It was when the nineteenth century was still a hearty octogenarian
that Frederick R. Woods caused Selwoode to be builded. I give you the
name by which he was known on "the Street." A mythology has grown
about the name since, and strange legends of its owner are still
narrated where brokers congregate. But with the lambs he sheared, and
the bulls he dragged to earth, and the bears he gored to financial
death, we have nothing to do; suffice it, that he performed these
operations with almost uniform success and in an unimpeachably
respectable manner.
And if, in his time, he added materially to the lists of inmates in