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fired by dat old son of a b- down dere!' So I walks in
an' I gets his job right off de reel. Well, sir, I been fired
twenty times since
dat~
an' I jus' puts on me hat, walks
out de back door, sashays aroun' Fi't' Av'noo to de
front door, comes in, strikes de old man an' gets de job
back. Dat's what I t'ink o' dat old son of ab-!"
Something like consternatio!l seized the rest of the
company, with the exception of the man who had thus
been characterized. Boldt alm,ost invariably proved him–
self master of a situation. Now he jumped up, held out
his hand and said with a hearty laugh, "Vest, py golly,
you're de only man dat 'undershtands me!"
However, a day came when a new pair of flat feet were
planted on the spot of the marble floor where West
made his post when not busy. That morning, one of the
hotel's esteemed patrons, meeting the proprietor of the
hotel, told him he had had a pretty good tinie the night
before. "But," he added, "somewhere I dropped ten to
twelve thousand dollars."
This was against the code. Patrons with bankrolls
who left the house by night in compa?y with a hotel
detective must be returned minus such experiences, and
that day Boldt and Schuyler West parted company.
"Joe" Smith, famed as "Scotland Yard Joe," had the
longest tenure as head detective of the Waldorf. For
many years, Joe's was a familiar face as he stood on the
spot at the corner of Peacock Alley and the lobby, well
dressed, well groomed, apparently imperturbable, but
willing to be at least deprecatory when anyone who
brought up the subject of detective work intimated that
perhaps Joe was the greatest of all modern sleuths.
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