 Good evening. This is Ronald Coleman inviting you to join Mrs. Coleman and me for the next half hour. When I sponsor the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin presents the Halls of Ivy. If you like good beer, do as millions of people are doing all over the country. Ask for Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous. Schlitz tastes so good to so many people that it's the largest selling beer in America. It has to be fine to be first. Ivy College, that is, in the town of Ivy USA. The lull between Christmas and Easter, between the hibernation of basketball and the awakening of baseball, can be a period of acute concern to a college president. Thus the unnatural calm which pervades the Ivy campus is a matter of work speculation to Dr. William Todd Hunter Hall, Ivy's president. As he says to his wife, Victoria, it isn't normal this ominous peace and quiet. You know, the absence of the familiar can be quite a frightening thing, like when one's foot reaches for a bottom step, which isn't there. I suppose one reason that you're so good at your job is that you're a trifle psychic. Can you read my mind? Yes. Yes, you're thinking that I'm much too perturbed over a very minor matter. Absolutely right. Turn the page and read some more. Very well. You're mad about me. I could just read in the easy part, the part in great big purple stripes. Possibly it's just presidential skittishness, but my experience tells me that at a time like this, with no major controversies raging, the faculty in a rare mood of contentment, the board of governors all on speaking terms with one another, the budget reasonably balanced, something is bound to happen. Nature abhors a vacuum. Yeah, that's because nature has never tried to get cigarette ashes out of a rug with a broom. Now, why don't you just relax and enjoy the calm period while you can? End of calm period. President Lyft's receiver and his plunged into raging inferno of accumulated trouble. Goodbye, darling. It was nice of knowing you. Farewell, my love. Tell the board of governors that I went into battle with chin up, eyes forward, and knees knocking. Dr. Hall speaking. Hello, doctor. This is Eddie Gray. Oh, hello, Eddie. Have you any time today? I'd like to see if you have. Oh, yes, of course. Now, wait a minute. Let me see. Have you a class for the next hour? No, sir. Then come over now. I'll be right there. Thanks a lot. Goodbye. Anyway, it's not Mr. Wellman. No. Eddie Gray. Yes, teacher. You mustn't let yourself be mizzled by your instinct. No, I think we should... I mustn't let myself be whacked by my instinct. Mizzled. Mizzled. I thought that was what you said. Well, I meant it, too. You let yourself worry unnecessarily like that. Mizzled. It's its most attractive word. The fact that I have never heard it before is immaterial. It seems to convey a meaning that no other word quite has. It's almost onomatopoeic. Well, I am surprised you don't know the word. It's very common. Well, I suppose every man's vocabulary has gaps in it. Mizzled. Holes through which the most ordinary words and phrases may wiggle their way to freedom. But mizzled. Now, how could I have missed that one? M-I-Z-Z-L-E-D, I suppose. Your spelling has holes in it, too, darling. It's M-I-S-L-E-D. I see, yes. And how do you spell misled? Oh, misled. M-I-S-L-E-D. Is that funny? It's got the same way. Yes, the English language is full of surprises. Flowering, as it has, under the fertilization of Sanskrit, Gaelic, Celtic, Gaelic, Germanic, and Icelandic, it's amazing to me how anyone even learns to say that, baby, it's cold outside. Why, when I was teaching English, look, you might get out the dictionary while I let Eddie Gray in. Well, you're going to dig out a few more new words. No, I'm going to write misled into it. And if they find that Noah Webster's tombstone has tilted during the night... Hello, Dr. Hall. Come in, Eddie, come in. Thank you, sir. I'll just take a few minutes. All right, all right, I'll sit down in here. Thank you, sir. Now, Eddie, let's have it. Eddie, let's have it. Well, I've been thinking about my future, doctor. Yes. And you know all about my father. Oh, yes, Mike Malach. Well, he's given up the rackets and everything that goes with him. I guess he's got a lot of money stashed away someplace, but I'm not having any of it. Yes, I was offered quite a bit of it once, for Ivy. You turned it down. Well, I am, too. I'm going to be good and broke. Or does it worry you? No, I'm going to be good at my job, and I'll get a job. Well, you don't seem to