Steam-powered vessels had been in use on the River Hudson for more than thirty years, yet the steamship had taken a surprising time to enter the Atlantic trade. A British rail company had started it off, but it was an enterprising Loyalist family named Cunard, who’d fled to Canada a couple of generations back, who’d first run steamships successfully across the ocean. The New York men aimed to catch up quickly, though. And none had been more daring than Vanderbilt.

He came from old New Yorkers, English and Dutch, but he’d started poor—even poorer than Astor. Hetty Master didn’t like him. “That foul-mouthed waterman,” she called him. It was true that he’d started life rowing a boat, and his language was certainly colorful, but he had genius, he was ruthless, and his steamships had made him one of the richest men in the city. Crossing the commodore was a bad idea.

Frank Master never crossed Vanderbilt. He’d made friends with him. When Master had wanted to run steamships down to Panama for the California trade in which Vanderbilt was powerful, he’d gone to the commodore and asked him what he thought.

“How many ships?” the commodore had asked.

“A couple, maybe.”

“All right.” Vanderbilt had favored him with a curt nod.

“You asked his permission?” Hetty had said in disgust.

“Better than being run out of business.”

Yet while the commodore was abroad, these two men, both employed by Vanderbilt, were planning to steal a piece of his empire.

You had to admire the audacity of the plan. Instead of running his goods across Panama, the commodore had opened up a cut-price route across Nicaragua, and taken a thousand sailing miles off the journey.

“But the government of Nicaragua ain’t too strong,” the two men told Master. “What if we could finance a revolution there? Put in our own man as president, who’ll give us an exclusive contract to run goods across the place, and leave Vanderbilt out?”

“You really think it could be done?”

“Yes, and for no great outlay. Do you want in?”

“Gentlemen,” said Master with a laugh, “I’m not afraid to topple the government of Nicaragua, but annoying Cornelius Vanderbilt? That frightens me. Please don’t include me in your plans.”

He was still chuckling about the two rogues an hour later, when he went uptown to meet his wife.

Hetty Master stood at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fortieth, with the great fortress of the distribution reservoir behind her. Half the world was passing by the place that day, so you might have expected her to be taking some notice of them. Or you might have thought, at least, that she’d be looking out for her faithful husband who was coming to meet her.

But she wasn’t. She was reading. Just standing there like a statue, under her parasol, and reading.