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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

turned out terribly. Horace lost a lot of money. Otto Kahn was being honest. He lost a lot of money on these tips, too, but he could afford it; Liveright couldn't. So his fortunes began to wane. He was always skating on thin ice.

Q:

Did he ask you for money?

Cerf:

No, I had “invested” 25 thousand and later on in a very tough pinch I loaned him another 25. So he was “in” me for $50,000. Well, getting that back was going to be quite a problem, though I felt it might be considered a reasonable price for a complete course of instruction in publishing!

Q:

But it was an expensive course!

Cerf:

Yes, it was. At any rate, he then owed me $50,000. He owed a lot of his friends money. And in particular, he owed another $50,000 to his father-in-law, which enabled his father-in-law to come up and grumble about the way he was conducting himself and the way he was betraying his daughter. Horace, sad to say, was a kiss and tell boy!

Well, they cut through the wall into the house next door, and the theatrical office people had to get to the new office via our waiting room. A bevy of little actresses and actors began coming around. This made life at the Liveright office even more glamorous and exciting than it had been. Besides the Dreisers and O'Neills, now suddenly theatrical personalities were wandering in. One day a little girl came in, a





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