need any advice from me, Eddie. If you continue to talk as rationally as you do now, I'll be coming to you for some. Maybe I don't need advice, doctor, but I do need somebody to go along with me, and I've found her. Her? Yes, sir, a girl. I want to bring her over so you and Mrs. Hall can meet her. We'll be delighted. Is she an Ivy student? Yes, sir, working away, dealing him off the arm. How is that? Waitress. She waits on table over at Gus's. Yes, yes, yes. That's good for her. Well, we'd like to have you and Mrs. Hall stand up for us. Well, you mean his best man and matron of honor? Yes, sir, would you mind? Mind. On the contrary, Eddie. I think it's a great compliment. When would you like to bring her over? Well, tonight, if you're not too tied up. No, no, no. Tonight will be fine. And the wedding? This weekend, sir. Well, I'm very happy for you. I suppose you're... I suppose you're enormously in love. In love? Oh, oh, yeah. Sure, doc, I guess. Well, thanks a lot, sir. I'll see you tonight. Vicky. Is there any trouble? No, I don't think so. I'm just a little confused. Why? Well, I was all set to tell you the happy news that Eddie Gray is to be married. That he wants us to stand up for him. And then I asked him if he was in love. Oh, was he all ahead of a heels and starry-eyed? No. No, he was amazingly unperturbed. Quite a matter of fact, in fact. Matter of fact? About being in love? Oh, then he isn't really in love. Nobody has that kind of control. Yes, exactly my own reaction. And the cold-blooded attitude toward being in love is like trying to combine a blast furnace with an icebox. So, all maybe it can be done, but I'd like a closer look at the blueprints. It's so nice to see you again, Mrs. Hall. Well, I haven't laid eyes on you, Mary, since the junior fall is. Now, how long has this romance been going on? Well, if you mean how many dates, Mrs. Hall, not many. Mary works until 12 o'clock, six nights a week. And fall apart on a seventh. How can you two ever get together? Well, we're taking the same courses. We see each other every day, practically all day. Across the classroom? You talk and chalk instead of Moon and June? No, that's not right. Oh, it's all right, for us, Mrs. Hall. We don't need Moon and June. As Eddie says, we have to face facts. We've got a living to make now and later. And if that doesn't leave time for anything else, well, we'll have to face it. That's all. Of course, somehow I feel that time should be found. You are both very young. You both have lifetimes ahead. This is not my policy to Victoria. Don't flinch. I'm not going to make a speech. But it's not my policy to recommend the wasting of time. But if healthy sentiment is wasting it, I have misspent a good part of my life, a profligacy which I do not regret. We just don't have time for romance. We're both very practical. As Mary says, we're forming our own little company and we're going to run our lives like a business. And we think we'll pay dividends. I hate to think of you two growing up with just a patch of little coupons around the house. Of course, there are other dividends besides money, Eddie. Some of them have been calculable value. Well, it's all right for you to say that, Dr. Hall. And, well, I don't mean to be fresh, but you're all set. You're secure. You've got no worries. I'd like to have every college president in the country hear that remark. Every new wrinkle in education means two on a president's face. Well, I know what you mean, Eddie. There's a certain amount of justice to it, too. Maturity brings with it a different view of the scale. Eddie, it is not my job to try to play God, but you're both most attractive young people, and I would simply like to feel that there is nothing in life which you do not share. We appreciate it, Doctor, but I'm afraid we'll have to go on the way we started. Will you and Mrs. Hall still stand up for us? Well, of course we will. We'll be with you. Certainly. But I may still try to convince you that Moon does go with June and that stupid is not the only rhyme for Cupid. Take to officiate this wedding. It isn't a marriage, it's a merger. Yes, it's a strange attitude. I'm usually faced with the problem of dissuading youngsters from leaping into matrimony, simply because it's a rainy Saturday and there's a dull picture playing at the Bijoux Theatre. But this is new, huh? Just to me. I've never before been faced with too coldly practical young people who don't have room in their marriage for their old-fashioned commodity called love. I'm glad I grew up in the days of