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HISTORICAL
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a good-sized bronze bear, looking as if it meant business;
at the other end, a rampant bull. Midway between them
was placed a tiny lamb, flanked on either side by a tall
vase of flowers. The whole decoration was a more or less
delicate compliment to the heaviest patronage of the room
at cocktail-time, wags claiming that the ·flowers were all
the lamb-the innocent public-got after Wall Street's
bulls and bears had finished with him.
To name the impqrtant figures that were to be seen at
various times in that Barroom during its first fifteen or
twenty years would be like setting down most of the names
from various editions of Who's Who in America-except–
ing, of course, always preachers-and including a good–
sized list taken from the British Who's Who and the Al–
manach de Gotha. As a gathering place for celebrities,
the room was one of the real sights of New York. But
in recollection, one cannot stop to assign faces to a partic–
ular period. There is too nearly a sea of them.
While Colonel William F. Cody-"Buffalo Bill"-clung
to the old Hoffman House as long as his friend, Ed.
Stokes, was its proprietor, he used to drop into the Wal–
dorf Bar, and there one might discove.r him at a table
surrounded by a lot of admirers.
Cody, with his wide-brimmed hat, long mustache and
goatee, and in the old days wearing a Prince Albert coat,
presented a handsome figure and one which eyes seldom
failed to follow.
Men liked to invite Colonel Cody to "have one"
with
them, and it is not on record that he ever refused.
In
ac–
cepting such an invitation, he followed an invariable
formula.
"Sir," he would respond heartily, "you speak the Ian-