1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors 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. [ 8 5]