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said, “They're absolutely right. It's time for us to get out while the getting out is good, before the Government starts yelling.” We began looking for customers. It turned out that there were a great many customers that wanted to buy, particularly this year, when Cresset is making a fortune because of the paperback edition of a schnitzer called Valley of the Dolls, which has sold 8,000,000 copies in three months. Well, you can imagine what that has done to the profit of Bantam Books this year!

So you're out completely now.

No--not yet.

Oh, you're not? You're just in the process?

There was another stumbling block. A deal was practically settled with CIT, one of the big Wall Street houses; but then came suits against eighteen publishers by various states and cities claiming illegal price fixing.

On juveniles.

Juveniles. Of course Grosset, as well as Random House, is a tremendous juvenile publisher. CIT already had experienced difficulties tying up with a bank in Long Island, and Henry Ittelson, the president of CIT, understandably wanted