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Afternoons for Work. On the way to his Carlton-Lafayette Park offices, Baruch always shares a cab, always strikes up a conversation, always gives the cabby a dollar.
At the Carlton, he always stops to make a few jokes with the girl at the cigar counter. Then he takes on the long round of visitors and telephone calls. (It is not unusual for three Administration czars, the White House, a horse owner and a suppliant hostess to phone him, all inside 20 minutes.) The sound of a buzzer, announcing a new caller, is stimulating to Bernie Baruch. He adjusts his hearing device, turns the battery in his vest pocket to full volume, and goes to work. He has a way of making all visitors, even the low liest, feel as if they are doing him a personal favor.
Recently Bernie Baruch had an 8:30 a.m. appointment with a Washington official, talked to him again that midnight. "How can you take it?" the visitor asked. Said Baruch: "As long as there's a German or a Jap left, and a pretty woman to look at, I can stand the pace."
Actually, Baruch now puts in few 16-hour days. Always fond of sleep, he likes better than ever to go to bed early, has an air-conditioning unit in his bedroom to help him drop off. When he has trouble going to sleep he takes a bath, as cold as he can stand it. In the mornings, he some times lolls in striped pajamas and red bathrobe as late as 10 a.m.
One idiosyncrasy to which Baruch feels entitled is dinner on the dot at 7:30. If guests are late, he starts to eat by himself. He seldom goes to Washington parties. "They sit around drinking cocktails when I want to eat." he growls.
Weekends for Home. On weekends, Baruch goes back to his home at 1055 Fifth Avenue, a regal Manhattan brownstone. This five-story house, which Baruch has owned for 17 years, is a composite of his cosmopolitan tastes.
Over the living-room mantle, as in a shrine, hangs a portrait of Woodrow Wil son, by Sir William Orpen, perhaps the best portrait of Wilson ever made. In the ballroom, in pre-rationing days, he some times dined as many as 96 people, to the accompaniment of footmen in bright blue livery.
In Baruch's blue-&-gold sitting room stand autographed photographs of Orlando, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson at Versailles; another Versailles picture of Louis Loucheur, Lloyd George and Baruch, with Winston Churchill standing behind, like the freshman he was; of Clemenceau in 1922; of William Gibbs McAdoo; Cordell Hull; Lord Cecil; the War Industries Board.
In his bathroom are photographs of old prize fighters, wrestlers, race horses. The house is filled with old English hunting prints of horses and hounds.
On Saturdays in New York Baruch still likes to go to the races—as he did last fortnight, with his close friend, Herbert Bayard Swope, to watch the Carter Handicap, once won by his colt Happy Argo. But he has given up his big Kershaw Stable and now makes only "nominal" .bets of $20-$50.