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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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going around trying to buy properties because some very rich people in Texas had gotten interested in Holt-Rinehart. He was a little more persistent than the McGraw-Hill people, but again we had no idea of making the deal. We talked with him a couple of times just for the fun of it. He went much higher than two million dollars in his estimate although we never got down to discussing a definite figure. He was at the point of saying, “Tell us what you want. We'll give it to you.” They were very anxious to get us.

Q:

Were they going to buy it all outright?

Cerf:

Yes. We were to come in and run their trade department. Again, they had a good textbook department but not much of a trade department.

Q:

Was this in the late Fifties?

Cerf:

Yes. This was around 1957.

Now came the splurge when every business under the sun began getting out stock issues. Here again is how all of my life seems to have tied together because, when I worked down in Wall Street--the days that I told you about--one of the boys who worked next door to me in the cashier's cage was Charles Allen. He was my best friend down there. The two of us were generally conceded the least likely to succeed because we always wandered around downtown New York instead of staying with our





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