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rival of ours. We went after the same kind of books. Dash Hammett came to me one day and said that he had had a falling out with Knopf and did we want to publish him. Well, Alfred and I were always friends. I called Alfred and said, “I'm not going to poach on you, but Hammett says that he'll never talk to you again.” Alfred said, “I want nothing more to do with him.” When Alfred had a fight with somebody, it meant curtains! He threw out Wallace. He threw out Robbins. He has never regretted it I must say--never regretted it.

Some people he has regretted I think.

Not those two, even though they both made fortunes.

Oh, well, they're not his kind of author.

Right!

Alfred said, “Go ahead, but you'll have nothing but trouble with Hammett. He's a terrible man.” Dash was not a terrible man. One of the reasons that I remember him with particular fondness is that we gave him a $5,000 advance, which was considerable in those days. He never wrote the book. After about two years, he came back and insisted on giving us all of the money back. Well, that doesn't happen very often in the publishing business. I didn't want to take it. I said, “I think you'll do it some day, Dash.” But he said, “No. I'm afraid I'll never write it. I'm