Soon after Fenimore Dayton became a reporter his city editor sent him to interview James Mountain. That famous financier was then approaching the zenith of his power over Wall Street and Lombard Street. It had just been announced that he had "absorbed" the Great Eastern and Western Railway System—of course, by the methods which have made some men and some newspapers habitually speak of him as "the Royal Bandit." The city editor had two reasons for sending Dayton—first because he did not like him; second, because any other man on the staff would walk about for an hour and come back with the report that Mountain had refused to receive him, while Dayton would make an honest effort.
Seeing Dayton saunter down Nassau Street—tall, slender, calm, and cheerful—you would never have thought that he was on his way to interview one of the worst-tempered men in New York, for a newspaper which that man peculiarly detested, and on a subject which he did not care to discuss with the public. Dayton turned in at the Equitable Building and went up to the floor occupied by Mountain, Ranger, & Blakehill. He nodded to the attendant at the door of Mountain's own suite of offices, strolled tranquilly down the aisle between the several rows of desks at which sat Mountain's personal clerks, and knocked at the glass door on which was printed "Mr. Mountain" in small gilt letters.
"Come!" It was an angry voice—Mountain's at its worst.
Dayton opened the door. Mountain glanced up from a mass of papers before him. His red forehead became a network of wrinkles and his scant white eyebrows bristled. "And who are you?" he snarled.
"My name is Dayton—Fenimore Dayton," replied the reporter, with a gracefully polite bow. "Mr. Mountain, I believe?"
It was impossible for Mr. Mountain altogether to resist the impulse to bow in return. Dayton's manner was compelling.
"And what the dev—what can I do for you?"
"I'm a reporter from the ——"
"What!" roared Mountain, leaping to his feet in a purple, swollen veined fury….
—David Graham Philips ("McClure's").