I have been camping out since 1900.
THE BIRTH OF THE SYNDICATE
Those were halcyon days on Union Square. The booking of tours was as attractive as it was uncertain, attractive because it was uncertain! Who does not find a hazardous game attractive?
One man I've not mentioned was in daily evidence on the Square. He was fair, always faultlessly dressed, in frock coat, soft black felt hat, low cut waistcoat (showing an abundance of pleated shirt front, ornamented in the center with a single, glittering, pure white diamond), peg top trousers tapering down to a pair of dainty feet encased in the latest Parisian patent leather boots. He was straight of figure and easy of carriage and affected a drooping mustache. Also he bowed pleasantly to everyone he met!
In make up he suggested the type of man drawn by Bret Harte in the "Outcasts of Poker Flat"—John Oakhurst, gambler.
Such was Jack Haverly, the originator of the scheme of forming a theatrical trust or, as it is now called, a syndicate.