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.

Bar

Patte'J1-S

and plungers headed by John W. Gates, the fact is, it

consisted of a bare dozen men, and Gates was not of

them. They constituted, for a time, the entire list of

customers claimed by one of the brokerage offices in the

Waldorf,-Benkhard

&

Company,-of which A. H.

Cook was manager. So far as known, that office has not

been paralleled in several particul,ars.

A small stock exchange in itself, it was exclusive.

Actually, it had just twelve customers. M9st of them

spent the entire Market period-except at luncheon

time-in its luxurious chairs, watchingithe ticker, swap–

ping jokes, or dealing with one another. It adjoined the

old South Cafe, or Grill Room, from which it was en–

tered by a door faced with a mirror, not easy for the

unfamiliar to locate. For luncheon, all the customers

had to do was to come out of that door and sit down

at tables, and at the close of the Market they had

merely to cross the South Cafe, open another mirror–

faced door and find themselves in the Bar.

Strangers were not welcome in that office. Anybody

who didn't belong quickly found the way

~ut,

as a rule-_

Of the exclusive twelve, those whose names are recalled ._

were E. E. Smathers, oil man and race horse owner,

and then rated as the best poker player in the United

States; "Joe" Elwell, famous later on as the author of

"Elwell on Bridge" and whose mysterious murder some

years later was one of those events the New York police

have never satisfactorily cleared up-or, at least, so far

as can be gathered from court records; John A. Drake,

betting and race track associate of John W. Gates (both

already mentioned); "Pete" Rogers, man-about-town;

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