He was rapid and usually accurate in judgment, and always possessed of the courage of his convictions. He was as cunning as the gray fox, to which he was often likened. He was suave in manner but merciless in the execution of his plans. He was identified in the public mind with several of the boldest and most unscrupulous operations in the history of Wall Street, and his millions had steadily and rapidly increased, until now, at sixty years of age, he was one of the acknowledged kings of New York finance. Isaiah Wolf was, as his name indicated, of Hebrew origin. He was about the same age as Claybank, and had many of the qualities of that gentleman, lacking, however, his courage and his quickness of comprehension and movement. He was a gambler by birth, education, and instinct, and a gambler who never failed to use all advantages possible. Thirty years before he had been a clothing merchant and dealer in city, county, and legislative warrants at Portland, Oregon. He furnished the impecunious legislators, when they came down from the mountain counties, with an outfit of clothing; he discounted their salaries at three per cent per month; he was usually the custodian of the lobby funds, and he could always introduce senator or assemblyman to a quiet game of “draw,” where, whenever a huge “pot” was in dispute, Isaiah could usually be found safely entrenched behind the winning hand. When the Comstock mines began to yield their great output of silver in 1875–77, the Wolf Brothers located in San Francisco, made their homes on Pine and California Streets, and gambled in mining stocks from the vantage-ground of secret knowledge, for in every mine were one or more miners under pay, not only from the mining company, but from Isaiah Wolf. In 1879, when the transactions in the stock board of San Francisco had dwindled to a tithe of their former magnitude, and when the sand-lot agitators succeeded in grafting their ideas of finance and taxation upon the organic law of California, Isaiah Wolf and his brother Emanuel gathered their assets together and joined the exodus of millionaires. In New York City they opened a bankers’ and brokers’ office, and were now accounted as jointly the possessors of $80,000,000, the management of which was left almost exclusively to Isaiah. John Gray was an insignificant-looking old man of seventy. From his unkempt beard, watery eyes, shrinking manner, and small stature, he might have been taken for a congressional doorkeeper who had seen better days. In truth, there was, under his ignoble exterior, one of the broadest, wiliest, and best-informed minds in America. He was the acknowledged leader of Wall Street in ability and resources. His wealth was estimated at quite $150,000,000, and it had been created by himself in about forty-five years.