the Lace Valentine and the first stolen kiss in the porch swing. We've simply got to open their eyes. I'd like to, Vicki, I really would, but we must realize that we are tampering with other people's lives uninvited. Yeah, let's tamper just a little. Well, but how? Well, I don't know. But I do know that you need a haircut. Now, you run over to the barbershop and let Doc Fish talk you into a quiet stupor while I do some very heavy romantic thinking. Oh, well, in that case, I'll stay home. Why, Toddy? You know, Doc, he's a very obstinate man. Closed mind, no vision. Why, a man in his position should have national recognition. He'll never get it. Obstinate, that's what he is. Closed mind. You listening? You listening? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, yes. Obstinate, very, yes. Why don't you fire him then? Who? Warren. Oh, yes, indeed. One of my closest... Fire him! Professor Warren, you're out of your mind, man. Who do you think I was talking about? Toothshaw? No. That's the trouble around this college. Nobody listens. A man who has constructive ideas might as well stick his head in a barrel, for all the good it does. I've been around here for 30 years. I know what I know. I keep my eyes open. You listening? Doc, you listening? I said I keep my eyes open. Well, um, one of us is enough. Understand you're going to a wedding. Really? Confidential, ain't it? I don't tell everything I know. Well, you make an effort. And I give you credit for that. I don't approve of this wedding. My doubt is that'll halt the ceremony. I got married without your approval. Eddie's father is Mike Mellott. Just finished a jail sentence. Bad heredity. And that girl. Oh, what's the matter with her? I don't know. Waiting to find out. Then to yours was in here today. Oh, who? Clarence Wellman. Said Eddie Gray had asked him for a job after he graduates. Wants to be in his research department. Asked for a job for her, too. Well, that's very ambitious. What's wrong with it? I don't know. That's very ambitious. What's wrong with it? Nothing. Not up to now. But you know what Wellman told me. No, and I cannot conceive of anything which, to me, has a more monumental unimportant. So please complete your tansorial mission and let us have Cersei's from this weary gossip. Ain't gossip. It's factual. Here's the girl working her way through school as a waitress. Barely able to pay her tuition. No money for fancy clothes. And all of a sudden she deposits 5,000 bucks in the bank. Wellman's. Okay, that's been going for 14 years. Personally, I think Mr. Wellman's ethics should be looked into. Does he usually discuss his deposit as confidential business with his barber? You got a point there, Doc. You know something? I think Wellman talks too much. Well, I comb it wet or dry. When there's beer on your mind, your best thought is Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous. More people like the taste of Schlitz than any other beer. That's why Schlitz is the largest selling beer in America. Tonight I'm going to tell you about three unbiased brewmasters and the hops that give Schlitz beer its character and zest. These three brewmasters select all the hops that go into Schlitz beer. And to make their choice, these men examine samples from all the best hop growing areas. And most important, they are told neither the price of the hops nor the name of the grower. In this way, the three brewmasters have to make their choice without bias. They have to choose on the basis of quality alone. And this is still another instance where quality comes before cost. Patience before speed in the brewing of Schlitz beer. Is it worth it? Let's look at the results. Schlitz tastes so good to so many people that it's the largest selling beer in America. It has to be fine to be first. All just back from a barbershop, considerably perturbed by the gossipy tongue of Doc Fish and the inference of dishonesty in Eddie Gray's young bride-to-be. Victoria, meantime, has been doing her own worrying about the complete lack of sentiment, the lack of human emotion, and a young couple who obviously should be very much in love. But there must be some explanation of that money, Todd. That girl simply doesn't look dishonest. It seems to me that we are assuming an irregularity, which might very possibly not exist, except in the vermy-formed mind of Doc Fish and the habitual suspiciousness of Mr. Clarence, where were you on the night of January the 13th, Wellman. How do you account for a warm-hearted, nice boy like Eddie turning out to be such a cold, calculating