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we'll have a ball.”

That's what you really would have preferred?

Oh, much so. Also, because it preserved my option --

To leave.

To leave. Then, of course, I was in hiatus between September and almost the first of the year. But that's -- you said how well did I know Mr. Paley? I didn't know him at all. After I did see him at Christmas time, quite by accident -- I guess -- on the executive floor, I was the last one to leave, not unusual because I always figured that what I didn't have in brains, I could give in time. So I was still there at around five o'clock on the day before Christmas, waiting for the elevator when the elevator door opened and there was Paley with a very attractive young woman, dragging her mink coat and Tiffany boxes, and so forth. And he said, “Oh, I've been expecting to see you.” And I said, “Well, I've been expecting to see you. Some time we ought to have a chance to talk.” “You want to do it now? “Sure.” I think it was Minnie [Mary Benedict] Astor. And he said, “Minnie, do you mind waiting?” Put her down on a settee out in the elevator lobby, dumped all the packages, went into his office and I said, obviously the fact that he had not made any effort to see me probably meant that he'd had a change of heart, and I simply wanted to know if that was the case, which was okay with me, because there were some other things that I would like to explore. Knowing in my heart, or my head, that having been offered the job, and if it didn't work out, it was not the place to stay.