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Old Waldorf Bar Days
It was about half an hour before midnight. A bellboy,
whose eyes, for once, missed less than those of the pro–
prietor of the hotel, found his gaze stopped by a glitter
coming from a point immediately between the great left
foot of the former Vice-President and the very much
smaller right foot of the hotel man. He went over to
them, stooped and picked up a diamond ring of con–
siderable value. Knowing that Mr. Boldt never wore
diamonds, he asked the Vice-President if the trinket
belonged to him.
MORALS ABOVE DIAMONDS
Senator Fairbanks looked at the ring, then at the boy,
and then quizzically at Boldt.
"My morals," he said slowly, "have always been
above such a thing as diamonds."
Boldt laughed. Always ready to make a good impres–
sion upon distinguished visitors, he then and there gave
the bellboy a liberal reward. The ownership of the ring
was traced to the late Governor Frank Brown, of Mary–
land, who was stopping in the hotel, and from him the
boy collected another and more substantial reward.
Governor Brown was long a good customer of the Bar.
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In
that room a good roster of the most prominent
statesmen and politicians of twenty-five to thirty years
ago might have been checked off; and some who still
rate as politicians and statesmen. of wide renown, if they
did not sit at the feet
Of
their tutors when in that room,
took counsel of them in the Men's Cafe, across the cor–
ridor. But in recollection, one cannot stop to assign faces
to a particular period. There is too nearly a sea of them.
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