young man? You think he was holding hands with his girl just to keep her from juggling the book? Yes, it isn't logical, and I'm partial to logic, even in human equations. As Huxley said, logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools, and the beacons of wise men. And in my infinite wisdom, I seem to have missed the beacons. Me too. I mean, I also. Do you know something, Toddie? Yeah, what's that, my darling? I have a nagging little feeling, but I know the answer to this, and I can't pin it down. It's something they did or said or... Will you do something for me? For you, my sweet, I climb the highest mountain barefoot, swim the deepest river in full armor, cross the widest desert. Yes, well, when you come home, Eddie and Mary over for one more evening before they get married. Of course, darling, if you think it'll do any good, but their minds seem to have a sign hung on them that says closed. Maybe they're just closed for alteration. Now, I believe that either you're in love or you're not, and you can't turn it on or off like a spigot. Do I sound like the latest home journal? Yes, ma'am. And if you're working your way through a college president, you may renew my subscription for a hundred years. Dr. Hall, Mary and I both appreciate the interest you're taking in us. Well, Eddie, we're very fond of you both. It's only natural that we're interested. Well, since we saw you the other night, we've decided we're a big disappointment to you both. We just can't help it. That's the way we're built. Yeah. Um, Eddie... Yes, sir? I'm going to presume on our friendship and my great age, and would you and Mary permit me the luxury of telling you a story? Certainly, Dr. Hall. Victoria, this story has never been told to anyone before. May I have your permission to tell it? Of course, William. I want you to. How do you know what story it is, Mrs. Hall? Just matrimonial telepathy, Eddie. When you've been married as long as we had, you'll find even your mind's holding hands. You mean you get to know everything each other is thinking? Gee, that's pretty frightening. Well, Eddie, it can be pretty comforting, too, Eddie, besides saving a great deal of useless conversation. I'll bet it would at that. I have looked eight places down a dinner table at my wife, exchanged a smiling look with her, and known immediately that she found the food distasteful, her dinner companion repulsive, the surveys ostentatious, and wasn't I finding my own dinner partner a little too fascinating? Oh, it wasn't exactly jealous. I just wanted to stab her with an oyster fork. Anyway, Eddie, here's the story. Years ago, just before Mrs. Hall and I were married, I was in London. It was Victoria's closing night and her great success, give them tears. And while I was at the theatre waiting for her to change, I opened a cable that had been delivered just before I left my hotel. I knew you were out here. Why didn't you come in? Well, I think I stayed out here just for that tremendous moment when I could hear the rustle of a skirt look up and see you. Ah, Victoria, you do look lovely, and I can't think why there should be any surprise in my voice. I could encourage you to go on, you know. I like it very, very much. But you're worried about something. What is it? A decision, I'm afraid. Was it serious? Yes. But tell me. Well, then let's walk for a few minutes. May we? I'd like just to feel there's no one else around. Just you and me. Well, come on. Let's walk down to the river. Are yours has been a glamorous life, Victoria? Oh, not always, you know. We don't start atop in the theatre. You have to battle and snive and pray and hope on the way up. Yes, I suppose you have to, but you were born for the top rung. You know, I've often talked to you about what may seem to be the drabness of a professor's life. Slow advancement, very little money. Oh, darling. I know, we've discussed it so much. Help us settle it so often. I'm not marrying your job. I fell in love with a man. But that man has been offered another job. What kind? Well, for this particular man, very highly paid. The very influential post in a large, responsible corporation. Complete financial security, and I imagine a certain social solidity. Doing what? Research. In a field with which I'm completely familiar, it wouldn't be difficult work. William? Yes? Look up. Have you ever seen this building before? On Westminster Abbey. Why, yes, of course, many times. Yes, nine centuries of history and stone. I don't know why I should love something which reduces me to such