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proposing to bet forty pounds that the allegation was true.
“I am not a betting man,” replied Wright, “but since the honor of my candidate is at stake, I accept your wager.”
Webster then gave him his card, and Wright returned it by writing his name on a piece of the newspaper.
Elizur Wright no sooner reached his office than he found letters and documents there disproving the Whig statement in toto, and later in the day he carried them over to Mr. Webster, who had an office in what was then Niles's Block.
Mr. Webster looked carefully through them, congratulated Mr. Wright on his good fortune, and handed him two hundred-dollar bills.
Peter Harvey, who was in Webster's office at the time, afterwards stopped Elizur Wright on the sidewalk and said to him: “Mr. Wright, you could have afforded to lose that wager much better than Webster could.”
It is remarkable how all the different interests in this man's life-mathematics, philanthropy, journalism, and the translation of La Fontaine-united together like so many different currents to further the grand achievement of his life.
While in England he had taken notice of the life-insurance companies there, which were in a more advanced stage than those in America.
They interested him as a mathematical
1905. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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