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and in that time you get them to talk. That's how you find out what kind of personalities they have. They're all pretty and they are all equally untalented, but it's personality that counts. You know who they are because they wear their stripes across their breast--you know, “Miss Arkansas” or whoever it is. The conversation is sometimes rather strained because the girls are petrified. So much is riding on how the judges rate them!

They are competing with each other too.

We have their fate in our hands! They try to be so charming and they're nervously dabbing powder on their noses and fixing their lipstick and straightening their bodices and trying to be charming and being scared. The judges are trying to be fair, but you do have favorites. Naturally one girl will appeal more than another to you for some reason or another--often an intangible one.

Friday breakfast, I met Miss Mississippi. I haven't told you this story?

No.

She was a darling little girl, and as I sat down I asked her, “Well, Miss Mississippi, what town in your state do you come from?" She said, “I'm from Oxford, Mississippi, but I never met him.” I said, “What do you mean by that?”