 The Halls of Ivy starring Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. Benita Coleman. Inviting you to join us again on the campus of Ivy College. There's a contagious disease spreading around the college these days, and you don't have to be a doctor to recognize the symptoms. The wandering eye, the listless manner, and the unaltered eagerness and rejoicing with which the dismissal bell is greeted. All these are the signs of spring fever. And no one at Ivy seems to have escaped the affliction. At the affliction, least of all, Dr. William Todd Under Hall, the president, and his wife, Victoria, who are taking an afternoon stroll through the campus. Vicki, if I'm called upon to justify my absence from presidential duties this afternoon, I hope I can do so with dignity and logic. Oh, go on. I guess even the college president can play hockey now, and then if he wants to? A hooky, my love. Hmm? The word is hooky. Hockey is a sport usually played on ice. Oh. Ever play it? Hockey? No hockey. In my junior and senior years here at Ivy, I played goalie. Same time as you played hockey, my, you're busy, weren't you? No, no, no. Here's goalie. A goalie is a hockey player. He guards the goal, which is sort of a cage on a steel frame. One year we took our paraphernalia over to Newcastle College because they were short of equipment. The papers made quite a to-do about our carrying goals to Newcastle. Oh. My story. Well, if you're caught, I'll tell, and you are running a few degrees of spring fever and had to get some fresh air. Yes, yes. In these vernal seasons of the year, as John Milton said, when the air is calm and pleasant, it would an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches and partake in her rejoicing. Hmm. I somehow can't think of Milton rejoicing. I just think of him as a melancholy fellow who lost his paradise. Ah, Vicki, again did you remember? I think his publishers demanded a cheerful sequel. No, I think maybe 20th Century Fox made him an offer if he'd fixed it up with a box office ending. In that case, it would have been 17th Century Fox. Oh, yes. But why are you staring at Emerson Hall, Vicki? And not that I hold any brief for it as an academic Taj Mahal. Yes, but I always wanted to ask you, what is that odd little balcony above the entrance for? Well, that, my love, is known as Applegate's Folly. It was originally designed by Applegate as a niche to hold a statue. But a great controversy arose as to whose statue? Partisans fought for such favourites as Socrates, Copernicus, Albert Hubbard, and Julius E. S. Grant. So one, the Stonewall Jackson? No. No. No, a compromise was finally achieved in the person of Wilbur Bessemer, the then President of Ivy and literally a stout fellow. But then it was discovered that the niche was too narrow. Either Bessemer would have to go on a drastic diet, or they would have to settle for someone tall and lean, like Abraham Lincoln. But since Lincoln was already mounted in the foyer of Emerson Hall, the plan was abandoned. I know I'm going to regret this, but why didn't somebody think of putting Emerson in Emerson Hall? Oh, they did. Oh, yes, yes. But Emerson's statue had already been installed in Hawthorne Hall. No, no, no. Don't ask me why now. I don't know. Well, anyway, that I understand completely. Now, my aunt Edith always kept the pepper and the salt cellar. Yes. Well, that's a parallel case. Yes, yes. Let's cut across here, darling, and go home by way of the horticultural building. Oh, it smells so good over there. Maybe I can beg a handful of dom quills for the living room. Spend an idea, Vicki, a little floral decoration. Come on, Miss Hall. Hiya, darling. Hello, Grogan. Pull over to the curb and shut your motor off a minute, will ya? Well, of course, Grogan. Have we violated some pedestrian regulation? Not in personal doubt, but if I was to let you go through here, cutting across the flower beds, every knucklehead in this brain-fractive factory of yours would have been tramping all over the place in their size twelves, but it ain't fair to noteson to God. Well, I'm sorry, Grogan. It was my idea, and I didn't know anything was planted here. Nobody ever knows anything is planted here because nothing ever comes up. Anything noteson grows here is strictly for the boys. Didn't ever occur to anybody to put up a sign saying, keep off or something, or am I oversimplifying? Oh, you ain't oversimplifying, ma'am. You're under-restimating. Under-restimating what, Grogan? Well, the talent these kids around here got for larceny. I'll put up a dozen signs. Every time I turn my back, somebody swipes them. If a sign stays up between once nobody wants it, but a fresh-painted sign, but a varnish not hardly dry yet, this is a prize. They gotta steal it. What's the psychology of it, Doc? Oh, it's a psychotic reversion, Grogan. Definitely related to the edipus and electro complexes. Oh. Yes. With overtones of frustration. Stemming, undoubtedly, from a traumatic experience in