, but I have it on good authority that he came out ahead. In the deal with Gould in Western Union, he and Gould netted on joint account $1,300,000. It is popularly believed that Gould “euchred” Keene in this pool, but these are the bare facts. Keene looked over the speculative field, and found that there had been great depreciation in values prevailing here since the panic of 1873. He had arrived in the nick of time to take advantage of the situation. He was backed by four millions of money, and the few losses which he at first sustained were not felt by him, and only seemed to initiate him properly.