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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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about 40 stores. It suddenly occurred to me that if I could persuade Mr. Womrath to put in two copies of each Modern Library book in each store, that would mean orders for 40 more complete sets of the Modern Library. And I went down to see Mr. Womrath. I remember my interview. I said, “Mr. Womrath, if you will put two Modern Library books in each store instead of one (of each title), I'll give you an extra one per cent discount.” And Womrath very loftily said, “My dear boy, don't talk to me about one per cent discounts on your Modern Library. I just made $10,000 today in the stock market.” Well, the reason I tell you this story is that a year later he was wiped out, as was many another supposed financial wizard--wiped out clean.

Now, when Francis Meynell came to our office, work stopped. Everybody adored him. I took him to lunch and on the way down I said, “I want to stop at the brokerage office.” He had never seen a brokerage office. When we came in there, there was wild excitement. The market was surging--a wild bull market. And Francis loved everything in America. Oh, how he loved America. He was completely fascinated by all these goings on--the ticker and the board showing prices. There were no electric boards then, and boys went around slapping up prices on the board.

Q:

And all the enthusiasm.

Cerf:

Oh, people screaming and happy--everybody making money hand over fist. And Francis said, “Tell me about this.” So





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