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Old Waldorf Bar Days
but when one of those who shared that cellar had pro–
grammed a party, Taylor had to help get out the booze
and start it on its discreet way to the scene of the fes–
tivity. No need to excite the police unduly. They might
be embarrassed if a court ordered them to return liquor
that, in the eyes of the law, was inviolate, but which
they might ignorantly have smashed or disposed of just
as if it were ordinary bootleg stuff.
On the other hand, the prompt and safe arrival of the
liquor would often make the party, and the host must
not be embarrassed by its lack. So, despite the under–
ground character of his job and at times of his methods,
Taylor's last job at the Waldorf was not without its
responsibilities.
The reason for the sacerdotal alias of this former
priest of Bacchus during more than two-thirds of the
thirty-three years he worked in the Waldorf lay in the
disinclination of
Phil
Kennedy, his principal and the
boss bartender, to address as many as two of his sub–
ordinates as "Joe." On the Bar staff, when Taylor ap–
plied for a job, back in
I
894, was already one man with
the front name of Joseph. So Kennedy, an autocrat in
his day and way, said to the recruit:
"It's Joe you're named, is it? Faith and I won't be
calling 'Joe' and having two men quit their work when
I want only one tQ, come. From now on you're 'Dan,'
d'ye hear?" and Joe became Dan, and so remained until
the old hotel went out of business.
The book Tay.Jar compiled proved such an eye-opener
when I looked through it, I spent a week testing the
memories of friends who had prided themselves, either
( IIO]