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Well, this is when I began to be interested in high finance, so I quit Townsend Harris and went to the Packard Commercial School, which was at 35th Street (it's gone now) and Lexington Avenue. This was a mighty stupid move, but luckily, it worked out well for me. First of all, it changed my handwriting. You know, you did the Palmer method in those days. I also learned double-entry bookkeeping and began to know something about the business world. After school I began working for a certified accountant and going around to check books. In this way I got backstage of a big restaurant and learned that all the money's in liquor, not in food; in a big department store, and various different businesses, and got interested in all of them. I got a lot of experience while I was still in the business school.

Meanwhile, my uncle, the one I told you about as having a great influence on me, was raging at me that I had given up college. And after about eight months--I wasted a whole year-- he said, “You've got to go to college.”

Well, after this year at Packard and working for this accountant, he talked me into going to college; and of course without it, God knows what would have happened to me.

I had no credit at all. I hadn't graduated from high school. I decided about in January that I was going to college if I could. So I had from January until September to get all my entrance requirements. So this meant taking extension courses. I went to Columbia and took several courses. My uncle, who, as I said, was brilliant, coached me in a couple