Excerpt from Seeing America on the Cuff: As Told to Frank Gill, Jr.

The story that Paul Livingstone has to tell is one that Mr. Ripley might well include in his Believe It Or Nots, and it is one that you won't hear again, for' it is the first of its kind, and therefore the most interesting.

By way of preparation let me tell you just how the writing of this book occurred. Pursuing my career as a writer of humor for several leading radio comedians, I had just returned to my office from a quiet fit of the staring horrors at Palm Springs, the desert retreat of Hollywood celebrities. I had cleaned up the last remaining traces of a season's labors and was ready to embark on a long vacation over the summer months, when the door opened and in walked Paul Livingstone. That was the end of my vacation and the beginning of this book.

You will learn shortly of Paul's amazing ability as a sales man, just as I learned the day he walked into my office. With nothing but a scrapbook under his arm and a beautifully smooth line of salestalk on his tongue, he persuaded a tired, jittery writer to forego his vacation and undertake the writing of a book - for nothing! Free, gratis, without compensation. Immediately there springs to your mind's eye a picture of a human dynamo, the high-pressure, f ast-talking type that always leaves you with more life insurance than you can possibly afford; the kind that with a smile full of teeth watches you drive out of the Auto Show with a Packard when you went in to make a down payment on a Chevrolet; the kind that oh well, you must have been a sucker at least once in your life. But Paul isn't this type at all. He doesn't talk nearly as fast as I do, for instance. But how he can sell! It isn't his appearance that does it, either. Of average height, about the usual weight, with brownish hair and average features, he's well, average. Only his eyes jump at you when you meet him. Those electric blue eyes that seem to pin you back in your chair until you've heard what he has to say, taking his own sweet time to say it. Maybe the man gave me the Evil Eye, maybe he put a hex on me, I don't know. All I remember is that exactly one hour after Paul Livingstone walked into my office I had agreed to write his story - but what a story. It did not need writing, it simply needed telling.

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