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Hall ofFame
Almost anybody familiar with newspaper pictures
would recognize the face of at least one of two white–
mustached men who, on rare occasions, might be seen
there, in company. He was no less a personage than
Mark Twain, the humorist; and yes, that extremely well
groomed man with him was H. H. Rogers, of the Stand–
ard Oil Company, who became, in the humorist's later
years, perhaps his closest intimate. Perhaps they had just
stopped in to "pass the time of day" with a friend or two.
Over there at the bar-side might be pointed out Peter
Fenelon Collier, an Irishman, who, coming to America
poor many years before, had founded a great publishing
house and a magazine, and had bohght himself a big
castle in his native country. His son and successor,
Robert Collier, was frequently seen in that room.
Before he became Vice-President of the United States,
United States Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks, of
In–
diana, was occasionally discovered among the crowd of
notabilities in the Bar. Senator Fairbanks, while perhaps
not what might be described as picturesque, invariably
attracted attention wherever he appeared, even in a
crowd which was apt to contain so many, individualistic
and striking, or decorative varieties of men or costume.
A tall, thin man he was, with curious chin-whiskers and
an expression of supernatural gravity that frequently
led strangers to mistake him for an undertaker. Being so
tall, it is not odd that he should have been ignorant of
what was lying at his feet one night, not in the Bar, but
in Peacock Alley. Evidently, George C. Boldt, the hotel's
proprietor, who was talking with him at the time, had
relaxed his usual vigilance.
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