the cortex or medulla oblongata. A little trodo. The undergraduate compulsion to acquire public notices is an inverted form of exhibitionism, underscored by neurotic disturbance in the realm of the anxiety syndrome. Oh, what spring does to them? It's an aberration, commented on and documented copiously by the Viennese psychologist Van Schmicklberg. It is monumental of Nebenhauer Hauser-Blickenspiel and supplemented later by Dippelmeier. As set forth in his 12-volume Schlagenpuff unter den Linden mit Pfeffernussen in der Kringelsturm. It's amazing, Doctor, why you and me think along the same line. And you Van Schmicklberg's book, any time you want to read it. What was the name of it again, dear? You mean the Kriegswasser nicht festzern in der Aufgeschmackung? No. Sackweifer. Regulation. That's okay, Doc. I spent half my life keeping people from taking a shortcut and the other half looking for stolen signs, the brass ball up the flagpole, the skeletons out in a medical building. I find them, read them in a riot act, growl at them and say, listen, chums, no more, see. And what happens? They pat me on the back and say, good old Grogan, the student's friend. As you know, they mean it, Grogan. Well, before it goes to my head and I start putting metals on myself, I got to go track down 25 missing simoleons. 25 dollars? Yeah, and it's a mess, Doc. Some guy loses 25 bucks from one of the dormitories, so I got a right of way to start making like Scotland Yard with a dean of women breathing down my leg like a police commissioner. Well, if this is true, Grogan, it's a serious charge. Oh, don't I know it? And the trouble is, every time I look at these nice kids, I can't believe one of them might be a crook. I can steal my good signs and I don't worry. But when money turns up missing, that ain't a good sign. That's a bad one. One more appointment, Vicki. She's mostly called and she's sending one of her young charges over to see me. Oh, dear. Some co-ed out late again without a pass. No, no, this is one of our most exemplary students. Eleanor Joyce. Eleanor? Oh, she's one of the bright and busy ones. I don't know how she finds the time. She's on half the student committees this year. Yes, but why does she want to resign from the most important of all of them? The Student Judiciary Council. Maybe she flipped her lid. Flipped her lid. It's a slang expression. I know, dear, but it was not originally a slang expression. It derives from our American Revolution. A soldier from a New Hampshire regiment named Philip Lidd. Philip O. Lidd, to be exact. He was in the habit of going all to pieces at the first rattle of musketry. So doing a Philip O. Lidd soon became a New England expression. And by 1800 had become corrupted to flip the lid. Dear? Was the case of Philip O. Lidd covered in Vonsch-Mickleburg's book? You are becoming much too perceptive. Yes. Yes, I can see you. Well, that must be Eleanor Toddy, as Vonsch-Mickleburg would say, it will their dog getten. Hello, Mrs. Hall. Good afternoon. Eleanor, come in. Dr. Hall's waiting for you. Thank you. I rushed over as soon as I got out of class. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, Miss Joyce. Won't you sit down? Thank you, Dr. Hall. Well, I... Dean Huxley sent me over, but of course you know that. I suppose she's told you that I want to resign from the judiciary council. Yes, she has. Naturally, I'm surprised and disappointed. And you might as well face it, Eleanor. Dr. Hall's going to cry his best to change your mind, and I don't think you've got a chance. Miss Joyce, I know you're serving on several student committees, but I'd like to suggest that if you must drop one, it should not be the Student Judiciary Council. But Dr. Hall, you see, I... Well, I don't feel that I'm any longer qualified to serve on it. Well, being on a judiciary council makes you a kind of judge, Eleanor, but do you think you should be the judge of the judge, since you are the judge? Oh, but I'm just one of three, Mrs. Hall. I certainly can be replaced easily enough, and it's such a big responsibility. Oh, I know it is, Eleanor, but responsibilities mustn't be shaped because of their size. In physics, we are taught that there is no action without a reaction. By extension, there is no privilege without an attendant responsibility. Yours is the privilege of possessing brains and judgment and the... the higher regard of your fellow students. Your obligation is to use these possessions wisely and for the common good. But Eleanor, you must have had a good reason for wanting to resign. You seem as if all... the case that's coming up before the council concerns a girl who's been accused of taking money from another girl's room. Oh, yes, I did hear that some money had been reported missing, but I was hoping it was just a loss and not a theft. However, it seems to me that this is exactly the kind of instance where you can most properly fulfill your function as a student judge. But Dr. Hall, Judy, the girl they've