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from one end to the other.” I said, “Are we going to publish it?" Liveright said, “It's great. Of course we're going to publish it.”

Of course we all had hysterics later on. Hummell kept repeating, “Your face when this was going on!”

That night Liveright took the book home for his wife Lucille to read. She read a lot of books. I went up with him the following night to his house for dinner. I had this date quite a long time ahead. And when we came home, Horace, always the great bluffer, said to Lucille: “Did you read Fred Hummell's book?”

She said, “Yes, what a shocking book!”

And Horace said, “Bennett thinks that's me.”

So she turned on me the fury of a woman scorned. She said, “How dare you say a thing like that!”

I huffed and puffed. That's the way Horace bulled his way through life. If anything came later, he would remind her...

Did the book sell?

It was a disaster. I thought they'd kill it when it came out, but they didn't realize it was a joke on Liveright. The whole thing was forgotten in a month--by everybody but me!