1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Faculty and Proctors Soon they began to realize that either Joe had mis– understood Morgan, or else that the financier had a sense of humor with which he was not generally cred– ited. For Southern Pacific manifested no signs of hitting the ceiling. Nor did it stay put at 50. On the contrary, it skidded and slipped until one day it reached 19. By that time, money and savings accounts had been wiped out, and more tha'n one employee of the hotel was head over heels in debt. Never again did the losers listen when Joe stood ready to slip them one of "Morgan's tips." Joe was once given·an opportunity in the Bar to show I his nerve before a bunch of big he-men from the Gold Hills. But it took him years to live down his actual part in what happened. "Bat" Masterson, a United States Marshal, long fa_ mous in the Northwest, and a friend of Theodore Roose– velt, was responsible. Joe had heard mor~ of Bat than Bat had heard of Joe. Bat was in New York at the time, but not in the hotel, when the thing started that, after he did come in, was effective in hei-Iding up trade and . leaving the bartenders on duty keeping company only with the bull and the bear and the lamb on top the re– frigerator table-and Joe Smith. At a table in the middle of the room sat six big men, some of them in wide-brimmed hats. Most of them were mining men, and they were from Butte, Montana. Of the group was Colonel "Dick" Plunkett, said to be a United States Marshal. ENTER "BAT" MASTERSON They were talking about gold strikes, mining conditions and individual exploits, law and order, jumping claims, [ 89]