accused is my roommate, one of my very best friends. Oh, dear, dear, well, I can see that that would make it embarrassing for both of you. Yes, it also makes it greatly more important that you should remain on the council. Your withdrawal now could be taken as an assumption by you of her guilt. Eleanor, do you really think Judy took the money? I... I don't know what to think, Mrs. Hall. Well, everybody knows that Judy was the only one in the dormitory Sunday afternoon, and I know she couldn't have taken it, but, well, Judy's always broke and then Monday morning, right out of the blue, she paid me back $15. She's owed me for several weeks. When I asked her where she got it, she got angry and said it was none of my business. Oh, for sure you wouldn't convict her on that kind of flimsy evidence, would you? No, no, of course not, but when I tried to ask her for some explanation because I wanted to help her, she got so mad that now I'm positive she thinks that I believe she's guilty and, well, I... I just can't face her. Eleanor, however personally distressing this may be for you, I don't think you should evade your responsibility and you might remember two of Sir Matthew Hale's rules for judicial conduct, that you be wholly intent upon the business you are about remitting all other cares and thoughts as unseasonable and that you suffer not yourself to be pre-possessed with any judgment at all until the whole business be heard. The Voice of America is bringing you this presentation of the Halls of Ivy, starring Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. It's the following morning and Victoria Hall is reading the newspaper while Dr. Hall, after many interruptions, is trying to concentrate on a long and complicated financial report. Now let me see. Installing Sump Pump in basement of William Wellman Hall. Installing a what, Toddy? A Sump Pump. And for $1450, it's outrageous. I think not knowing exactly how much one should pay for a Sump Pump. Well, if some Sump Pumps come to a bigger Sump than other Sump Pumps. Jesus, Sump Pump. And please don't refer me to that Viennese authority of on Schmickleburg. A Sump Pump, my love, is a... is a Pump. Installed in a Sump. A Sump is a... a bit of a reservoir. Now, if I can have a moment's quiet, it seems to me that $1450. Oh, what's happened? Well, I thought I'd take the receiver off the hook so the phone wouldn't ring and disturb you while you were working in a proper telephone. Thank you. Just the same. Now, let me see. $1450 for installing the Sump Pump. What's that? It says the vacuum cleaner, dear. I'll get Louisa to turn it right off. Louisa has an infallible sense of timing. Whenever I have worked requiring concentration, this and no other is the time for vacuum cleaning. I know that some people would enshrine the man who invented the vacuum cleaner among the immortals. But I, who asked only for one little moment of Christ at quiet... Oh, darling. Louisa must have heard you. She's turned it off. When you think that for the sake of a speck or two of dust you endanger the delicate tissues of our neural system and when you consider that the $1450 for the Sump Pump, plus $648. It's all right, Louisa. $1450. Oh, no, no, no. I've been looking at the wrong figure. I'm over here, darling. I see. I don't add the $1450. That's included. Oh, dear, dear, dear. Come in, Louisa. Excuse me, Dr. Hall. The mayor's here. Mrs. Hall, I put it in the icebox. Yeah, well, thank you so much, Louisa. It's very thoughtful of you, and I'm glad you told me. I know you don't like me too, Dr. Hall, but it was turning green. But what can you expect when you've had it since Christmas? Well, if I had it since Christmas, Louisa, you might just as well throw it out. It's even too late to reply by telegram. That's the funniest thing I ever heard, Dr. Hall. Sometimes, when cheese gets old, it smells so strong it can walk away by itself. But I never knew it could walk as far as the telegraph office. Oh, it's the cheese you put in the icebox, not the mail. That's what I said, Mrs. Hall. Now, what did I do with the mail? What's that peeping out of your apron pocket? Oh. Here you are, Dr. Hall. Here's the mail. Thank you, Louisa. And, Mrs. Hall, I've just had to sweep today. Well, got my work to do. Must have been a hairpin. Now, how does a hairpin make a cheese turn green? Well, it's a good person, and I have silly answer. The hairpin was caught in the vacuum cleaner, darling, and that's why it stops so suddenly. Oh, hairpins. Yes, I must remember that. In the future, when I want quiet, I shall tiptoe out and silently strew hairpins all around. I'm just as silent to pay the repair bills, I'm sure. Any mail for me? Vicki, look at this. 25 dollars. Oh, Toddy, you won something. Have you been sending in box stocks again? Oh, look, try to win a little dandy space patrol disintegrator with a built-in rocket signal. No, no, listen to the note with it. I'm sorry I caused such trouble. Judy Buckley didn't steal the