“On his first meeting with Ruth Hale, whom he later married, Broun took the young lady for a stroll in Central Park, where she became intrigued with a squirrel which had come begging for food. After listening to Miss Hale’s repeated regrets that she had no peanuts to give the squirrel, Broun remarked, ‘I can’t help you except to give him a nickel so he can go and buy his own.’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.