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in and Richard Halliday brought up this vision that I'd been dreaming about for years. She had on a black evening dress with little silver stars in it. The way Halliday introduced us was: “Mr. Cerf, this is Mrs. Cerf.” That's the way I met Sylvia.

Well, though by this time I was quite the sophisticated young man about town, I now was tongue-tied, absolutely tonguetied. I mumbled, “Glad to meet you,” and retreated in confusion. And for one hour I stayed at that party without talking to Sylvia Sidney. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer, and I yelled over to my original date, who was having quite a good time, as I recall (it was a very good party), “Don't forget we have to go to this other party; we'd better get going.”

I then mustered enough courage to go up to Sylvia and say, “It's been a great pleasure meeting you, Miss Sidney.”

And Sylvia said, “You're the strangest young man I ever met in my life.”

And I said, “Why?”

She said, “Well, I've been hearing for about two years about this young publisher who was determined to meet me and everybody was trying to arrange this. Then I finally meet you and you never say one word to me.”

By this time I was recovering normalcy. I said, “Well, Miss Sidney, we've been here about an hour, and I've just been so dazzled by you I couldn't talk. But if you'd like me to tell you every move you have made in that hour, I can because I've never taken my eyes off you.”

And Sylvia said, “Don't you think I know that?”