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course we'll do it because he's established the ground rules. But when it comes to friends like Viking Press or when Knopf was a competitor, we wouldn't have dreamed of stealing one of those--even Doubleday because we were always very friendly with Doubleday.

We were particularly careful with the publishers who had been nice to us with the Modern Library. We needed other publishers in those days very badly. Some were cooperative. Those people we respected. Others were very nasty. Macmillan was always impossible. It was when the Bretts were running it. They were fair game too.

I've told you how we signed Jim Michener. He came to us. I haven't come to that?

No, you haven't come to that. You can put it in now, if you want.

Well, let's do the Michener story. This came later. Jim Michener was the textbook editor of Macmillan and Company. He wrote a book of short stories, and Brett grudgingly published it. Of course it didn't do very much-- a book of short stories by an unknown author. Michener was very unhappy and came to Brett and said, “I don't think you should publish me because I work here and you always have more respect for strangers than for somebody who works here.” Since the short stories hadn't done very well, Brett said, “That's a good idea. Go somewhere else.”