What did you come here for if you did not want to sell? If you can get more for your goods, go and get it.’ Not a moment of time will be lost, not a cent more be offered; and if the man leaves, with the hope of getting a better price, and returns to take the first offer, he will probably not sell the goods at all.” Turning from steamboats, Mr. Vanderbilt long ago became interested in railroads. In this line, so great was his success that he could control the market. “An attempt,” says an American writer, “was made some time since to break him down by cornering the stock.” He wanted to consolidate the Harlem Road with the Hudson. Enough of the legislature was supposed to have been secured to carry the measure. The parties who had agreed to pass the bill intended to play foul. Besides this, they thought they would indulge in a little railroad speculation. They sold Harlem, to be delivered at a future day, right and left. These men let their friends into the secret, and allowed them to speculate. Clear on to Chicago, there was hardly a railroad man who was not selling Harlem short. The expected consolidation ran the stock up; the failure of the project would, of course, run it down. A few days before the vote was taken some friends called upon Commodore Vanderbilt, and gave him proof that a conspiracy existed to ruin him, if possible, in the matter of consolidation. He took all the funds he could command, and, with the aid of his friends, bought all the Harlem stock that could be found, and locked it up safe in his desk. True to the report, the bill was rejected. The men who had pledged themselves to vote for it, openly and unblushingly voted against it. They waited anxiously for the next morning, when they expected their fortunes would be made by the fall of Harlem. But it did not fall. To the surprise of everybody, the first day it remained stationary; then it began to rise steadily, to the consternation and terror of speculators. There was no stock to be had at any price. Men were ruined on the right hand and on the left. Fortunes were swept away, and the cry of the wounded was heard up and down the Central Road. An eminent railway man, near Albany, worth quite a pretty fortune, who confidently expected to make 50,000 dollars by the operation, became penniless. One of the sharpest and most successful operators in New York lost over 200,000 dollars, which he refused to pay on the ground of conspiracy. His name was immediately stricken from the Stock board, which brought him to his senses. He subsequently settled, but thousands were ruined. Vanderbilt, however, made enough money out of this attempt to ruin him, to pay for all the stock he owned in the Harlem Road. Not satisfied with his achievements on the land and on the American rivers, Mr. Vanderbilt resolved to try the ocean. He built a fine steamer at his own cost, and equipped her completely. The Collins line was then in its glory. Mr.