They were in oil, railroads,
coal, western land, mining, timber, and street railways. One summer Sam,
with Prince, built, ran to a profit, and sold to advantage a huge
amusement park. Through his head day after day marched columns of figures,
ideas, schemes, more and more spectacular opportunities for gain. Some of
the enterprises in which he engaged, while because of their size they
seemed more dignified, were of reality of a type with the game smuggling
of his South Water Street days, and in all of his operations it was his
old instinct for bargains and for the finding of buyers together with
Webster's ability for carrying through questionable deals that made him
and his followers almost constantly successful in the face of opposition
from the more conservative business and financial men of the city.
Again Sam led a new life, owning running horses at the tracks, memberships
in many clubs, a country house in Wisconsin, and shooting preserves in
Texas. He drank steadily, played poker for big stakes, kept in the public
prints, and day after day led his crew upon the high seas of finance. He
did not dare think and in his heart he was sick of it. Sick to the soul,
so that when thought came to him he got out of his bed to seek roistering
companions or, getting pen and paper, sat for hours figuring out new and
more daring schemes for money making.
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