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Well, he's a creative artist.

Yes, he is a creative artist and sometimes this is what...

Oh, sure. Geniuses are great to read about and be revered for creations they have made, but they're not very nice to live with usually. In fact, very often geniuses are terrible bastards. They don't know how to run their private lives.

Would you like to talk about Harry Maule now? I've heard many stories about him.

In 1940 Harry Maule was one of the senior editors of Doubleday. He had been there for years. There was a fellow coming up fast in those days at Doubleday--one of these phonies that sometimes achieve great prominence for some years but always are shown up in the long run. This fellow's name was Malcolm Johnson and at this time he was really top editor of Doubleday. Malcolm Johnson, in his great wisdom, decided that Harry Maule had out-lived his usefulness and he chucked him out of the business in a very nasty way. While Harry was out to lunch one day, he took his desk away from him. When Harry came back from lunch, he found that his office had been moved. He practically forced Harry to resign.