insignificance, but I do. Let's go in. We've never been in here together. I'm always breathless when I walk in here. One of my countrymen, Washington Irving, said of this abbey, it seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. There's another American touch. Over there by the west door is the tomb of the unknown warrior. Yes. Over it in a frame is the metal placed on it by your general Pershing. Yes, I've seen it. Yes. Listen to the echoes. History sleeps here. Statesmen, scholars, warriors. And over there in the south's transept, the poet's corner. All the hours I've spent there. Reading words enshrined forever in the mind and heart of the world. We're very happy, I wonder, those who sleep there, I mean. They did what they were intended to do. They somehow knew their destiny. Yes, they were the great ones. The dedicated ones. Men who could not be swerved from the road they knew was theirs. Does it help you? Help me? Help me? Oh, yes, I see you. You brought me here deliberately, didn't you? You know what Samuel Johnson said, turn from the glittering bribe by scornful eye, nor sell for gold what gold could never buy. Ah, Victoria, you're not only beautiful, you're wise. And very good. And don't, don't move for a minute. There's a shaft of light catching the edge of your hair. That stained glass window up there is putting a lovely halo around you. Don't, don't move yet. You see, of all the memories of you that I shall one day treasure, this may be the most beautiful. This picture of you as you are now. Victoria, wise, good, and shining. I love you. I love you, William. Yes, Eddie. Did you like the story? Of course I did. You don't have to be polite, did you? I said I did. Dr. Hall. Yes? I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was. You see, we thought the best way to make the grade was to forget all that stuff about love and just make a business of living. What do you think now, Eddie? But I've always thought, I guess Mrs. Hall, do you mind if I tell it to Mary? But do you mind if we're here? Oh, no, I want you here. I don't think she'll believe me. Mary. Yes, Eddie? I love you. There's something I have to tell you, Eddie. What? We're not as broke as you think. I don't care about that. But maybe you will when I tell you, we've got $5,000 more than you think we have. $5,000? Mary, where did you get that? Mary, where did you get it? Oh, it's all right. I won it. Won it? How? In a radio contest. I wrote a song. What kind of a song? A love song. Do you want to know the title? Yeah, Mary, I do. It's the only way I knew how to tell you. It's just called Eddie. Who knew what, my sweet? But those two are really in love. I knew that stuff. They were putting on about their marriage on a cold business basis. There was a lot of whale feathers. Whale feathers? Interesting zoological phenomenon. No, no, no, you know what I mean. The way they kept looking anxiously at each other for approval, and they weren't speaking for themselves at all. Eddie would say, as Mary says, and then Mary would say, as Eddie said, you remember, they each thought the other wanted to be unromantic. Yes, you're absolutely right. And didn't I see them start holding hands while I was telling them about Westminster Abbey? Holding hands, they were welded. It'll take surgery to get them pried apart long enough for him to put the ring on her finger. My darling, I saw newsreel once of a woman who swam the English Channel. You have exactly the same look of happy achievement. It's a surprise. I feel like a combination of Mr. Anthony, B. F. Chris Fairfax and Mary Margaret McBride. Well, I don't know what Mr. Anton is doing in there, but this seems to be woman's work. I've often wondered why Cupid is always depicted as a male. Oh, him. He's just a messenger boy with a bow and arrow. It's Venus who points out the targets. There's beer on your mind. Your best thought is Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous. More people like the taste of Schlitz than any other beer. That's why Schlitz is the largest selling beer in America. And here again are Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. Good night, everyone. Good night. Good night. This week at the same time at the Halls of Ivy, starring Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. The Halls of Ivy is presented at the Johnson-Schmidt Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We would like to enjoy the full surprise playhouse on television on Friday nights. Ken Carpenter speaking. Gilder Sleeve has a surprise for you. Listen on NBC.