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had plenty of bad traits, many of which were his parents' fault. Then Pat would follow, complaining about his father. Several times I suggested that the three of us sit down. I said, “I'll take a day off. Why do you come to me with these things? Say them to each other.” They couldn't talk to each other this way. It was a ridiculous situation. I can't tell you how much they love each other. I almost had a day set up one time. I was going to be the great judge. Of course, I loved the idea of this. Well, Pat and his father tried to iron out their differences. This was when Alfred had made Pat sales Manager on Monday and Pat had made some kind of a deal with Krock-Brentano's where he gave them something that Alfred didn't think he ought to have, and on Thursday told him that he was no longer sales manager in front of three or four people. This was awfully hard for Pat to take. He was a weakling to take it as long as he did.

The climax came when it was obvious that they needed another editor there. Alfred and Blanche were going off to Europe and they told Pat that he could get another editor. They seemed to realize, at last, that they had to give Pat more authority. He was going to inherit the whole business. So Pat dug up a man who was dissatisfied at Harper's, Mike Bessie. I think that he and Robert Gottleib, who is now coming to Knopf, incidentally, are the two most promising of all the young publishers. They are publishers in every sense of the word; and it was a great coup on Pat's part to get Mike Bessie. Bessie was furious at Harper's because he had been passed over