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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

deep sense of appreciation. It shows you what a bluff I was even in those days. I told you, in courses where I could bluff, I was superb, but when it came to something in which I had to be exact, they nailed me to the cross.

All the orchestras used to send up free tickets to this class, but you couldn't bribe the brilliant music lovers to go to one of the concerts. The tickets went begging. There was one big exception, however: the Philadelphia Orchestra with the great Mr. Stokowski conducting. It wasn't that we could tell the difference between the Philadelphia orchestra and the orchestra at the Roxy Movie Theater. But for the Philadelphia Orchestra, everybody wanted that pass because this was the thing to do. And we used to have to put our names in a hat, and the two fellows who drew the lucky numbers were the two who got the pass for the afternoon concert. The evening concert was sold out years in advance, but for the preceding afternoon concerts they would give away a few tickets to college students.

Well, one day I drew one of the winning numbers, and the other winning number was drawn by a freshman in the class. A boy I had never paid any attention to--he was a freshman and I was this big shot--won, with me. His name was Donald Klopfer, and together we went to the Philadelphia Orchestra in the afternoon. I liked him immediately. When we came out of the concert he told me that he had to pick up some theatre tickets. He was going to take his girl to see the Portmanteau Players perform Dunsany's “The Gods of the Mountain.” He said,





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