Groucho Marx Annie Berger
Annie Berger
I use to live in a street called Ninety-third Street.
And there was a girl there that I was stuck on. She was
almost fifteen years old. And I used to go out every
morning and buy bread for my mother. I used to get the
stale bread, because it was four cents, and the regular
bread was five cents. So in no time at all, about four
months, I'd saved seventy cents. I was stuck on Annie
Berger, she had a great pair of legs, and I used to
watch her walk up the stairs - she lived on the floor
above us. One day after I had the seventy cents, I said
"Why don't I take you to the theater?". I had it all
figured out. Ten cent car fare for two, ten cents for
car fare coming back and fifty cents for two seats in
the third gallery.
But when we got to the theater - it was Hammerstein's
Victoria Theater - there was a fella selling sauerkraut
candy in front of the theater, and it was a nickle a
bag. She said "Gee, I would love to have some of that
sauerkraut candy." But I only had ten cents left by
this time, so I bought her a bag of this candy. We were
sitting in the gallery so high, we couldn't even see
the actors, and she starts eating this sauerkraut
candy, and I can hear her, but I can't hear the actors
on the stage. And I could have killed her, I'd thought
she'd offer me a piece, but she didn't.
So when the show was over - by this time she had
consumed all the candy - and we got outside and I said
"Annie..." - it was cold, it was real cold; had been
snowing all that day - I said "Look, you had sauerkraut
candy, didn't you, in there. You never offered me a
piece of the candy, did you? Now I only have five cents
left, and we gotta go all the way to Ninety-third
Street. Now, look, I care a great deal about you, but I
don't wanna walk all the way to Ninety-third Street, so
I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'll toss the coin up"
- this nickel that I had left - "and you holler heads
or tails." She hollered "heads", it came down tails,
and she walked home. I didn't see her again for ten
years.