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This was not a well-known man. Only the judge himself and his associates realized it was he. The public didn't know. But he was livid with rage. It was quite a successful book. I remember on the first trip Dick Simon and I took when he took me around and introduced me to people and showed me how to sell books; it included a trip to Atlantic City, which was always fun. There was one bookstore right on the boardwalk there--it was packed to the roof with books, toys, and junk. We went in to see him and asked him how he was doing with Haunch, Paunch and Jowl. He said, “Oh, I don't carry books on that game.” And we said, “What game are you talking about?” It turned out he thought the book was about mah jong, which was a very important game at that time. That was how much he knew about book selling.

At any rate, what makes me think of Haunch, Paunch and Jowl is that this judge was aching to get even with Liveright. His chance seemed to come. At that time Anthony Comstock had been succeeded in New York by a man named John Sumner, who represented a society to suppress vice. He used to go snooping around looking for dirty books. I guess if he was alive today, he'd die of apoplexy. His idea of dirty books in those days would be laughable today because morals have changed so in the past 30 years.

One day Sumner nailed Liveright for a book. I've forgotten what the book was. It was some book of poetry that he said was dirty. He hauled him down to court. Liveright laughed at this. Everybody laughed at it. In fact, in those days we