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Was publishing very different then?

Oh, yes. I'm trying to give you the cast of characters. Horace's editorial assistant was a man named Tom Smith. Tom Smith had been editor of the Century magazine, and he was a devil. He was a very erudite, round-faced, gray-haired cherubic man who wore a pince-nez with a black ribbon. To look at him you'd think he was a Baptist minister. He was a devil. Every afternoon there would be a cocktail party at the Liveright office--every afternoon. Tom Smith would mix the cocktails and would add a little of what was virtually ether, plus, I think, a dash of pernod. Just two sips were enough to send you reeling. At the time I want to point out to you there was a little thing called prohibition. So this was bootlegged liquor and it was absolutely poisonous. I remember Tom would put a little rim of sugar around the edge of the cocktail glass. But with this ether in it and pernod, it would floor you. And this brilliant group of people...!

Would Horace Liveright pay for the liquor?

Oh, of course. That's why he needed money all the time. This became quite an amusement center. Swope would come up from the newspaper and O'Neill and Dorothy Parker and then Connolly would come in. It was heady stuff.

How about e. e. cummings? Was he around then?