I glanced around and found at least 20, perhaps 22 eyes glaring jealously at me. I drifted abashedly off into the crowd, and resolved to keep out of trouble, lest somebody ask for my credentials.

I stood in a quiet corner for a few minutes, firm in my resolve. but was presently pushed, elbowed, and kneed to the floor by three husky women who then cornered Miss Baker and asked her the most pointed possible questions for ten minutes. I sketched them as they crouched around her (see cut), and later asked who they were. The two ladies on the end were from the Hearst Syndicate, and the Louella Parsons type in the middle was from the Boston Globe.

After being kicked and butted by several photographers, I finally marched over to the lady press agent and asked what, exactly, one had to do to interview Miss Baker and emerge with a full set of teeth. She said o.k., I could interview her and immediately collared Carroll and me and sat us down together in a corner--alone.

Well, I never interviewed anybody before in my life, and I was scared stiff. I sat there admiring her for a few seconds, and finally she volunteered the information that she wasn't really 22 in May, but another quite surprising age that she made me promise not to tell.

I still sat there catching flies, and finally she handed me her half-finished drink. "You poor thing, you've been chasing me around all afternoon. You need this." I gratefully drained her glass--it was bourbon and ginger.

The drink heated up my esophagus, and I launched fearlessly into the interview . . . .

"Say, now, ma'am, you know you're a delicate woman."

"Delicate? Me? Oh, no. Really. Y'all make me so nervous."

"Yes, sir, every bit of you is delicate. Choice. Delectable, I might say."

"Now, really. Our conversation sure is takin' a puhsonal turn!"

"Haven't you got any fun-loving spirit about you? Now, relax."

"I think I want to get up. You certainly are gettin' familiar. I feel so fuzzy. What's wrong with me?"

"Here, let me brush the perspiration off your arm."

"No, please don't. It feels so twitchy all up'n down. If you don't cut it out I'm goin' to call."

"Call who?"

"That man who's cuttin' grass across the road."

"But Miss Baker," I reminded her. "This is the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770. There's nobody across any road--"

A grip tightened under each of my arms, and I felt my toes dragging toward the door.