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I was just an ordinary kid, just a smart young boy, very naive, with a wild love of books and the theater. That's the way I would describe myself.

Well, now starts my life at Columbia. The first thing that happened to me was that one of my freshman classes in the School of Journalism was with a professor named Harrison Steeves, and I will never forget Professor Steeves, because he started me reading really good books! This was a course in modern literature. And suddenly young Bennett discovered H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, Kipling--literature.

Did you get excited about it?

Did I! A new world opened for me. I discovered that when I was given these books that I had to read, I loved them, truly loved them. I paid Dr. Steeves back. I published a dreadful detective story he wrote later on.

You never know what's going to come back to haunt you!

Well, then I went out for the college newspaper, too-- the Spectator. In my freshman year a lot of things happened to me. First of all, I was already in a fraternity. I didn't have to worry about that as freshman do. In those days getting into a fraternity was very important. I was set. Second of all, on the Spectator the fellow who had written a column had graduated, and was now working for Associated Press. So they