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No. We'd sit down and talk. The trick was not for me to talk but to get them to talk--what you're doing with me here. That was what I'd do. I'd cue them in. I'd say, “That was a great story you told about the day that you were at such and such a place.” They would say, “Oh, yes.”

Would you begin to get fan mail? Was the beginning of...?

Very little. It was on only one station here in New York.

WQXR?

Yes, WQXR. It was not a national show. But the show was very popular for what it was. It was in the afternoon. It was wartime. The Times gave it good publicity.

Well, it's their station anyway.

I don't think that they owned it yet, but they were already tied up with it. They may have owned it already.

Then you stopped “Books and Bullets” after the War.

That's when Colston Leigh suggested “Try talking professionally.” I found that I loved it. The idea of being able to talk for an hour without being interrupted