Some months later I was informed, to my complete astonishment, that Mr. Viedler had some feeling against me because I had not protected him on that note for five thousand dollars he held and which it will be remembered I gave to Banford in 1893 without any consideration and solely as a matter of accommodation to him. The pearls which I held as security for the money due me from Banford, had been, at Viedler's request, consigned to him for sale, under an agreement by which Banford was to pay out of the proceeds to Mr. Viedler the amount of the note with interest. At the time of the consignment I handed to Mr. Viedler's secretary an order on Banford directing him to do this. If Mr. Viedler had considered that note my liability it is most singular he did not demand payment at its maturity early in 1894. As soon as I learned of his feelings in the matter I wrote him on the subject and asked for an interview that we might go into every detail of the transaction. This he declined, and it became evident to me he knew there was no cause for the feeling he claimed to have, and his refusing to aid me was simply for the reason he did not want to, which, of course, was his indisputable right. Well; Viedler had failed me, who next? On my desk, amongst the letters of sympathy received immediately after my failure, was one from a prominent Wall Street man, whom I had known for many years and who for a time had been one of my neighbors at Knollwood. I wrote to him about the same as I had written Viedler. The return mail brought his reply, written personally, expressing regret that he was "unable to assist me as he was a large borrower himself." All stock brokers are large borrowers in their business, but here was an instance in which this universal custom was given as an excuse for not making a loan of five thousand dollars to a friend in trouble. And who was this man? Here is what Thomas W. Lawson had to say of him in one of the chapters of "Frenzied Finance": J*** M*** deserves more than a mere passing mention here, for he was at this time a distinguished Wall Street character and one of the ablest practitioners of finance in the Country. During the last fifteen years of his life, M*** was party to more confidential jobs and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he handled them with great skill and high art. Big, jolly, generous, a royal eater and drinker, an associate of the rich, the friend of the poor, a many-times millionaire. Another friend off the list--but there were many left. Now for the next one. "The third time a charm"--perhaps. Again I turned to the letters on my desk. This time I took up one from a former mayor of New York. A man widely known, politically, socially, and as a philanthropist.