money. I did. I just wanted to borrow it. But since there's been so much fuss, I am returning it. I hope this tears up everything without any further trouble for her. Hmm. Naturally, it's unsigned. Well, good for Miss Unsigned. That gets Eleanor out of her dilemma. Yes, but it poses a dilemma for me. What about Miss Anonymous? Since she's returned the money, am I just going to accept her explanation? Or am I to try and find out her identity? I think I'd better call Dean Huxley about this right away. Yes, and Eleanor, too, she'll be delighted. But, darling, first of all, you'd better get in touch with Grogan and tell him to call off his bloodhounds. Yes. Hey, Cuddy. Just wipe your shoes on the matting, Mr. Grogan, and don't call me Cuddy. Your feet good. Got enough mud on them to plant petunias in. What's wrong? Last time you was here, you tracked up the whole living room. Ah, come on, give us a smile. Do you ever see your dimples? They're foot marks all over Dr. Hall's study, too. I'd like to leave little reminders of myself around, sweetie poisons. No, Mr. Grogan, come in. How are you, Mrs. Hall? Dr. Hall's in the study. He's expecting you. Oh, good, good. Mrs. Hall, it came back, and I hung it in the basement. And such big feet, too. I hear it, and I'll never believe it. What a thing. She talks like a warped wedgie board. What's speculating about whose feet are hanging in the basement? Let's go. Doddy, I'll pick the Grogan's here. Hello, Grogan. Come in, come in. I got the message you wanted to see me. That's right. I'd like to turn over the missing $25 to you. What missing $25? Well, you know the money you were looking for in the dormitory. Yes, it was written to me with an unsigned letter. No, wait a minute. Leave us not go our separate ways to get it. You want to give me $25, I'll take it. But this ain't a $25 that was missing from the dormitory. Why, what makes you so sure it isn't? On account of I found that $25 myself early this a.m. That's Grogan. While the world sleeps, he's out solving crime. How could you have found the stolen money? It was returned to Dr. Hall in this morning's mail. That money wasn't stolen. It was just mislead. Look, in what I've learned, it seems like a hundred years, working with these kids, what I've learned was something is lost that probably ain't. So I think his money is paper. Wordy kids put papers. In books comes my quick reply. So I says to the style, go through all your books, mouth's mine. And she does. And there it was in a trigonometry. You'll find the $25 in a book. And I receive ostensibly the same $25 in the morning mail. Well, it ain't often I get two solutions to the same crime, Doc. But it looks like you're $25 ahead. You could stick in your pocket and forget it. But you've got a conscience. The most expensive organ in the human body. So what do I do? Go pinch somebody for sending you 25 clams? No, it won't be necessary, Grogan. The case is closed thanks to your experience and ingenuity. And since I now know who sent me this money, I must get busy and return it. But, Tari, who? Oh. My love, this is hush money. And hush money doesn't talk. Well, Eleanor, because I knew you'd be glad to hear that your friend Judy's innocence has been completely established. Oh, it has? Well, that's wonderful, Dr. Hall. Oh, yes. Officer Grogan was just here and told us the good news. Officer Grogan? But what did he have? He found the money this morning. The girl had tapped it away in a book and then forgotten all about it. Found the money in a book? But that's not... Yes, it wasn't stolen at all, Eleanor. Oh, then... Oh, Dr. Hall, but I... Oh, dear. I also wanted to see you because I have something to return to you. Something I received in the mail this morning. $25. It's yours, isn't it, Eleanor? Yes. Yes, it is, Dr. Hall. I was very stupid, wasn't I? Oh, I would rather call it a little impulsive and premature, Eleanor. You didn't give your friend Judy a chance. No wonder she was furious with me. I don't blame her. I'm furious with myself. Well, fortunately, Eleanor, nobody is guilty and nobody has to stand trial. You went aware of it, but you were compounding a felon that had never existed. Even if you had shifted the finger of accusation from your friend, the accusation would still have remained very much alive in your own mind. And if Mr. Grogan hadn't solved the mystery, you would have left everybody wondering who took some money that was never stolen. Shame doesn't it, darling, that such a nice girl as Eleanor could make such a mistaken judgment with the best of intentions? Well, Vicki, as Oscar Wilde observed, whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives. You were very gentle in handling her, Toddy. And now, while you're enjoying the satisfaction you so richly deserve for the solution of this case, I've got a mystery of my own to solve. And what is that, my love? I've got to go and find out whose feet Louise are hung in the basement. And I hope it's von Schickelberg's.