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OldWaldorf Bar Days
School of painting, or of sculpture. They may be right.
And it is a fact that for many years an independent or–
ganization of artists and patrons has been trying to de–
velop at least one such school by letting any person who
thinks he can paint, or model clay, hang the evidence of
his genius, or what not, in a place where a more or less
credulous public will be sure of an opportunity to view it
and perhaps to buy it-provided its creator can raise the
nominal fee demanded for its admission to this vicarious
Hall of Fame.
I have never heard of an American School of Drink–
ing-under that name. And yet there is ample proof that
such did once exist. Were the evidence of my own eyes
and recollection lacking, excavations made and exhuma–
tions resulting during the last days of a long-famous
hotel, and subsequent to the demolition of that-in our
way of counting time-venerable institution, offer abun–
dant proof. As a matter of fact, as I begin this, workmen
are carting away the wreckage of what was a famous
temple of Bacchus, long known wherever the name
"American" conjured, for the thirsty wanderer, a vision
of something yellowish or amber or of ruby red in a small
but generously brimmed glass. Swallowed at a gulp, that
lusty and sometimes uproarious content awakened ap–
petite for company of its own kind, until the experi–
menter could cry,."Hold, enough!" but never did.
If
he
cried at all, his lament was apt to be, "I can't hold
enough!"
GLORY THAT W A S
Only a little more than a dozen years have rollicked by
in more or less arid succession since the American School
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